I reiterate: this looks mighty like a call to arms for stochastic terrorists and Brown Shirts.

^[6]

*eyes roll* and what could possibly go wrong with this?

3D printed weapons are far more intimidating, look up defense distributed.

Building a zip gun in your garage is no problem. Not having it blow up in your face is.

Using a drill press as a mill? Yikes.

My machinist friends would laugh their behinds off.

Great article, Leah!

(And it is because of their support for people like Glenn Beck that I will never join the NRA.)

It’s as easy as crackpottery.

“Do that now, and I’ll see you on the other side in just minutes!” Signing off, “For our freedoms, Caleb Lee.”

Unless I’m mistaken, this is a warped patriotic statement that people who are on board with this crap will see each other
after death by “sinister government plans…”

My question to Beck would be, how is this different than jihadi websites distibuting information on bombmaking?

Amanda, I’ve heard of those, but, again, there’s not having it blow up in your face. And with real ones so readily available on the black and gray markets, it’s going to be a while before the flimsy stuff available through 3d printing is attractive enough to overcome the risk.

No, the chief purpose of this kind of talk is incitement.

David, that was hilarious.

And Aadila, you’re absolutely right. But building an AR from a forged or machined receiver is very different from building a zip gun.

I’ve actually got a link* to a humorous story about a guy building his AR lower out of wood!

Needless to say, it didn’t work very well, but at least it sort of worked.

*http://www.weaponeer.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=8035&PN=1&TPN=1

You lost when you used the words “think” and “Reagan” in the same sentence.

I know enough about gun laws to keep from breaking the law, but I honestly don’t know what the Police do if they find you with a gun without a serial number. I know what they do if the serial number has been ground off, and it ain’t a fun thing.

@Jane Schiff,

I don’t think Lee was referring to the afterlife in his “see you on the other side” statement. Based on the context, the portal to this “other side” is the “Purchase Now,” button, which leads to a magical realm where you fork over $27 and download his “system.”

Who are the Jack Booted thugs?

I think the only thugs are those who are gathering as underground militias and those who prescribe to organized racists groups and they do not represent the government although some of them may wear uniforms, at least until they are caught.

But their actions are not government sanctioned they are operating by the direction of idiots.

This reminds me of an article that I read several decades ago: Some Aspects of Clandestine Arms Production and Arms Smuggling by LCol Gershon Rivlin of the Israel Defense Force. LCol Rivlin wrote of the Haganah’s need for arms both before and after the British withdrawal from Israel, then Mandate Palestine.

The new president of the NRA:

^[7]

Manufacturing WMD’s at home is a fairly easy proposition. But an argument could be made, that disseminating information to help people build machine guns at home, would make them accessories to any crimes committed with those weapons.

I imagine that anyone who would build such a thing in their garage is already crazy. I would hope that the people who helped them do these things are held to account, when another elementary school is shot up by one of these lunatics.

…” Buy today and you’ll get six videos, a how-to manual, and a “special report” on “the only place to hide your guns that the government will never find!”

This is one is my favorite! The “only place to hide guns” is a “secret”…shhhhh, wink-wink.

The more I observe these cretins, the more I realize that they are infected with a form of self-inflicted paranoid delusions. They ruminate, back and forth, all day long amping-up about some branch of the government watching “them” via secret cameras, thereby, creating personal bombastic stories on how they will open fire on those who try to take their freedom bullets away…As the old song goes, “Paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep, starts when you’re always afraid, the man will come and then he’ll take you away”.

Leah Nelson

Doesn’t Lee, not to mention Beck and the Folks behind WND realize that if the government was really about grab all our guns, that they could easily close UndergroundAssaultRifle.com down, not to mention everyone that works for the company. Despite the name they’re technically pretty much operating out in the open.

Aron, you are right. Perhaps for me the greater issue is not so much the form of the gun. It’s the dismantling of our world into something that _requires_ a gun that bothers me.

the second amendment was created 200 years ago to allow white europeans to create and keep the status quo at gun point.e.g steal land from the native americans and keep the slaves in check.Today the white right is afraid of the political emergence of the minority especially with the election of Barack Obama and they don’t like it,they want to take back at gun point if need be what they cannot achieve with the vote.assault rifles are primarily a offensive weapon which is why the first word is “assault” if you cannot defend your home from intrusion with a hand gun you should not own weapons.Glen Beck is a racist moron and people who listen to what he says are cut out of the same mold as he,i think that they tune him in more for his racist beliefs than because they actually believe any of his dillusional rants.

The real goal of all these “culture warriors” is an attack on civility and the very fabric of a democratic society. We need to get in their faces and ask who will they shoot first. Gays, blacks, progressives, government officials – who ? Put them on the spot to explain the logical endgame of their insane ideology

Ben and Ash, I agree with you both, but when you try to pin them down, they Gish- gallop all the smirky, supercilious lies they memorized from the cheat sheet.

The author of this apparently inept how-to is actually Caleb Lee Osborne, a serial Internet huckster whose other online ventures have included 5tipstolosestomachfat.com, FlatBellyReport.com, RealMuscleReport.com, Superhealthsystems.com and Pain-relief-101.com. I’m guessing he learned his sales techniques through joining multi-level marketing schemes. And personally I wouldn’t rule out steroid abuse as a factor in his incoherent writings.

Osborne obtained a concealed weapon carry permit in January from the Circuit Court in Fredericksburg, Va., which is sort of interesting in light of the fact that the address that comes up in connection with his website registrations is in another jurisdiction. But maybe he moved recently.

CM, I simply MUST KNOW how you are able to find these things out? Are you using a Whois? Or something more complicated?

ben, I’m now about to take apart your silly post..I can see why Reynardine would agree w/ it.. You typed:

the second amendment was created 200 years ago to allow white europeans to create and keep the status quo at gun point.e.g steal land from the native americans and keep the slaves in check..

“Source for this info, please”..

You typed:

Today the white right is afraid of the political emergence of the minority especially with the election of Barack Obama and they don’t like it,they want to take back at gun point if need be what they cannot achieve with the vote.

“An ASSumption at best”..

and my favorite, you typed:

if you cannot defend your home from intrusion with a hand gun you should not own weapons..

Possibly..but if your intruder has something bigger you better be an expert shot

and lastly you typed:

Glen Beck is a racist moron and people who listen to what he says are cut out of the same mold as he,i think that they tune him in more for his racist beliefs than because they actually believe any of his dillusional rants.

Perhaps, I don’t watch GB so I can’t comment but this sounds more like an opinion than actual fact

CM, damn, you’re superb!

Still the same old culocentricity, John. Does it ever occur to you that, even if that sort of thing had been original with you, the spearment would have lost its flavor on the bedposy overnight?

John, I agree with your basic precepts. Being against the current administration’s Collective oriented mindset does not make someone a racist. I am disappointed with the NRA’s choice of president and believe that a less inflammatory tone could accomplish more, such as universal CCW recognition. Wasting political capital defending Assault Rifles and huge clips does nothing to ensure decent people’s safety, and suggesting the need to take up arms against our own government just feeds the paranoia of the law abiding majority.

Sam, it is true however that being a racist does tend to make one against the current Administration. And the people who are against the Administration have not done a damn thing about the racists in their ranks. Case in point was the Ft. Bend, Texas Tea Party president who was also Propaganda Minister for the American Fascist Party, as I exposed here some time ago. Imagine all the Tea Partiers who sputtered, “but, but, but Glenn Beck said fascists were lefists!”

Couple this kind of patting racists on the head for opposing Obama, with the fact that racism does not necessarily mean wearing a Klan robe. It can also mean merely supporting the status quo within certain racist institutions such as public education and the penal justice system. The portrait that emerges is rather damning.

Basically, Sam, I feel that unless you are taking an active, direct stance against racism in America, unless you are willing to see that all the racists in America seem to gravitate toward the Tea Party and similar organizations, and yet remain part of such a group, you are contributing to racism.

Sam, well put..The fact that someone would claim racism when the other person disagrees w/ the President is imbecilic to say the least….good point on the NRA as well

Hold it: the NRA’s insistence on their “unlimited Second Amendment rights” is now specifically not about hunting or home defense. Out of the mouth of the new president of that august organization himself:

^[8]

Aadilia, I can assimilate some of your better ideas but I am not a Buddhist. I can support the SPLC in general but I am not a socialist like many of it’s supporters. I can support the Taxed Enough Already aspect of the Tea Party without being a racist or Theocratic Nutball who imagines they are a Christian. You of all people should understand the concept of melting away the pigeon holes and forming a reasonable, if cloudlike, philosophy.

What percentage of right-wing extremists actually have the equipment and skills required to build their own rifle?

Sam, no one is trying to pigeon hole you. I am just challenging you to think.

What I am talking about is taking benefit from the status quo at the same time as others get screwed, and claiming this is somehow good for everyone (i.e. white kids in the educational system). If you claim not to be racist, how can you accept the racism of paying teachers of white kids more than teachers of non-whites?

Racism isn’t (just) about burning crosses any more. Racism is about defending a racist status quo and accusing anyone who steps up as playing the race card. You claim you are not a racist, but I have yet to see take any stance against racism.

I am talking about joining hands and singing kum-ba-yah with racists, fascists, and haters but all the while claiming to shun racists, fascists and haters, or claiming taxes are the issue when the agenda is about extreme social conservatism (i.e. the TEA Party).

Last time I checked nobody in this country is particularly fond of paying taxes, but the reason why taxes will go up is because our national wealth has been squandered by war mongers, not because of gay people, sick people, disabled people, abortion clinics, a handful of socialists, or single mothers on welfare.

Those 3D printers cannot work with metal, and though there are plastics that will stand up to short term firearms use, they will not sustain long periods of high-powered, hot-loaded, rapid fire of the sort required by real combat. They would basically be useful, at most, for the short burst use needed to kill theater patrons, Unitarian congregations, gynecologists, and little kids.

rey, i’ll believe that the NRA is finally telling the truth when they admit that their unlimited Second Amendment right to bare arms is really about their right to compensate for penile issues.

Aron,

Sorry for the delay in responding, but I’ve been out of circulation for a couple of days. A Whois search is always a good starting point, although all these private registration services have limited their usefulness, curse them. But even so, you can still sometimes get a line on someone through their site’s nameserver, as in this case. As for things like corporate registrations and online court records, I’ve just been bookmarking the websites in my browser since about 1995.

Reynardine,

Thanks as always for the compliment, and for responding appropriately to “John,” who is of course that same sawdust-stuffed troll who posts here as Jason, Annie, Eugene, etc. ad nauseam.

Erika’s right. And the missile industry too.

“Thanks as always for the compliment, and for responding appropriately to “John,” who is of course that same sawdust-stuffed troll who posts here as Jason, Annie, Eugene, etc. ad nauseam.”

Actually, CM, Mark Potok and the moderators have finally taken action against “Lon Chaney” and his thousand faces (my name for “Jason/Annie/Edward/Eugene/Emma Reynardo”) and some of the other more serious trolls and anti-social folks.

But John’s philosophy is similar, just watered-down.

Kiwi, that’s true, but there are ways to get around it.

Kiwiwriter,

Well, “John” may not be that particular pseudonymous troll, but a pseudonymous troll he (?) is, nevertheless, as demonstrated in this thread in which you and I both participated:

^[9]

There’s a fairly obvious typographical tell..

I’m always amused when these RW nutjobs say things like “Saul Alinsky plot to vilify guns”, especially as I think most liberals/progressives had never even heard of Alinsky until the right started vilifying him. I know I’d never heard of him.

Having said that, Beck and WND are about as anti-American as you can get…

As of 5/10/13, the downloadable plans for this plastic, disposable, extremely dangerous device, have been removed from the Internet.

My understanding is that these “weapons” will fire six rounds, tops, before permanently defecting, and the one reason to use this enormously expensive technology to make this enormously gimcracky firearm is to get through a security check and assassinate somebody

“DDB9000 said,

on May 10th, 2013 at 2:34 pm

I’m always amused when these RW nutjobs say things like “Saul Alinsky plot to vilify guns”, especially as I think most liberals/progressives had never even heard of Alinsky until the right started vilifying him. I know I’d never heard of him.

Having said that, Beck and WND are about as anti-American as you can get…”

Me, too…I didn’t know who Saul Alinsky was until some of the now-banned junior Fascists mentioned him. So I looked him up. As usual in the age of the internet, it took about 30 seconds, and I see why right-wing nut-jobs are obsessed with him….come to think of it, they follow most of his doctrines anyway.

I volunteer at a hackerspace where several 3D printers live. As such, I’m quite concerned with Defense Distributed, and their ‘liberator.’ I’m worried that someone might produce the gun, seeing as the plans are definitely still out there.

I emailed the president, and I’m currently awaiting a reply.

Interesting how we can get plans for potentially illegal firearms and the anarchist cookbook off the internet but still have the ACLU fight to keep up a NAMBLA pedophile guide that teaches how to successfully avoid detection while serial molesting children, and how to flee authorities once discovered, citing constitutionality.

I think probably more people would support a well drafted proposal on reform rather than a law to strip law abiding citizens of their ability to defend themselves. The vast majority of gun crimes are perpetrated by handguns or shotguns and not “Assault” weapons. Christopher Koper did an in depth study on the previous ban and stated that because the use of Assault Weapons constituted only about 2% of overall gun crime that the effects of the ban would be difficult to legitimize as far as impact on crime itself. He did state that having more than the 10 years he had to complete the study would have helped him come to better conclusions, but since his study was only for the 1994-2004 period, the numbers themselves were hard to attribute.

@ ben “if you cannot defend your home from intrusion with a hand gun you should not own weapons.”

Defend your home against whom? Last time I checked criminals didn’t consider how to keep the fight even before they committed a crime. What if your house is broken into by 3-4 armed intruders and your children are asleep in the other room? I hope you never have to make the choice on whether or not to fire a bullet into another human being, however if it ever comes to that and you fail to overcome those assailants, just remember that the rest of your family/potential witnesses, don’t have a very long life expectancy.

Noone needs to have fully automatic mac 10′s or uzis, but people are reluctant to support anything after California passed their mess of a law and became the punchline of a bad joke and the whipping boy of every right wing gun nut in America. That’s why gun legislation is so hard to pass even despite the pro gun Lobby. Hard to give them too much credit though, since there’s the Anti-gun lobby to counteract them.

Lobbyists are the enemy of every citizen in the United States. They make large corporations the constituency our politicians work for and directly usurp the power and right of every citizen in this country. If we were serious about making change we’d demand some changes in our government, I’ve got a few suggestions…

Abolish the electorate system. This system more closely resembles a Republic than a Democracy and detracts from the rights of Citizens to freely elect the candidate of their choice. As in the case of John Quincy Adams(Actually elected by the HoR after a tie in the electorate, but nevertheless after he lost the popular vote), Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush. Politicians should not elect other politicians.

Topple the 2 party system. We should not be relegated to voting for the lesser of two evils when voting for the president. Having a 2 party system that supposedly represents the views of even the majority of the citizens is an absolute joke. I’ve become so disenchanted by seeing one overprivileged Elite replaced by the next I seldom bother to vote for president anymore.

Force campaign finance reform. Large corporations should not be able to flood candidates with millions of dollars of legalized bribery. We cannot expect our politicians to work for us when they are inundated by outside interests and led by others who have been on the bribery bandwagon for years.

The number of home invasions that result in the slaughter of all the residents is minuscule, especially when drug wars are not involved. Wanton strafings of civilians? Someone strafed a Mothers’ Day parade in New Orleans this last Sunday. That is the last one I heard of. The chances are good that the next time I scan the news, there’ll be another one.

Meanwhile, over half a million guns are stolen from homes of fearful people per year, adding to their fear and creating an endless loop.

@ Reynardine: “Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides. In 2010, there were 19,392 firearm-related suicide deaths, and 14,078 firearm-related homicide deaths in the United States” According to National Vital Statistics.

In 2010, according to the FBI, less than 1 percent of those homicide victims were killed in mass shootings, and only 28 percent of those were killed using “Assault weapons or high capacity firearms” So that would make the mass shootings with Assault Weapons that get so much attention about .2% of all murders committed here.

Sorry I don’t have more up to date statistics for you. Sources for subsequent years, though they mirror the statistics from the 2010 study, do not have multiple sources I can fact check them with to verify their validity and I’d prefer not to quote anything I can’t verify.

The effects of these killings are tragic, but the truth is if they weren’t the only murders the media bothered to report anymore they would be a one sentence blurb in the day. It’s simply all the time they would have to devote to them considering all the other rapes, robberies, and murders.

My problem is that they wasted more than a year drafting legislation that has less than a possible .5% impact on violent crime in the United States and a 0% chance of getting passed, particularly after Joe Biden stated they were just trying to get a watered down ineffectual policy on the books so they could independently amend it later. (The fact he could publicly state that is a slap in the face to everyone in my book)

They did this instead of taking on the inequalities in the Criminal Justice System or addressing Poverty, Homelessness, Drug use, Overburdening costs of Student Loans, the deplorable rates of recidivism for sexual offenders who receive light sentences and go on to repeat offend again and again…. Or ANY of the other major issues we have here in this country, just so both sides could APPEAR to be doing something meaningful while doing nothing at all.

Why? Because nothing gets people in a shouting match quicker than “Sweet Jaysus! Theys a goin’ after our Guns!” or “Only my bodyguards and the Government should be allowed to own Guns”

The result? A sensational news story we can all lose to…. What a waste.

Dear Ignorance: I’m sorry I made so much fuss over thirt-three thousand deaths. ‘Twas but a trifle. Nothing to spoil your shooting pleasure over.

Dear Reynardine,

Which 33,000 deaths are you referring to? According to national crime statistics compiled and released by the FBI there have been 934 mass shooting deaths (killings that involve the slaying of 4 or more victims) in the past 7 years. Half of which where the result of domestic violence.

When you spoke of the “Miniscule” number of people killed during home invasions I just thought you might like some information on it to help you clarify your comment. According to a study provided by by the Department of Justice, 38% of assaults and 60% of rapes occur in the home during an invasion. In the United States there were over 3,600,000 each year between 1994 and 2005. So, yes, compared to those incidents, the 934 doesn’t seem like that big of a number and I’m not sure why you felt the need to belittle my concerns.

Please cite any studies or facts about numbers you post when you are responding to me and be a little more specific. Just a heads up though, I do not consider your friends blog or youtube as an official source for facts…

Regards.

Ah, I see where you got that number now. Sorry, I thought we were talking about violent crime, I wasn’t aware you were blaming guns for Suicide…. A little like blaming sheets for Klan rallies don’t you think?

Hey Ignorance,

Suicide is illegal in many places, smart ass. Thus making it a violent crime.

I was speaking of gun *deaths*, most aptly named Ignorance. Sheets are not designed to kill. Guns are, and they do. Suicidal impulses seldom come to fruition if there is not an easy and apparently painless means at hand. That is usually either a gun or a massive amount of sleeping pills, which is why the latter is strictly regulated. The former is not. But let us not spoil your shooting pleasure, Mr. Ignorance is Bliss. That is infinitely more important than thousands of lives, especially the easily-replaced toddlers, whose parents are young enough to breed more. After all, they all look alike.

Isn’t it curious that the same political bloc which supports “right to life” is gleefully enthusiastic about getting guns into the hands of people who want to kill themselves? I can’t speak for Jesus, but I suspect He frowns on guns in general. I also think He frowns on the Republicans.

I’m sorry Aron, but that is incorrect. Suicides are not classified as Violent crime by law enforcement or government statistics. Also, your statement is inherently false. Running a stop sign is illegal, yet not a violent crime. Violent Crime is not a classification of legality.

Reynardine, You may have been talking about firearm deaths, My statement that you jumped in on was concerning violent crime and the poorly hatched efforts to quell it. As I said, better to add some specificity to your statements so they can be more easily deciphered.

Sheets are not designed to kill, but banning sheets has about as much probability of stopping Klan rallies as banning guns has of stopping Suicides. 5% of suicide attempts involve a firearm according to data released over a 5 year study from the FBI. These attempts are more deadly, but not the preferred method of suicide. As far as sleeping pills go, I wouldn’t consider going to your local clinic and telling a doctor you can’t sleep in order to garner a prescription “Strict Regulation”.

You know, if I wanted uneducated commentary and snarky comments filled with baseless rhetoric, I could go to the Fox News forums. I’ve managed to respond respectfully without resorting to childish name-calling (Something that some are apparently incapable of), despite the fact the only source you can apparently cite for the one fact you have presented that is backed up is me quoting a DOJ statistic in order to go off the subject….

I’ve always been a little baffled about what the point was. Who should I trust the defense of my family to? The Government whose concern for human rights brought us Guantanamo Bay and Waterboarding? The same one who sponsored China being brought into the WTO and given most favored nation status despite having one of the most abhorrent records of Human Rights Violations on the planet?

My “Shooting Pleasure” now consists of hunting for my food and target shooting in order to make sure I can hunt efficiently. I haven’t had a use for “Assault” weapons or firing them on others since I was a member of the Armed Forces (in the Line of Duty). So I’m not sure what your insinuating. I can only assume that you feel every person who owns a gun is some kind of Right Wing Gun Nut or criminal just waiting for the time they can kill… Toddlers apparently?…..

I’d have to respectfully disagree. I come from a Military family that hunts, not for sport, for food. It’s a way of life I can agree the more privileged in society cannot understand, but I will teach my children to hunt and garden as well because I believe that a persons ability to be independent and support themselves and their family even in times of adversity is paramount, and our family has found itself in hard times more than once.

More people die from secondhand smoke every year than from guns according to a 10 year study by the National Cancer Institute, backed by the ACS. So personally I’d consider Smoking more of an issue than guns if all you are concerned with is the deaths and not Violent Crime. Smoking kills 443,000 every year… Including Toddlers…

Hey Ignoramus,

I’m pretty certain that the only person here who wants to ban ALL guns is Aadila. I certainly don’t.

But it is also a proven fact that households which own guns are much likely to experience accidental shooting deaths than those that aren’t.

And the vast, vast, vast majority of households will never experience a break-in, much less a break-in with violent intent.

You can go on and on about how great (Ron Paul, I gather) is, but I prefer my politicians to not be Dominionist cult leaders.

‘I wouldn’t consider going to your local clinic and telling a doctor you can’t sleep in order to garner a prescription “Strict Regulation”. ‘

Aha! Then clearly you would have no problem requiring a doctor’s prescription to purchase a firearm. Or is that just too strict for you?

Lets see the weasel go pop.

In fact, Ignorance, I have no problem with reasonably mentally sound and responsible people having any of the following, provided they have the sense to keep them away from the kids:

One or more hunting rifles suited to the game being hunted;
One or more shotguns suited to the wildfowl being hunted;
One or more handguns of normal capacity for defense of home or business;
If rural, a varmint gun for defense of small livestock and a suitable firearm for euthanasia of curelessly Ill or injured animals (it always seems to happen on a dark and stormy night, preferably weekend, when you can’t get a vet).

No civilian needs weapons designed solely for the rapid mass slaughter of human beings. At a minimum, weapons of that kind should be under constant trace.

I garden. I have one rooster, and he is a pet. If I were provided with some setting hens, I would not name chicks when they were little. The ones that started to lay eggs would get names. The ones that started to crow would get dinner invitations (No, it’s not sexist. More than one rooster per chicken yard = hannenkampf. And yes, I’ve done it.)

Incidentally, though sheets on beds are not outlawed, “going in disguise”, as the federal statute puts it, to violate anyone’s rights to life, liberty, or property is itself a federal offense, and as I recall, the statutes of my state track it. It is not invoked to prevent Halloween, but the kind of thing it is supposed to prevent seems pretty much confined to places like Gilchrist County these days.

Aron, just to clarify, I do not want to ban ALL guns. I think we should destroy all but one. The one left over is to make sure you eat your brussels sprouts.

Cruciferous veggies aside, my personal view that the world would be better off without so many guns does not translate into the political will of banning them. If I thought that was feasible nationwide I would support it. Obviously it can and should be done locally.

What sweet lil Lord Humungous seems to overlook is political compromise. And the fact that the concept of a militia was for national defense in organized regiments (as opposed to standing armies), not rugged individualists who think their pistol compensates for an unreliable you know what.

Aadila, Aron needs firearms to shoot his Brussels sprouts. He has stated that he likes young collards, so he can insure his cruciferous intake that way.

i kind of like the idea of banning all of the guns in the world – but its not really feasible :)

ignorance 101 (seriously – who would choose such a name for himself?) most assaults and rapes are committed by people who the victim knows – as a result they do tend to take place in the homes. Very few rapes are the stranger abduction type rapes by some creepy looking guy lurking in the shadows – generally they are conducted by people who the victim knows and voluntarily lets into her home.

So given that most rapes are conducted by acquantances one would expect that the majority of them are committed in home settings (or dorm rooms).

the odds of a violent home invasion occuring among someone who is not engaged in illegal activity (such as international narcotics trafficking, orgnaized crime, that sort of thing) are very small. A few cases took place when i was a child and the myth of these dangerous teenaged super predators showed up – so suddenly the myth of home invasions started spreading. It was about as much of a epidemic as all of those “school shootings” that were supposedly taking place when i was in high school (there were a few cases which got huge amounts of publicity but people ingored that children were still more likely to be killed or hurt at home).

and of course, the real danger to kids in schools from violence isn’t from being shot – it is from corporal punsihment, restraint, and seclusion

Aron, a compilation and study of National Crime Statistics show that An estimated 3.7 million household burglaries occurred this past year. The study performed by the DOJ shows that one in every thirty-six homes are burglarized each year.

In about 28% of these burglaries, a household member was present during the burglary.

In 7% of all household burglaries (266,560), a household member experienced some form of violent victimization.

As I was growing up, our house was robbed 4 times, once while my mother, older brother and myself were home. In that case my mother had a shotgun and scared them off. So I’m sorry if I don’t happen to agree with you, but it looks like even the statistics don’t bear your opinion as true.

“But it is also a proven fact that households which own guns are much likely to experience accidental shooting deaths than those that aren’t.”

I won’t bother correcting your Grammar, but you are under the impression that the millions of houses that are broken into each year and the over quarter of a million people violently victimized is a small number compared to the roughly 15,000 accidental shootings averaged each year only 606 of which resulted in death in 2010 (The last year for which a formal study was done)? Seems like pretty skewed logic to me….

aadila, Do I think getting a prescription for my gun is too strict? No, in fact I already get a “Prescription” for my gun that I have to renew every five years. It’s called a FOID card. I am also required to register each of my weapons with the state. Despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the US, our capital Chicago has repeatedly topped the charts for gun violence and won the highest number of gun homicides award last year (Hooray?).

Recently they decided not to just sit back and harp on gun control as they have for more than a decade of rising crime and instead started funding anti-gang initiatives and public awareness groups. Finally we’re starting to see some headway this year against violent crime. We can only hope it catches on after having one of the deadliest Januaries in more than 12 years.

Reynardine, I agree with most of your statement. What I don’t agree with is the definition of “Assault” weapons implied by this last legislative measure that the government tried to pass. Why? I own 2 weapons for home defense/safety.

One is a shotgun. It is poor judgement to wield a full sized shotgun in your home, If you’ve ever held one you know. The size makes it difficult to manage and it is frankly impractical. We don’t want to add to Aron’s accidental shooting statistics. So the barrel of mine has been changed to shorten the length by 2 inches. Not much but it helps. I have the same length barrel to hunt waterfowl. The full sized buttstock has been replaced by a pistol grip. The previous proposals would make this an assault weapon despite the fact it’s not even semi automatic, but pump action and only carries 3-4 rounds (4 if one is chambered).

The second weapon I have for home defense is a Sig Sauer .40 with a 12 round magazine (I did not purchase this magazine separately, this was the magazine that came with it from the factory for all weapons of this make produced that year). When I purchased this weapon (and still today) it was one of the preferred weapons of law enforcement and the FBI for protection. That is what convinced me to purchase it. This would also become a banned weapon and considered an “Assault” weapon despite the fact it will remain a preferred weapon for law enforcement.

Recently New York city passed a law that limited the states magazine capacity from 10 to 7 rounds. In their haste to pass it, and forgetting that nearly every law enforcement agency in the state carries handguns that have a 15-round capacity, they forgot to add an addendum that law enforcement were exempt from this law. This was met with widespread outrage amongst the law enforcement community, including the RETIRED law enforcement officers who were previously exempt from any restrictions from the state.

They have since stated that they will place the exemption into law as soon as possible and current and retired law enforcement officers will be exempted from the restriction. My question is:

Why is it necessary for law enforcement to have handguns that carry 15 rounds in order to “protect” us and we are not? They have repeatedly cited reasons that this discrepancy must exist. They say that a policeman could not protect themselves or the public under such restrictions (yet the public must?). That the criminals would clearly not obey the law, and so Law enforcement must be prepared to protect themselves and the public against such violators (And the public shouldn’t?)

Michael Palladino, the head of the patrolman’s union said “Gun reform must prevent criminals and the deranged from getting illegal weapons—not restrict law-abiding retired cops from protecting themselves and the public,”

How about law abiding Citizens? If even retired law enforcement is exempt from these laws it creates a glaring double standard. I have abided by the law my whole life, Served my Country, and trained for proficiency with weapons that standard citizens may never even touch. I do not possess any weapons (in my opinion) that are created solely for the purpose of rapid mass slaughter of human beings and yet this legislation would brand me as such and a criminal to boot.

This is why I think that legislation needs to be well thought out and reasoned. “Just getting something on the books” isn’t good enough. So many things should not slip through the cracks.

ignorance 101, if you don’t want people to think that you live down to the standards of your name you should realize that Chicago is not the capital of Illinois :P

Erika said,

on May 16th, 2013 at 4:14 pm

i kind of like the idea of banning all of the guns in the world – but its not really feasible :)
—

It’s also not feasible to stop all vehicular homicide by drunks but we can at least take steps in that direction to limit the harm. It’s not feasible to ensure buildings will never collapse, but we can have building codes to make it less likely. Just because some people will still get salmonella doesn’t mean we should do away with food safety regulations. It is the same with guns. This idea that we need to start selling firearms at hot dog stands to whoever walks up simply because they already exist in the world never quite made sense to me.

LoL Erika, sorry, I was writing that it was the crime Capitol of our State and got distracted.

Ignorance,

Valid point about addressing the root causes of violence. I’ve been saying that all along. But you seem to overlook the fact that the free-wheeling gun trade in the country is what arms criminals. The economic violence that goes on in corporate boardrooms and corruption, institutional racism, and failures all accross the educational system are all the roots of gangs and urban violence. Where do you think the gangs get their guns?

There are about 600,000 firearms stolen from homes each year. Those go to criminals. Those go to gangs. The are stolen in Oklahoma, get filed off and go to Illinois. Every credible law enforcement agency will admit, either reluctantly or openly, that one of the most frequent motives for home and car break ins is to obtain guns from ordinary citizens.

And regarding a medical authorization for purchasing a firearm to ensure, as with sleeping pills, that a doctor has at least had professional purview over the risk of depression or other serious mental illness, the use of FOID in Illinois does not extend to other states. And as I pointed out, nationwide there are not such reasonable precautions in place. So the guns march to Chicago anyway, thanks to the NRA.

Actuary evidence has also shown having a firearm in the home raises the likelihood of death or personal injury in general, even if the weapon can also be used for self defense. Your personal anecdote about fending off a villain is moving, but unfortunately there are plenty of families whose five year olds blew themself away because mommy and daddy were paranoid and stored a loaded gun near the bed.

Furthermore your argument about the high gun violence and strict gun control laws in Chicago is a logical fallacy. I can never say it enough: correlation is not causation. What would happen if Illinois became like Mississippi and dropped its gun control laws? Chances are the gun violence would get even worse. The reason why violence continues is complex, and pointing just to FOID laws as a failure overlooks the other factors involved. Gun control is one component of a safer society.

“Why is it necessary for law enforcement to have handguns that carry 15 rounds in order to “protect” us and we are not?”

This is a complex question but I think the simple answer is that police have a powerful presumption of propriety and qualified immunity. All the more reason for the Justice Department to ruthlessly weed out the bad cops and restore order in the ranks when cronyism and coverups become the norm. As to retired cops in NYC wanting their guns, the issue seems trivial when looked at in the national scope. Such an argument should never be posed against the common sense rule of a universal background check for long guns, even (perhaps especially) for transfers of used guns.

True enough, Iggy. Every actual Illinoian, especially those of us from Cook County (I was born there), knows the capital is Springfield, the hotbed of corruption. Regardless of party affiliation, “Governor of Illinois” seems to be a pretty good predictor of “guest of the U. S. Bureau of Prisons”, and they all first resided in Springfield.

As for my native city, it’s damned close to the Indiana line, and transport into Chicago is fast and easy. That’s why there has to be * national* regulation of these weapons.

Ignoramoose, you’re faulting me because I accidentally didn’t write ‘don’t?’ Sieg Heil, mein Grammar-Nazi freunde!

If your house was robbed four times when you were growing up, maybe you should have gotten stronger doors and windows. I am certainly not against weapons for home defense, as you seem to think I am.

For someone apparently opposed to snark, I think you’re being pretty damned hypocritical.

Aron needs firearms to shoot his Brussels sprouts. He has stated that he likes young collards, so he can insure his cruciferous intake that way.

–

I’m glad he sees it won’t kale him, Rey.

Ignorance 101 said,

on May 17th, 2013 at 8:31 am

LoL Erika, sorry, I was writing that it was the crime Capitol of our State and got distracted.
—

Sure you did. Looks like Erika caught you telling stories.

Sorry for the late reply, Vacation called and this took a second tier LoL.

Reynardine, Kudos on the Capitol comment. Nothing says corruption like having 2 of our last Governors serving federal time… We’ve had some pretty bad lots here in this State.

Aron:

“But it is also a proven fact that households which own guns are much likely to experience accidental shooting deaths than those that aren’t.”

I don’t think “Don’t” would have fixed this sentence, but I’m happy my “Grammar Police” etiquette was clearly all you could fault my last statement for…

As far as “Getting stronger doors and windows” Here we travel down your usual path of making statements that are either patently ridiculous or simply have no merit. In training we consistently made entry into a myriad of doors. I can say that there is virtually no structural difference between a $100 entry door and a $2000 entry door. In either case a large hammer and a wrecking bar you can pick up at your local hardware store for about $16 makes short work of one.

Perhaps growing up, your family was wealthy enough to purchase a solid steel home with vault doors. My family was not…

aadila,

No statistic bears out the 600,000 number you quote. I’m curious to know where you got that figure. The study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and published by the DOJ states that approximately 230,000 guns are stolen each year. Alot of guns without you multiplying it by 3, so probably not needed…

My “Anecdote” was a personal experience and the exact reason I find Arons opinion a little laughable. It’s easier I suppose to consider numbers just numbers unless you’ve been affected by them. I’m not sure why you felt the need to add in your statement about some 5 year old blowing his head off. Shock value maybe? An owned gun is not necessarily an unsecured gun, there are plenty of gun ready safes with biometrics for those paranoid folks. Besides, responsible parenting is a side issue not caued by gun ownership. There will always be idiots, and thanks to great medical care Darwinism is failing…

“I can never say it enough: correlation is not causation”

Do they have that written down somewhere on the net? Strangely I have seen the exact same verbiage used by someone to explain exactly why gun control laws don’t work after they were quoted a statistic from a city that had gun control laws and saw a downturn in crime…

Why? Because that is simply an excuse people use when their opinion is not borne out by facts. They are happy to point out the times that what they believe has seemed to have an impact but simply unwilling to apply the same logic to the times it is not. Using such circular logic, one could point out that if guns are banned in the United States, people would then blame Mexico or Canada, then South America, Honduras and so forth… for the failure of crime reduction…. And since it’s implausible the banning of guns would get worldwide approval the excuse making would never end. Frankly I’m not interested in a long series of excuses that would span decades, I’d like some actual results in a timely fashion.

The truth is, when gun control is coupled with programs that directly address the root of crime in the areas they are implemented there is always an impact. When the root causes are not addressed, there is no discernible impact.

What bears out as fact is that addressing the root causes of crime in the area is the ONLY thing that causes an impact and that stricter gun control laws statistically have had little or no impact on crime. Personally I think it’s not that some gun control measures are not needed, it’s just that this legislation is historically so poorly drafted that it has little hope of affecting crime overall. Other than registration and some background checks there hasn’t been any truly meaningful gun control legislation since 1934.

It’s a standpoint that shouldn’t even have to be explained. Placing a gun in someones hand does not make them into a criminal, so it isn’t the “free wheeling gun trade” that makes criminals, it’s the Culture of Crime, Poverty, Drug use, Inequality, poor choices, mental health, and a myriad of other impacts on daily life. If even some of these things were addressed on a Nationwide basis we would see a real impact on crime as a whole, and that is why we should see legislation to address these issues.

Instead we see nothing but grandstanding by Politicians in order to secure themselves another term, whose refusal to address the real issues underlying the crimewave that sweeps across our front yards puts our families in danger.

Why? I can only think of a few reasons.

They are too lazy to draft meaningful legislation.

These programs cost money they don’t want to divert from their pockets and private projects in order to fund them.

They do not want to stop crime, because a populace with a culture of fear “Needs” a government to protect them and will give up their own freedoms in order to get this protection. (“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” B.F.)

Finally, I realize there is a Presumption of propriety with police, but since that doesn’t bear out in real life and corruption and abuses of power Are prevalent and well documented, I just don’t see how that would apply to the question I posed. I have no wish to be at the mercy of jackbooted thugs. But the question posed was:

“Why is it necessary for law enforcement to have handguns that carry 15 rounds in order to “protect” us and we can not?”

This has nothing to do with whether police should be trusted or not, this has to do with the ability of oneself to protect themselves and their own. Criminals will not obey the laws, that’s what makes them Criminals. There will be high capacity magazines available, because the police will have them (And Mexico, South America, Honduras…..Your logic….). So then, because of that availability, Criminals will get them. This will have effectively disarmed only the law abiding citizen and left criminals with a devastating firepower advantage. (Sorry I think Tactically, it’s the training)

Law enforcement believes this also, which is the largest reason they state explaining why they should have the right to carry high capacity magazines. They have repeatedly stated a need for exemption from the ban, not because they are morally upright, but because they would be unable to defend themselves and citizens against all the criminals who would ignore the law without it.

The data on gun thefts was collected from gun owners by Republican pollster Frank Luntz in December 2012, and commissioned by the city government group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. These figures were substantiated in the House of Representatives, and are in parity with earlier data. If you did even cursory research you would have had that pop up immediately.

Obviously gun thefts are not being reported in America. The question is, why? Duh. No law to require reporting. That, and the fact that over time, millions of guns are getting into the hands of criminals because of the free wheeling gun trade in America.

That data conflict you point out suggests to me that the problem is not merely that guns are getting stolen, but the millions of illegal guns circulating are off the radar of even official sources. Does it not bother you a little that no one knows how many illegal guns are circulating?

The point is not whether the number is a half a million or a quarter of a million that get stolen, but why are criminals getting access to guns? How many guns per year getting stolen is acceptable? A quarter of million guns each year is okay to you?

I think those numbers are screamingly high. How many guns to be transferred to criminals before you wake up and see there is a problem with how we are regulating gun ownership in America?

Either you lack critical thinking skills to sort out the reasons behind data conflicts, or you simply don’t care. Or maybe you pull the lowest number in hopes that nearly a quarter of million guns getting into the wrong hands each year can be pawned off on American voters as a good thing.

But it’s not a good thing and anyone with half a brain can see that. Splitting hairs over the data is merely a cynical obfuscation of the problem, when even the lowest available figures are like a river of guns pouring into a delta of death.

Ah, I see, sorry my search for statistics did not include “Inflated numbers by anti-gun activists and their affiliates”. When I search for statistics I generally try to narrow my search to recognized entities who at least make the attempt to give off the appearance of impartiality. It clearly helps the “Mayors Against Illegal Guns” to inflate the numbers, but that doesn’t make their “Polling Data” true…

LoL, I mean really aadila….. would you accept statistics provided by the NRA? I doubt it, so please don’t expect me to stand there with my head flopping back and forth like a bobble head doll while you spew inflated numbers. It makes you no better than Beck and the rest of the goons.

As far as I’m concerned, the only reason a person would not report their firearm as stolen is that they were breaking the law possessing it. So am I concerned that guns are being stolen from criminals by other criminals? Sorry, one criminal is the same as the next in my book. I mean one illegal gun passing hands and continuing to be an illegal gun? Now who’s splitting hairs?

I’m a little confused though, how am I obfuscating the problem? It’s clear we differ on what causes criminality. I think it’s caused by Criminal subculture allowed to run rampant, social and financial inequality, Drugs, a myriad of other smaller impacts and an inability of our legislative branch and even our local governments to tackle the problems facing people everyday. You think it’s because Devil guns possess the souls of innocent citizens and force them to commit crimes they would never have thought to commit before the evil of guns infected their souls….

To support my opinion I’ve made statistics by impartial agencies and worldwide accepted studies available. You have offered nothing but rhetoric and inflated imitation statistics.

Let me explain the fallacy of “Polling”. Did they call every house in the US and ask every person individually whether they had a firearm stolen from them? No, they polled a small area whose high crime numbers would give them the results they wanted, then called that a “Common Cross-section of America” Then transferred those numbers to reflect EVERY city in the US. Those to the far right and left often do this in order to obfuscate the truth and invent numbers to say exactly what they want them to. Anyone who claims to be as intelligent as you ought to know this….

My concern is crime. I don’t care if a person uses a gun, a knife, a crowbar or a rock to commit a crime. In my opinion the smoke and mirrors here is the poorly drafted gun control legislation. They bill it as a cure all for crime which it is not and draft it so pathetically you wonder how many minutes they bothered to take mulling it over before revealing their legislation to the public. This amounts to nothing but posturing by these career politicians in order to get lobbyist money and line their own pockets at our expense.

Just the fact that you can find no fault with my previous post and can only complain that I called out your poorly researched statistics leads me to believe that you are in full agreement, just too stubborn to admit it… So, tanks I guess….

It is important to note that the mass shootings of late were all perpetrated by mentally ill people. Many other weapons crime are committed by the poor. Perhaps addressing these issues would help reduce the amount of gun deaths. The fact is, gun ownership is legal and a right. Also, many countries that ban weapons still have gun deaths or murder by other means.