Arizona legalizes carrying concealed gun without a permit

[TheFeniX]

You cannot base permisable activies on the outside 1%. 1% of drivers might be able to drive their cars safetly at 150 mph, but that is not reason to allow the other 99% to do it.

Are you fucking stupid or a liar? The correct analogy would be that 99.8% of drivers could drive 150 mph without incident. If that were the case, then fuck yes people should be able to drive 150 mph.

Can you understand that? Over 99% of the people who buy your "insanely dangerous, turn you into a killer, down with the guvment high-cap magazines" will never use them for any illegal purpose. I would go as far to say that toothbrushes kill more people a year than the illegal use of hi-cap magazines.

It wasn't a high law but Australia had plenty of guns and got rid of almost every gun in private hands without massive drama.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/ ... 06612.html

Oh look; major decreases in the longarm death toll.

From your link:

The biggest single form of firearm death was suicide, accounting for 3930 fatalities out of a total of 5083 studied. The number fell from 505 in 1991 to 261 in 2001.

Most deaths are caused by suicide, even though the suicide rate has been pretty consistent in Austrailia. In fact, it went up the year after the massacre. It's almost like people will find some other way to kill themselves besides guns. But gun crime is down and that's what is most important.

Everything I can find on Australia ends at about 2002 when it comes to crime. Is there anything more recent, say 1997 - 2007?

[Alyeska]

Minor Necro:

With my tax refund I purchased two gun safes. They are anchored to the wall in my closet and they are stacked on each other and bolted to each other. So they are locked up now. Big reason why I did this is because I am about to rent out a room in my house and I need to keep things as safe as possible.

[Aaron]

Good on you man. Rifle safe with a smaller one on top? Figure your not doing two rifle safes one on top of the other unless you like ladders.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Are you fucking stupid or a liar? The correct analogy would be that 99.8% of drivers could drive 150 mph without incident. If that were the case, then fuck yes people should be able to drive 150 mph.

So out of every hundred people driving on the road at any given time at that speed, one of them will fuck up? Really? You realize that at that speed, the accident will almost certainly be fatal and lead to multi-car pileups because the speeds are so high that people wont be able to react in time to avoid it right? Are you fucking retarded, that is a horrible analogy.

At current speeds in any given year, there are 6 million car crashes (2% of the population getting into at least one), give or take a few hundred thousand. Not only would that number go up, but the mortality rate would shoot through the roof.

[Alyeska]

Good on you man. Rifle safe with a smaller one on top? Figure your not doing two rifle safes one on top of the other unless you like ladders.

Of course. The large safe is listed as an 18 gun safe. I guess if they were all freaking BB-Guns maybe. I have 10 rifles and a shotgun. I have very little room for anything else. The smaller one up top is absolutely perfect for my pistol collection. All in all it worked out great. They aren't fireproof or anything like that. So its mostly just a metal cabinet with a very nice key. I figure bolting them to the wall and to each other works pretty good. My bedroom door will also be locked. If someone was determined, well they would get through any safe I purchase anyway. This is to keep children, idiots, and renters safe. It also keeps most prowlers at bay.

[Aaron]

Thats all I have, keeps the kids out. Mine is listed for eight but like you note, it might hold six.

[Broomstick]

I fail to see how saying "no more guns will be made" is the same as IMA TERKIN YUR GERRRNZ. If your national psyche cant deal with loosing its precious guns then perhaps it needs to harden the fuck up.

The number of guns in circulation in the US right now will last centuries even if no more are made. There are perfectly serviceable guns being used every day that are decades or centuries old. You're proposing eliminating guns by attrition. That will take a LONG time in the US. I think you just do not comprehend how many guns are already out there in circulation.

Bottom line - it will not solve the problem.

Beyond that - yes, confiscating all guns will solve gun violence - it will NOT eliminate all violence or all murders. I want something that will reduce maiming and killing from ALL causes.

[Crazedwraith]

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

[Ryan Thunder]

Beyond that - yes, confiscating all guns will solve gun violence - it will NOT eliminate all violence or all murders.

Ah, good. We can start with that to get the ball rolling.

[gizmojumpjet]

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

There's probably a lot you can do you stop gun violence that doesn't involve infringing on our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, such as creating jobs to fight poverty, fixing our justice system so that a majority of black males don't wind up in prison for petty drug crimes, trying to reduce the number of single-parent families, etc.

[TheFeniX]

So out of every hundred people driving on the road at any given time at that speed, one of them will fuck up? Really? You realize that at that speed, the accident will almost certainly be fatal and lead to multi-car pileups because the speeds are so high that people wont be able to react in time to avoid it right? Are you fucking retarded, that is a horrible analogy.

I wasn't the one who brought it up, nor did I reverse the numbers. Besides the fact, I've already stated driving 150 mph is dangerous, but a piece of scrap metal and a spring is not. Call it conceded or whatever, I shouldn't have taken the bait in the first place.

Beyond that - yes, confiscating all guns will solve gun violence - it will NOT eliminate all violence or all murders. I want something that will reduce maiming and killing from ALL causes.

No it won't. Chicago and D.C. have handgun bans and there's still gun crime (involving handguns). Why do other countries with heavy restrictions on handguns still have handgun crime and why do those areas with high handgun crime also have high instance of other crime? It basically assumes that criminals, who have been getting access to cheap and concealable illegal weapons for years, will be unable to gain access to those same firearms even if they can't be sold to the public.

And trying to restrict the manufacturing of something like the .38 revolver?

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

How about we don't do something stupid and try and to restrict legitimate access to firearms because it makes some people feel uncomfortable? Especially when year after year, these owners of "highly dangerous military equipment" demonstrate that they can use it competently.

Instead of wasting millions of dollars doing that we could... I don't know, determine where crime comes from and why and maybe do something productive. And guess what? People who spend thousands of dollars of firearms and ammo are not where crime in America is coming from.

There's been a trend over the past 15 years for states to allow private citizens more access to firearms for the purpose of self-defense. When Texas passed it's CHL laws, cries of "The sky is falling" were everywhere even in Texas (from cops as well). Yet, crime in general kept decreasing like it had been for the past what... 5-7 years? Now, without a license, a person can carry a handgun in their car (they just modified the existing "traveling law"). Whether I agree with that or not, where's the huge jump in negligent homicides due to vigilantes blasting away at suspected criminals? It's not there. I will have to wait a few more years to get the data on how the law has affected Texas crime (they only recently released the 2007 data which showed, unsurprisingly, CHL holders weren't shooting minorities every chance they got), but it's a pretty safe bet we're going to once again find that the average gun owner does not look for an excuse to use their firearm to commit crimes.

[Ryan Thunder]

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

There's probably a lot you can do you stop gun violence that doesn't involve infringing on our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms

Please remind me of the reasoning behind your right to own weapons for the purpose of forming a militia in a modern society defended by a National Guard and the most powerful military machine on the planet...

[gizmojumpjet]

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

[Broomstick]

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

You miss my point. I don't want to take guns away only to have people kill each other with knives and broken beer bottles. I want to fix the causes of violence, not the symptoms. It would be better to eliminate the reasons for the violence rather than the tools of the violence.

[Ryan Thunder]

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

And where's the well-regulated militia? Are they omnipresent?

[Coyote]

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

And where's the well-regulated militia? Are they omnipresent?

Um, well, if someone is trying to commit a crime against you, and you have a gun as a member of that "militia", then you'd be... right there. So, yes, as omnipresent as it can get under the circumstances.

You really don't get what's going on, do you? Keep earning that title, homie.

[Crazedwraith]

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

You miss my point. I don't want to take guns away only to have people kill each other with knives and broken beer bottles. I want to fix the causes of violence, not the symptoms. It would be better to eliminate the reasons for the violence rather than the tools of the violence.

And how does one manage that? Don't get me wrong; I applaud the sentiment but it seems a mite unrealistic. The reasons of violence are many and varied and in the end some of them just can't be prevented with out a change in human nature. ie) 'Crimes of Passion'

Is there any reason one can't do both? Battle the causes of violence in the long term while trying to prevent it in the short term by just not letting people have deadly weapons?

[Broomstick]

Beyond that - yes, confiscating all guns will solve gun violence - it will NOT eliminate all violence or all murders. I want something that will reduce maiming and killing from ALL causes.

No it won't. Chicago and D.C. have handgun bans and there's still gun crime (involving handguns). Why do other countries with heavy restrictions on handguns still have handgun crime and why do those areas with high handgun crime also have high instance of other crime? It basically assumes that criminals, who have been getting access to cheap and concealable illegal weapons for years, will be unable to gain access to those same firearms even if they can't be sold to the public.

I said confiscating ALL guns - not a majority of guns, not the guns in this city, I meant ALL guns, EVERYWHERE. If you totally eliminated guns from the world yes, you'd eliminate gun crime - but the bad guys would just switch to another weapon.

Chicago's gun ban didn't work in part because it was a trivially easy matter to cross the city border either into the Chicago suburbs or into Indiana where guns where legally sold and easily obtainable. It eliminated the legal buying and selling of guns in Chicago, it did not eliminate their presence in Chicago.

It's an ugly little fact that Chicago has MUCH higher gun crime - so high, in fact, that last night on the TV news people were calling for the National Guard to come deal with the problem - than neighboring Indiana where guns are easily and legally obtainable. Now, why is that? I think it's because it's not the guns themselves but what people are doing with the guns. Even poverty and gangs are not the sole answer, as Gary has both of those in plenty yet, while it does have gun crime it does not have it to the same extent as neighboring Chicago.

Gun crime is a symptom of something wrong in society. We need to find out what that something is (actually, we have some idea already) and actually deal with the root cause rather than simply outlawing objects that aren't the root cause. Would life really be better if thugs used crossbows and pipe bombs after their guns are gone?

[gizmojumpjet]

When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

And where's the well-regulated militia? Are they omnipresent?

As a practical matter, the militia is indeed (nearly) omnipresent since, according to current law, the militia consists of all able bodied males between 17 and 45 years of age and all women who are in the National Guard.

Oddly enough, this law, if challenged, would probably be found unconstitutional since it discriminates against women and older men. I'm guessing if it ever went before SCOTUS it would be changed to define the militia as all able-bodied citizens, period.

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

Of course, the second amendment doesn't say anything about guns being limited to the militia; it explicitly gives the right to keep and bear arms to the People, but that's one of those inconvenient facts that gun-grabbers try to ignore at every possible opportunity.

[Broomstick]

So we shouldn't do anything to attempt to stop any kind of violence because we can't stop it all at once?

You miss my point. I don't want to take guns away only to have people kill each other with knives and broken beer bottles. I want to fix the causes of violence, not the symptoms. It would be better to eliminate the reasons for the violence rather than the tools of the violence.

And how does one manage that? Don't get me wrong; I applaud the sentiment but it seems a mite unrealistic. The reasons of violence are many and varied and in the end some of them just can't be prevented with out a change in human nature. ie) 'Crimes of Passion'

Is there any reason one can't do both? Battle the causes of violence in the long term while trying to prevent it in the short term by just not letting people have deadly weapons?

My frying pan is a deadly weapon. I have kitchen knives that could double as a short sword and could certainly take off fingers or limbs. I have a sledgehammer that could kill with one blow to the head, not to mention a collection of saws, both hand and powered. I don't own a gun... but I DO own quite a few "deadly weapons". (Including a crossbow... which actually was used for home defense against a thief some years ago) If you took away everything in my home that could be used as a deadly weapon I wouldn't be left with much, and I wouldn't be able to make a living any more because I use potentially dangerous tools to earn what little money I do take in.

Of course, some people argue the purpose of guns is to kill people. No, quite a few people in my area use guns to kill animals. I've been known to trade the excess produce of my garden for game meat, so this isn't a hypothetical, I have direct experience with hunting for food. When I lived in the middle of Chicago that didn't happen so much, but I don't live in a city anymore, I'm on the border of rural America.

No, we're not going to eliminate ALL crime. That is unrealistic. But why does the UK, a country with a great many cultural similarities to the US, have less overall violent crime?

Let me put it another way - if I didn't have family to fall back on and was in my current situation my money would have run out months ago. There would be no safety net for me - I would be literally homeless, out on the street. What the hell would I do for food clothing or shelter? What alternative would I have to crime? Would I kill people? I'd like to think not, but petty theft, mugging, fraud, prostitution... it's pretty damn ugly. It is my understanding, though, that Europe has a better safety net. You might not get that much, but you could get subsidized housing of some sort and sufficient stipend that you wouldn't be freezing to death in rags on a city street in the middle of winter. It's at least in part stupid shit like that which drives the US crime rate because, let's face it, most people will not quietly lay down to starve and freeze - they'll break the law to survive.

Then there is stupid prohibition shit - the war on drugs is badly done, and it leads to crime. I'll avoid the long dissertation unless someone really wants to delve into it, but suffice to say a significant part of violent crime in the US is driven by the illegal drug industry, just as a lot of violent crime in the 1920's was driven by the illegal alcohol industry.

Doing something about the lack of social safety net and the fucked up "war on drugs" could do much more to reduce ALL sorts of crime in the US than outlawing guns would, because you'd be doing something about root causes.

[Ryan Thunder]

Of course, the second amendment doesn't say anything about guns being limited to the militia; it explicitly gives the right to keep and bear arms to the People, but that's one of those inconvenient facts that gun-grabbers try to ignore at every possible opportunity.

"Gun grabbers"? You'll pardon me if I don't trust you with something that fires projectiles designed to cause massive internal bleeding.

A simple drive on the highway during rush hour should be enough to amply demonstrate why.

My frying pan is a deadly weapon. I have kitchen knives that could double as a short sword and could certainly take off fingers or limbs. I have a sledgehammer that could kill with one blow to the head, not to mention a collection of saws, both hand and powered. I don't own a gun... but I DO own quite a few "deadly weapons". (Including a crossbow... which actually was used for home defense against a thief some years ago) If you took away everything in my home that could be used as a deadly weapon I wouldn't be left with much, and I wouldn't be able to make a living any more because I use potentially dangerous tools to earn what little money I do take in.

Of course, some people argue the purpose of guns is to kill people. No, quite a few people in my area use guns to kill animals. I've been known to trade the excess produce of my garden for game meat, so this isn't a hypothetical, I have direct experience with hunting for food. When I lived in the middle of Chicago that didn't happen so much, but I don't live in a city anymore, I'm on the border of rural America.

Ah, yes, the classic "it's a useful tool" argument. Yeah, its a useful tool--for killing things and little else, so your argument falls apart because it remains distinctive in its purpose.

EDIT: you can't use a gun as a construction tool, to pick an easy example.

[Crazedwraith]

Broomstick Again, I can't argue with tackling the root causes of crime, but that's not the question I asked. The question I asked is, why not do both? In Britain we not only have a better safety net. We have gun control laws. That doesn't mean no one has guns, it just means people with a valid need for guns can get them. To quote Hot Fuzz, 'This is the country side, Everyone and their mums is packing around here.' 'Yeah like who?' 'Farmers." "Who else?" "Farmer's mums."

Tightening up gun laws isn't going to solve the root cause of crimes but it will save some lives. There's no reason you can't so that AND tackle the larger issues at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive aims.

[Coyote]

Ah, yes, the classic "it's a useful tool" argument. Yeah, its a useful tool--for killing things and little else, so your argument falls apart because it remains distinctive in its purpose.

The ability to kill things is what makes it a useful tool, you ignorant doorknob. A tool is anything that helps you get a task done easier than if you did it with your bare hands. Defending yourself, or hunting, is easier to do with a gun than with your bare hands, ergo, it is a useful tool.

Of course it is a tool for killing, because if it didn't kill, it would be fucking useless for those purposes.

It can also be used for recreation target shooting.

You have this ignorant go-round every goddamn time a firearms topic is raised. Ah, the irony that you participate in any conversation that revolves around the concept of "tool".

[Broomstick]

Broomstick Again, I can't argue with tackling the root causes of crime, but that's not the question I asked. The question I asked is, why not do both? In Britain we not only have a better safety net. We have gun control laws.

There are some cultural differences between the US and Britain - nowhere was it ever enshrined in the founding documents of your nation that the common citizen could own and use weaponry. It is in ours. That's one point, just for starters. There is also a cultural distinction in that the relationship between citizens and government in the US is far more adversarial than in most other countries. The average American has a deep and abiding mistrust of his/her own government, often to the point of viewing the government as an enemy, that I don't think exists in Europe, and even if it does, not to the same degree.

In short, removing "unnecessary" guns (however you may define that) from Americans is going to be much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive that it was to do that task in Britain for cultural and historical reasons. While I have no inherent objections to making consistent and logical gun control laws at the same time as tackling social and economic incentives for criminal behavioral I actually don't think we have the resources to do both in a way that causes minimal damage. The fallout first from alcohol prohibition and the "war on drugs' has been toxic enough, I don't want gun prohibition to cause more social evil than it remedies.

Yes, that is a bit of "American exceptionalism" but it's not a flattering sort of it, and it's rooted in actual historical and cultural background, not simply "RAR! WE DIFFERENT!"

For another cultural divide - no way in hell could you get Americans to acknowledge a monarch or royal family. Yet Britain still supports one. I realize that not everyone in Britain is pro-monarchy, but the anti-royals are such a minority that the nation continues to support the monarchy. Likewise, not everyone in the US is in favor of guns or the 2nd amendment, but they are such a minority they just aren't going to get their way.

That doesn't mean no one has guns, it just means people with a valid need for guns can get them. To quote Hot Fuzz, 'This is the country side, Everyone and their mums is packing around here.' 'Yeah like who?' 'Farmers." "Who else?" "Farmer's mums."

Define "valid need" - one of the fears in the US is that restricting guns to "valid need" will result in the regulating parties deciding no one actually needs one, effectively banning them completely. While I do not think that fear is entirely rational, I do acknowledge that it exists. It goes along with the fear that the average citizen will be left helpless to defend him/herself and/or the family.

Tightening up gun laws isn't going to solve the root cause of crimes but it will save some lives. There's no reason you can't so that AND tackle the larger issues at the same time. The two are not mutually exclusive aims.

WILL it actually save lives? Or will murders and crime simply occur with other weapons?

It's rather like the issue around suicides - remove guns and you will remove suicide by guns... but guns are not the only means to kill oneself. Would removing guns actually affect the OVERALL suicide rate, or just lead to the same numbers of people killing themselves, but using other means to do so?

[Crazedwraith]

[
In short, removing "unnecessary" guns (however you may define that) from Americans is going to be much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive that it was to do that task in Britain for cultural and historical reasons.

'It's difficult therefore we shouldn't attempt it'?

Yes, that is a bit of "American exceptionalism" but it's not a flattering sort of it, and it's rooted in actual historical and cultural background, not simply "RAR! WE DIFFERENT!"

For another cultural divide - no way in hell could you get Americans to acknowledge a monarch or royal family. Yet Britain still supports one. I realize that not everyone in Britain is pro-monarchy, but the anti-royals are such a minority that the nation continues to support the monarchy. Likewise, not everyone in the US is in favor of guns or the 2nd amendment, but they are such a minority they just aren't going to get their way.

That doesn't mean no one has guns, it just means people with a valid need for guns can get them. To quote Hot Fuzz, 'This is the country side, Everyone and their mums is packing around here.' 'Yeah like who?' 'Farmers." "Who else?" "Farmer's mums."

Define "valid need" - one of the fears in the US is that restricting guns to "valid need" will result in the regulating parties deciding no one actually needs one, effectively banning them completely. While I do not think that fear is entirely rational, I do acknowledge that it exists. It goes along with the fear that the average citizen will be left helpless to defend him/herself and/or the family.[/quote]
"I need to hunt food to survive' or 'I need to kill vermin to stop them eating my crops' are valid reason. 'I think shooting up targets is a good laugh' while not overly objectionable is not a need.

It's rather like the issue around suicides - remove guns and you will remove suicide by guns... but guns are not the only means to kill oneself. Would removing guns actually affect the OVERALL suicide rate, or just lead to the same numbers of people killing themselves, but using other means to do so?

You can kill a person with your bare hands or a like you said a frying pan. Guns just make it a hell of a lot easier. If you make things harder, then even if the rate of attempts remains constant. The rate of successful murders is bound to decrease and hence less deaths.