Dear Connecticut...

[patman]

People who really need help, very often probably have no idea they need help.  If they keep to themselves, not that many other people will figure it out, either.

[Pilgrim]

People who really need help, very often probably have no idea they need help.  If they keep to themselves, not that many other people will figure it out, either.

That's the really sad and challenging part of it.  People who want to do harm can do it with a van full of fertilizer and ammonia.

[Aussie Mark]

Most of the mass shootings which have occurred in the US were carried out with semi-automatic handguns, not assault-type rifles. Limiting the sales of assault rifles will probably help but there are far more semi-auto pistols in the US.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map

Yes, ban those too.

[Dave W]

Yes, ban those too.

No chance of that even being seriously considered.

The 1994-2004 assault weapons ban may be reinstated; that would be an accomplishment, and it doesn't even ban most semi-automatic rifles, just the scary looking ones with pistol grips.

[the mojo hobo]

I haven't shot a rifle since I got back from Vietnam. I only own one because a friend of mine needed money and wanted to sell his M1 carbine. But all this talk of bans makes me want to buy one of those scary looking rifles with a pistol grip.

[Denis]

...just the scary looking ones with pistol grips.

The ones my pawn shop owner buddy refer to as "black guns" because of their finish. It's an ominous nickname.

[Denis]

I haven't shot a rifle since I got back from Vietnam. I only own one because a friend of mine needed money and wanted to sell his M1 carbine. But all this talk of bans makes me want to buy one of those scary looking rifles with a pistol grip.

One day I will own an M1 carbine!

[the mojo hobo]

The thing I like best is mine was made by IBM!

[Denis]

The thing I like best is mine was made by IBM!

Nice! A friend has one of the rare ones made by Rockola, the jukebox company.

[dadagoboi]

Nice! A friend has one of the rare ones made by Rockola, the jukebox company.

Technology marches on: Gun components made by 3D printer.  Added bonuses: invisible to metal detectors and no waiting period!

[Denis]

Technology marches on: Gun components made by 3D printer.  Added bonuses: invisible to metal detectors and no waiting period!

The more stuff like this comes to be, the more I think that "The Terminator" movies seem like fact... When will the machines become self-aware?

[uwe]

Edith and I have been in the US since Sunday and in between watching Mary Poppins, The Nutcracker, The Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and - tomorrow - Aida we follow the current discussion pretty closely.

Few random observations:

- When was the last time that someone needed to fire 100 shots and more  a minute to fend off a thief/robber in his house? Are thiefs and robbers assaulting in brigade strength the norm in the US? And why is it that whenever something like this happens none of the many overarmed NRA vigilantes is around to stop the computer game-induced mass killing with a good shot of his/hers?

- "If the government has them, the Second Amendment sure gives me the right to have them too." Interesting concept, especially if applied to aircraft carriers, chemical weapons, tanks, drones and nuclear bombs. No harm will be done if these are in the hands of law-abiding citizens (and these have children free of Asperger's Syndrome). And anyway: The nuclear bombs didn't kill the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people did. Or computer games if the NRA is to be believed by its measured, coherent and empathetic press statement of today. Such intellectual might present there, gun-lobbying and IQ must be interrelated somehow. Computer games killed the children in Sandy Hook, what a lucid observation. Try doing it by hand or with a computer mouse though rather than a military weapon. Some work.

- After a similar incident with an assault gun in Scotland in the nineties, British Parliament there (all parties, Scots and English alike) was quick to ban such weapons in the UK. The UK has approx 35 gun deaths a year, the US around 11.000, now the former colony does encompass a larger area with more people - you do the ratio math - and might also be populated by better marksmen and -women, but if you Americans are so uncontrollably aggressive and good shots too boot shouldn't you all be disarmed for safety reasons and British rule reinstated? Less people died of guns on a bad day at the height of the Northern Ireland conflict than die in the US on a good day in peaceful times.

- Why is it more difficult to buy and keep a poisonous rattlesnake in the US than to buy an assault gun? Killing thirty school children with rattlesnake venom would certainly take some logistic effort especially during December in the North. Those animals do like it warm to be quick on the draw.

- Why do you require a driver's license, but no gun-user one? Why do cars need to be registered and insured, but guns need not?

- I hope Bloomberg and Biden bring some sense to this. Keep your handguns, sporting and hunting rifles if you must, but semi-automatics and assault guns ("cosmetics only"-assault guns as one NRA official called them) are a perversion of the Second Amendment. That didn't say anything about cannons at the time either.

[Dave W]

Uwe, in response:

Maybe there are a few extremists who think the Second Amendment means weapon ownership should be unlimited, but it's not a viewpoint you'll hear in the upcoming debate.

Again, using the UK as an example is misleading. Gun violence in the UK was always very low compared to the US. The weapons ban may prevent another Dunblane, but it didn't reduce the rate of gun deaths. And as usual in most places, most of the weapons used in gun violence are illegal.

There will probably be enough support to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, even though that didn't reduce gun deaths and didn't prevent Columbine. It's not reasonable politically to expect more than that at this time. Politicians have a strong survival instinct.

Napoleon Bloomberg wants a police state with a disarmed citizenry. Thank God he has almost no influence outside of NYC. OTOH I expect the NRA to lose influence as a result of their response to this.

[gweimer]

Guns are merely an efficient and impersonal method of killing.  You don't have to even be near the victim, and if a gun is easy to obtain, all the better.  So, that's the argument as I see it. We're still dealing with people as the real problem.  The discussion of gun control seems to center around making it difficult for people with malicious intent to get one.  Professional criminals are always going to find a way to get them; it's their living.  For the guy that wants to punish his neighbor, or the hateful individual looking for fame or punishing random people, they will still find a way to take action, but if they are faced with actual contact or having to confront someone who can fight back, there's a level of deterrent in removing guns as an option.

[uwe]

That is the whole point. Criminals don't pose a threat like Lanza did or if you will: they use guns for specific reasons with specific people, they don't waste bullets on school yards and risk a life or death sentence (unlike Lanza, most of them don't want to kill themselves but prefer going to jail and getting out of it again).

Lanza wasn't a gangsta in the hood (I wish he had been, those kids would still be alive), if his mother wouldn't have had those guns, no shop would have sold them legally then I would have imagined it to be quite a task for him to meet with members from the Columbian drug cartel to purchase an assault gun much more expensively  illegally - they don't take gold cards there you know. And if he had answered truthfully to their question: "Whaddaya want weeze gun, gringo?" I'm not sure they would have even sold it to him, shooting children with assault guns is not high on their manlihood agenda.

Pointing out the lower homicide rate in the UK is one thing, insinuating that it has nothing to do with gun prevalence is a stretch, Dave, about as coherent as saying that teenage pregnancies in Ireland have nothing to do with the pill being easily available or not. Fact is: There have been no more Dunblanes since then and British schools are not protected by gun-toting security. Computer games are popular there too and they share in large parts a common heritage and common values with you. How can you be so sure, it has nothing to do with guns? If semi-automatics and assault guns had been banned for good in the seventies for private use do you still think that young Adam could have done the same thing with a Kalashnikov od a Gatlin gun he would have built himself? The lengths you guys go to to disconnect gun prevalence from tragedies like this is amazing. All I can say is that my 18 year old son would have had real issues getting an assault gun in Frankfurt or Berlin (where he now lives) legally or illegally.