Main RW point: Gun laws won't prevent criminals

[Miigwech]

from getting guns. OH YES THEY WILL! Where do folks get guns outside the laws? GUN SHOWS, private sales ... close the loophole now.

[hughee99]

1. Exactly! If they close the legal loopholes, people won't be able

To get guns without going through the legal process, the same way people can’t get drugs without going through their pharmacist.

[struggle4progress]

2. "Laws against murder don't prevent murders! So we should repeal the laws!"

[Wounded Bear]

3. I'm pretty sure almost all guns used in crimes were at one time legal...

and probably legally sold somewhere.

There are just tooooooooooo many goddam guns out there.

[aikoaiko]

4. Private sales between a residents of a state are within the law by design -- its not a loophole.

[SpankMe]

5. My POV is a bit more nuanced

That gun laws won't prevent criminals from getting guns is too general of a statement. There's a time factor involved. Here's some context:

A gun law passed this week won't prevent a criminal from getting a gun the following week. Or the following month. Or, maybe the following year.

But, a carefully crafted suite of new regulations put in place now absolutely will prevent a majority of criminals from getting guns 5 or 10 years from now. Gun laws have to be put into place; regulatory structures have to be created, implemented and allowed to mature and be refined as loopholes are discovered.

And, you're still going to have a few that slip through the cracks. But the overall body count will be a lot less as the decades progress.

Concurrent to all this, national attitudes toward guns will have to evolve. Owning a gun should be politically incorrect or unseemly, like smoking is today.

I'd bet real money that if we'd put some ass behind new gun laws after Sandy Hook, we would see fewer mass gun deaths today.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. +1

[underpants]

8. Excellent post.

My 2 cents. The main problem is volume of fire without reloading. Shit happens when reloading. A person may plan the thing out (that nay he knows is about to happen) but everything changes once it starts. The more they have to reload: A. Bullets aren't flying B. There is a (good) chance of a mishap C. Cops have precious seconds they wouldn't have.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

18. start with banning assault rifles and semi-automatics

We have fewer tommy gun gangsters since banning tommy guns.

[treestar]

13. True. Added is that they can be arrested for having the gun.

Now you can't be until you hurt somebody with the gun.

[spanone]

7. K&R...👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Gunmen without guns can't shoot people

[Voltaire2]

10. Fine. So I agree background checks are insufficient.

Guns need to be registered and gun owners need to be licensed.

I’m pretty sure that was what the forkknobs meant.

[stopbush]

11. Er, it's not the known criminals who are carrying out these mass shootings.

It’s Jeebus-loving, male white supremecists, most of whom have no criminal record before they murder a gaggle of people.

In a manner of speaking, I’m fine with the criminals getting guns. The police have dealt with that problem for centuries and will continue to do so.

[doc03]

12. So why do we have any laws when

people will break them anyway.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

14. Gun Laws Have No Effect On Gun Deaths? Show Them This Chart

[Hermit-The-Prog]

19. thanks!

[Miigwech]

32. Facts! Think of how much lower deaths would be

with Federal laws preventing back channel gun sales, including online sales. Law abiding gun owners have to follow rules that others don't.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Gun laws that take the guns away will prevent gun deaths and

maimings.

I know, such a weird concept.

[Yavin4]

16. Laws do not prevent crimes.

There are laws against robbing banks, but people still rob banks.

What laws do is enable our justice system to make it more difficult to commit crimes which then changes the entire culture.

[elocs]

20. Every single law we have on the books is imperfect and fails.

Every one: laws against murder, rape, robbery, theft, assault--all of those things still happen even though there are laws against them.
So then should we get rid of all of these laws since none of them work in every instance?

[retread]

21. Oh for Pete's sake!!! Why have any laws? "Criminals" will just ignore them anyway. n/t

[USALiberal]

22. Stolen guns are the issue. Over 200,000 stolen per year. Nt

[Voltaire2]

24. Yet another reason to get at least the worst of them banned.

[meow2u3]

23. NRA/repuke logic is sorely lacking

They might as well be saying, "Laws won't stop people from commiting murder, so let's legalize murder."

[CrispyQ]

25. Let's start with domestic abusers.

You beat your spouse, we're coming to your house & taking your guns. If you can't be nice to the people you live with, your tribe, you don't get a damned gun!

Domestic violence plays a role in many mass shootings, but receives less attention: Experts

https://abcnews.go.com/US/domestic-violence-plays-role-mass-shootings-receives-attention/story?id=59418186

snip...

For many, the term "mass shooting" conjures up a random attack in which a lone gunman opens fire, often for unknown reasons.

However, there have been just as many deadly mass shootings this year in which the shooter knew the victim, in many cases intimately, including instances of husbands killing their wives and children, or former partners killing their ex-girlfriends and other family members.

The FBI defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people -- not including the suspect -- are killed. While there is no publicly accessible federal tracker of such incidents, various groups and watchdog organizations keep their own lists, often using different definitions of what qualifies as a mass shooting.

Of the 20 mass shootings that ABC News identified in 2018 that fit the FBI's parameters, 10 were instances of either intimate partner or family violence, both of which are forms of domestic violence.

more at link

[lame54]

26. Not like the war on drugs

[Vinca]

27. Their mental illness BS is also negated by their lack of wanting background checks.

You can have a mental health clinic on every street corner, but if someone hasn't been adjudicated nuts, they can still buy a gun. By GOP logic, a mass murder must occur before a shooter can be ineligible to buy a gun for reasons of insanity.

[keithbvadu2]

28. Our gun supporters request absolute answers that will 'prevent' these occurrences of mass killings.

Our gun supporters request absolute answers that will ‘prevent’ these occurrences of mass killings.

They don’t ask for solutions/legislation that can decrease these occurrences.

Gotta be a complete solution.

There is no perfect solution but an improvement can be a reasonable goal.

Their solution is more killings as long as more guns can be sold.

[GarColga]

29. One way criminals get guns is by stealing them

Each year approx. 232,000 guns are stolen. About 172,000 stolen in burglaries and about 60,000 are stolen in other property crimes. So gun owners themselves, by not practicing safe gun storage, are a major source of firearms for the criminal element.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fshbopc0510pr.cfm

[jcgoldie]

30. Yeah and whats the point of speed limits...

People still speed.

[roamer65]

31. Start by going after the ammunition.

Require a license for purchase of ammunition and log all ammunition sales into a database and cross reference to other criminal databases.

Do heavy duty background checks for the ammo licenses. No pass, no ammo.

Limit the purchasing of ammunition and require spent casings to be returned in order to receive new rounds.

Make dealing in black market ammo a 30 year felony.