General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat law would have stopped even half of the last 10 mass shootings?
We can propose this and that but short of banning guns and having people turn them in would any of these proposals really make a difference. It seems to me that only riding society of these guns will mass shootings start to decrease. I'm open to hear what specific laws would have stopped any of the last 10 mass shootings though.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Eliot Rosewater
(31,106 posts)Common sense that the rest of the planet has figured out.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)
marble falls
(57,013 posts)Eliot Rosewater
(31,106 posts)This country allowed an INSANE lie go on for too long.
The 2nd of course allows for NO gun ownership AT ALL outside of WELL REGULATED LOCKED UP AT NIGHT MILITIAS.
But, you know the history, now we have more guns than people. Country will not survive rump, bannon, putin and guns.
I wish it could, but it cant.
Robot_Ears
(10 posts)I agree with the first part, there are more guns than people in the country and it would be nearly impossible to get rid of them all.
Even this idea of magazine bans is nothing but a pipe dream, most guns come with at least 1-3 magazines. So for every semi-automatic in circulations there are even more magazines. Most people who are serious about self defense have any where from 3-10 magazines per weapon and every time a magazine or AWB comes up people go out and buy in droves.
When it comes to common magazine fed semi-automatic rifles (AR-15s, AK-47s, etc) the estimates range from 5-20 million in circulation (out of roughly 350 million plus guns in circulation) and as someone who goes to the range I think these estimates are fairly low. I say this is because there is no record of what is out there and every time I go to the range at least half of the people on the range with me have at least one magazine fed semi-auto rifle.
As for your comment that the second amendment only applies to a "well regulated militia" Heller made clear that the Second Amendment protects an individual's Right to keep and bear arms.
Essentially - I'm in the boat that due to the second amendment love it or hate it, firearms have become too prevalent in the United States to do anything about. It's nice to dream about us getting rid of all of them and starting from scratch, but the genie just isn't going to go back in the bottle.
Response to Robot_Ears (Reply #114)
Eliot Rosewater This message was self-deleted by its author.
dem4decades
(11,269 posts)exboyfil
(17,862 posts)This was the weapon used by the Virginia Tech massacre. I have less of a problem with a bolt action or lever action rifle than a semiautomatic handgun with 15 rounds or even more capacity.
Marengo
(3,477 posts)
jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)"The proportion of households with a firearm fell by 75 per cent since 1988. Those who already possess several guns have bought more,".
Marengo
(3,477 posts)jimmy the one
(2,708 posts)marengo: Think that's relevant to my point, do you? It's not, and you know that.
Huh? you a stranger to reason? What I posted (repeated below) was entirely relevant to your question.
marblefalls first wrote: Making all long rifles illegal. Australia did a few years back and they are OFF the streets.
marengo asked: If that's the case, how is it there are more guns in Australia now than before Port Arthur?
No, not all long guns were banned, but marengo's implication is that the gun buyback backfired. The link marengo posted refuted marengo's concern, since population has increased 50% by 8 million people (from 16 mill to 24 mill) since 1986 port arthur massacre, and households with firearms have fallen by 75% since 1988:
However, the greater number of firearms has been outpaced by Australia's growth in population, so per capita firearm ownership remains 23% lower than it was before the Port Arthur massacre.
"The proportion of households with a firearm fell by 75% since 1988. Those who already possess several guns have bought more,". https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-28/australia-has-more-guns-than-before-port-arthur-massacre/7366360
Australia/Population (2016) 24.21 million (2016)
Australia/Population (1986) 16.02 million (1986)
marengo's link: {Assoc Professor Alpers, Uni Sydney} said the 1996 firearms laws resulted in a "gun swap" as banned rapid-fire rifles and shotguns were replaced with newly imported single-shot firearms.
Haven't heard of many mass shootings with single shot firearms, marengo.
Your implication that the aussie gun buyback of 1986 has backfired, has backfired on you.
Marengo
(3,477 posts)If you can.
AncientGeezer
(2,146 posts)VMA131Marine
(4,136 posts)having replaced semi-autos with single shot rifles.
There aren't going to be many mass shootings where the shooter has to reload after every shot.
Marengo
(3,477 posts)Not capability or possession demographics.
VMA131Marine
(4,136 posts)It's just a ridiculous strawman.
Australia acted to reduce the chances of another mass murder by reducing the capabilities of the firearms available to the public. By any measure, they have succeeded.
If people in the US had to trade in their semi-auto rifles in favour of single-shot weapons, the number of mass shootings would drop drastically because they just wouldn't be possible. Limit handgun mags to 6 rounds.
Robot_Ears
(10 posts)The people in this country can't get rid of drugs, even when the majority of them have to come from foreign countries, pass through customs and are considered consumable good.
What makes you think we could get rid of guns in this country (especially those that criminals possess) when they are already here, will last a century or more if maintained, and can be made in most machine shops locally?
Marengo
(3,477 posts)Correct, and I illustrated that error by introducing the fact that their are MORE long guns in private possession NOW than BEFORE Port Arthur. IF Australia had in fact banned ALL long guns, how would this be possible?
ExciteBike66
(2,297 posts)Since us Americans obviously cannot be trusted with guns, it is time to take them away...
hlthe2b
(102,138 posts)when guns were controlled. New Zealand addressed this within 9 days of their massacre. Yet, we view non-fetal life as dispensable and thus the price of ensuring obsessive gun rights over all others.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,610 posts)a long history of psychiatric problems and threatening behavior, of which law enforcement was aware but claimed to be unable to do anything about.
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)Limit rounds that can go into pump action or internally fed semiautomatic weapons.
The lethality that less than $1,000 can purchase is truly frightening.
Not saying there will not still be shootings, but the additional effort to acquire more lethal weapons may prevent many of the deaths.
Fla_Democrat
(2,547 posts)
TheRealNorth
(9,471 posts)While it may not stop them, it would reduce casualties (perp would have to reload, allowing more time for people to get away or to attempt to fight the perp.
Where in the Constitution does it prohibit a restriction on clip size? If we interpreted the 2nd Amendment as broadly as the NRA, we'd have fully automatic 50 caliber machine guns and anti-tank weapons available to everyone. Look how hard they pushed back on restrictions on bump stocks, which was just a way around restrictions on automatic weapons.
underpants
(182,629 posts)I found a really well research web page once. It happens a lot. Anything to stop the rounds from flying gives people and the police more of a chance.
3catwoman3
(23,950 posts)eom
Joe941
(2,848 posts)3catwoman3
(23,950 posts)I recall being told by a former employer that when he hunted doves, he was limited to 3 bullets. Shouldn't human beings be valued as much as doves?
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Most semiautomatic shotguns hold 5 but to hunt game birds you have to insert a plug in the magazine limiting it to 3. Every hunter I know, myself included just leave it in all the time. So even when hunting non-federal game just use 3 max.
3catwoman3
(23,950 posts)...my recollection.
AncientGeezer
(2,146 posts)My duck/turkey gun is also my skeet gun...I'll run 5+1 clays at a time.
I don't know any bird hunter that leaves the plug in because of spring compression issues.
MineralMan
(146,262 posts)it doesn't compress the spring at all. It just shortens the space available for shells.
AncientGeezer
(2,146 posts)My 870 instruction book says do NOT leave plugs in...but....
"..the plug is just a piece of 3/8 wood dowel.it doesn't compress the spring at all."
Hmmmm..you have a tube designed for say 5.. 2&3/4" shells or 3"ers..and you put a plug that makes it so the spring only allows 3 of those shells...that doesn't compress that spring? Where does that extra spring length go...the length taken up by the plug?
Even empty.....where does that length go if you leave a plug in?
MineralMan
(146,262 posts)You can only get three shells in the magazine, of either length. The fourth one won't fit, even if they're all 2 3/4" shells. As you insert each shell it compresses the spring. With the dowel in place only three will fit. If it's not in there 5 will fit. The plug takes up space and prevents the last two from being inserted. It's not rocket science.
It's real simple. If the game warden comes around, he might ask you to empty your magazine so he can count the shells.
On shotguns, the magazine tube is generally the same arrangement. On rifles, most military-style models have removable magazines. Those can be made to hold more rounds than the standard one. They're just longer, or are designed to feed more rounds into the chamber, like those 100-round magazines that look like a couple of testicles on your AR-15.
You only need more capacity in your magazine if you want to kill more people. On the range, you simply bring more magazines and change them as needed. That's less convenient in a mass-shooting situation, I'd think.
Caliman73
(11,726 posts)Magazine capacity is an issue. In California the limit is 10 rounds. Standard capacity for most 9mm handguns is 13 to 17. So we have to carry more magazines to the range. Not a big deal. Standard capacity magazines for the AR and AK rifles is 20-30 and 20-40 respectively. As you said, there are drum magazines for each rifle as well that carry 100 rounds or so. In California (well California requires that any centerfire rifle with a pistol grip now have the magazine pinned so that it cannot be detached by pressing the magazine release button or lever so it is a moot point) for any semi-auto firearm, you have to carry more magazines. More magazines equal more changes equal less overall firing and having to lug around a lot more hardware.
AncientGeezer
(2,146 posts)That's Not a "plug"........it's a rod that stops a full load....as to the 4th...that's racked in the chamber...3 tubed..1 chambered.
"On rifles, most military-style models have removable magazines. Those can be made to hold more rounds than the standard one."
What is a "standard one" ????
How do you make a 10, 20, 30 mag hold more than what they hold?
I'm 20+yrs ARNG....you're trying to tell me about mags and rifle capacity...Really?
Codeine
(25,586 posts)
obnoxiousdrunk
(2,909 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)but still it continues.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)This is my generic response to gun threads where people are shot and killed by the dumb or criminal possession of guns. For the record, I grew up in the South and on military bases. I was taught about firearms as a child, and I grew up hunting, was a member of the NRA, and I still own guns. In the 70’s, I dropped out of the NRA because they become more radical and less interested in safety and training. Some personal experiences where people I know were involved in shootings caused me to realize that anyone could obtain and posses a gun no matter how illogical it was for them to have a gun. Also, easy access to more powerful guns, guns in the hands of children, and guns that weren’t secured are out of control in our society. As such, here’s what I now think ought to be the requirements to possess a gun. I’m not debating the legal language, I just think it’s the reasonable way to stop the shootings. Notice, none of this restricts the type of guns sold. This is aimed at the people who shoot others, because it’s clear that they should never have had a gun.
1.) Anyone in possession of a gun (whether they own it or not) should have a regularly renewed license. If you want to call it a permit, certificate, or something else that's fine.
2.) To get a license, you should have a background check, and be examined by a professional for emotional and mental stability appropriate for gun possession. It might be appropriate to require that examination to be accompanied by references from family, friends, employers, etc. This check is not to subject you to a mental health diagnosis, just check on your superficial and apparent gun-worthyness.
3.) To get the license, you should be required to take a safety course and pass a test appropriate to the type of gun you want to use.
4.) To get a license, you should be over 21. Under 21, you could only use a gun under direct supervision of a licensed person and after obtaining a learner’s license. Your license might be restricted if you have children or criminals or other unsafe people living in your home. (If you want to argue 18 or 25 or some other age, fine. 21 makes sense to me.)
5.) If you possess a gun, you would have to carry a liability insurance policy specifically for gun ownership - and likely you would have to provide proof of appropriate storage, security, and whatever statistical reasons that emerge that would drive the costs and ability to get insurance.
6.) You could not purchase a gun or ammunition without a license, and purchases would have a waiting period.
7.) If you possess a gun without a license, you go to jail, the gun is impounded, and a judge will have to let you go (just like a DUI).
8.) No one should carry an unsecured gun (except in a locked case, unloaded) when outside of home. Guns should be secure when transporting to a shooting event without demonstrating a special need. Their license should indicate training and special carry circumstances beyond recreational shooting (security guard, etc.). If you are carrying your gun while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you lose your gun and license.
9.) If you buy, sell, give away, or inherit a gun, your license information should be recorded.
10.) If you accidentally discharge your gun, commit a crime, get referred by a mental health professional, are served a restraining order, etc., you should lose your license and guns until reinstated by a serious relicensing process.
Most of you know that a license is no big deal. Besides a driver’s license you need a license to fish, operate a boat, or many other activities. I realize these differ by state, but that is not a reason to let anyone without a bit of sense pack a semiautomatic weapon in public, on the roads, and in schools. I think we need to make it much harder for some people to have guns.
3catwoman3
(23,950 posts)I have read your wise words several times before.
As you note, many human activities/endeavors require a license - cutting hair, grooming dogs, running a daycare center, and selling real estate just to mention a few more.
Sancho
(9,067 posts)because they don't "ban guns". It should be difficult to purchase or possess a gun with significant requirements - and you'd have to show a license to get the gun (or ammunition).
When I read, I see that there's a lot of politics, and little reality in the current situation.
The Second Amendment: A Biography Paperback – May 26, 2015
by Michael Waldman (Author)
At a time of increasing gun violence in America, Waldman’s book provoked a wide range of discussion. This book looks at history to provide some surprising, illuminating answers.
The Amendment was written to calm public fear that the new national government would crush the state militias made up of all (white) adult men—who were required to own a gun to serve. Waldman recounts the raucous public debate that has surrounded the amendment from its inception to the present. As the country spread to the Western frontier, violence spread too. But through it all, gun control was abundant. In the twentieth century, with Prohibition and gangsterism, the first federal control laws were passed. In all four separate times the Supreme Court ruled against a constitutional right to own a gun.
The present debate picked up in the 1970s—part of a backlash to the liberal 1960s and a resurgence of libertarianism. A newly radicalized NRA entered the campaign to oppose gun control and elevate the status of an obscure constitutional provision. In 2008, in a case that reached the Court after a focused drive by conservative lawyers, the US Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Constitution protects an individual right to gun ownership. Famous for his theory of “originalism,” Justice Antonin Scalia twisted it in this instance to base his argument on contemporary conditions.
In The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman shows that our view of the amendment is set, at each stage, not by a pristine constitutional text, but by the push and pull, the rough and tumble of political advocacy and public agitation.
Calista241
(5,586 posts)There’s going to be problems. The same way poll taxes and citizenship standards were eliminated as impediments to voting.
Ultimately, owning guns is a Constitutional right. Any particularly onerous regulation is just asking to be invalidated by the courts. Banning semiautomatics and some of the other suggestions I’ve seen, are just asking to lose in court.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)We need a new NFA for all semiautos based on the NFA of 1934 which governs machine guns, suppressors, short barrel long guns and destruct devices.
Go through the same procedures;
background checked,
finger printing,
photographed,
registration in a data base
pay for a $200 tax stamp for each gun,
and $100 for each magazine, regardless of size
Local LEO has to sign off.
rownesheck
(2,343 posts)Make bullets $5000 apiece.
former9thward
(31,944 posts)Great idea -- for the 1%.
uponit7771
(90,304 posts)Straw Man
(6,622 posts)They just get other people to do their killing for them.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Mass shootings would be way less deadly. And way less common. Owning a gun that allows someone to fire 20-30 times as fast as you can pull the trigger gives a person on the edge a sense of total power.
When I first started hunting in the 70’s you never saw rifles with magazines that hold over 5 at the range when practicing for hunting season. You actually saw very few semiautomatic rifles and those you did were clearly hunting rifles that maybe held 5 bullets.
Starting in the 90’s I saw more and more black guns with huge magazines. Which is why I have to drive over an hour each fall to practice up for hunting. There is a range that does not seem to cater to the black gun crowd. For all I know they are not allowed. Never seen one. It is very tightly run with draconian range masters that will kick your ass out for screwing around or even on small violation of their safety protocol. Like all the ranges I grew up with in the 70’s. I drive past several closer but don’t want to be around guys who are practicing shooting people and cutting up. The things I have seen at open ranges with no range master still gives me nightmares. I actually saw a group of guys in cammo with black guns drinking beer. That was the last open range I ever went to.
uponit7771
(90,304 posts)
Sapient Donkey
(1,568 posts)I may wrong, but I don't think those receive much stress from firing and could hold up. I am not saying this means magazine limits should not be implemented, but rather that there is ability for folks to build a lot of the parts themselves with relative ease. So any laws will have to take that into account. I would imagine that would mean making it a crime to host, distribute, and obtain files that can be used to create those objects. Which won't prevent them from being had, but might make it more difficult. Not sure if that would prevent the really dedicated from simply designing their own or just finding them somewhere.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)Even if we do a mediatory buy back, which we would have to do, some would refuse to turn them in. But if the law says that say, 5-7 years after enactment possession of such becomes a felony? At that point keeping one puts your right to legally own any firearm at risk.
No law is perfect and people can always find ways around them, but if these are hard to find it would help the mass killing problem.
Amishman
(5,554 posts)A quick Google search shows YouTube videos on this and places to download the files.
aeromanKC
(3,322 posts)It was said she was killed by the 12 bullet shot.
Stinky The Clown
(67,764 posts)
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)as the laws that ban heroin.
Stinky The Clown
(67,764 posts)If we start with "useless" laws, let's start with the most foolproof. No guns. No problems.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)what "my idea" is. Nothing is going to stop this.
It's like trying to ban cars based on all of the people killed each day by them, it ain't gonna happen.
We may as well arrest and detain all of the failure-to-launch twenty-somethings living in Mommy and Daddy's basement. It's far easier to hide a gun than a person.
stopbush
(24,393 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)for certain moles from right-leaning discussion boards.
RobinA
(9,886 posts)I am more liberal than most people on this board. I would favor any workerable gun law that might slow any shooter down. No 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to fire a gazillion rounds a minute. However, I have real questions about any law's ability to to make a dent in the current mass shooter epidemic. I believe that it is mostly cultural more than solely related to guns. And I am not any kind of mole. I just don't think that guns are the whole problem here, or even a large percentage of the problem. Personally I wish they'd hurry up and take a big chunk out of what is legally on the street. That way either I'm wrong and that alone limits killing, or if it doesn't limit deaths we can get on to looking for what I believe to be the real problem. And no, I'm not sure what that is, but I do think it is currently being obstructed by the fact that this is basically a gun debate right now.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)And the presumption of guilt stems from a pattern of posts made over the course of many months, all of them cartoonishly over the top and designed entirely for the amusement of his compatriots at whatever conservative shitshow he frequents.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)selling weapons of significant killing power to people under, say 25 ... is something that could PRACTICALLY be implemented. Allow only sales of true hunting-type rifles with no more than 5 shot capacity even POSSIBLE with the weapon. No handguns, no magazine-loaded weapons.
A lot of older folks can be easily convinced to fear young people in general, and take away privileges (like drinking til you're 21, higher ins. rates til 25) ... this is something we could maybe actually pull off.
A lot of them were under 25, and a lot of them bought the guns legally, so YES this would've potentially prevented a BUNCH of recent mass shootings ... unless you just assume everyone knows how to acquire black-market guns.
I sure as hell don't ... do you? I suspect a great majority of people have no clue.
Most of the shooters don't seem like they were deeply ensconced in criminal culture, so ... I bet they wouldn't have been able to get them.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)but some guys don't grow up until they're at least thirty.
at140
(6,110 posts)No one under age 30 can buy, or receive as a gift or possess any firearm.
Subject to arrest if found violating the law and mandatory prison until age 30 or 5 years whichever is larger.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Limits on ammo might help a bit, mandatory trigger locks, bans on hi cap mags, restrict number of purchases, end public toting, allow victims to sue manufacturers and NRA, and more, will help.
Nothing will end gun shootings, but the situation can be improved.
Brand gunners as anti-society, and worse.
ConnorMarc
(653 posts)If it saves just ONE life...it's worth it.
That said, it's a pipe dream to think that all guns will ever be banned.
Americans are nothing, if a not a fearful people, their guns give them comfort, that's why they wrote it into their Constitution.
still_one
(92,061 posts)BULLSHIT!!!
In 1994 Dianne Feinstein wrote the federal law that banned so-called assault weapons for 10 years.
Data compiled by author Louis Klarevas, found that gun massacres dropped by 37 percent during the decade the law was in place.
Of course the other side will come back, and try to show the statistics are inconclusive.
We don't need to encourage mass capacity assault weapons on our public streets by civilians.
The other argument I hear is that people use it for legitimate purposes, for hunting or target practice.
Gee, I wonder how they used to hunt in the sixties without those multiple capacity assault weapons.
While background checks, and other safeguards are necessary to prevent such weapons from getting into the wrong hands, making them illegal is a deterrent to them being used.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article233541717.html
Keep playing logic game, but don't forget you thoughts and prayers for the victims, because one thing we know for sure, people having mass capacity magazine weapons have one purpose, and that is to kill people, and I am really tired of the crocodile tears from those who throw their arms up and say nothing can be done, in spite of the fact that it WAS DONE ONCE, so it CAN BE DONE!!!
Ligyron
(7,616 posts)I mean, is it the black or camo color or does it have to have appeared a certain number of times in so-called Rambo style movies?
If it's capable of semi-automatic fire it doesn't really matter what it looks like.
Does it?
uponit7771
(90,304 posts)Ligyron
(7,616 posts)Banning something based on its' appearance and not on its' function.
One semi-automatic weapon is as deadly as another of the same caliber and they probably all need to go away.
Voltaire2
(12,965 posts)license to manufacture any gun or gun part. A regulatory agency empowered to issue that license would decide, on a case by case basis if the device is allowed.
AncientGeezer
(2,146 posts)..down to a guy doing pro gunsmithing in a store front on Main St.
Yavin4
(35,421 posts)If laws did, then we wouldn't need cops, prosecutors, nor jails.
What laws do is make it difficult and rare that crimes occur, and empower our criminal justice system to takes steps to prevent them from happening.
The logic of "no law can stop a mass shooting so let's not do anything" is faulty.
Lucid Dreamer
(584 posts)Don't kill people.
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,816 posts)That would work.
Or at least start with what Sancho (post 15 above) says.
hunter
(38,303 posts)Give every male gun owner a choice: Keep your balls or keep your guns... you can't have both.
aeromanKC
(3,322 posts)There will be a transition period until we see real results. No one gun safety measure is a silver bullet that will prevent all gun deaths. BUT with expanded background checks, ban on assault weapons, limit of ammunition capacities, etc. etc., there will be a drop in gun related deaths. (see the Brady Bill) AND each death prevented, is a somebody not dying!! That somebody is a Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, ans/or friend of someone.
meadowlander
(4,388 posts)NeoKryten
(2 posts)As a target shooting hobbyist many years ago...
I might be in a minority here, but before it got too expensive for me, I had the hobby of trying to put holes in paper targets from a hundred yards or more. That challenge was fun.
But now we have Murderous right wing assholes killing innocent people at the terrorist in chief’s behest.
The Supreme Court in the 1970’s declared that USA citizens had the right to arm themselves with military weapons that did not run afoul of the gangster gun control act of the 1930’s.
That means that USA citizens get to own military weapons that are not machine gun automatic, but are extremely dangerous
The USA CAN’T ban assault rifles, but banning magazines in excess of five rounds must be the law of the land in the USA.
Rhiannon12866
(204,785 posts)I thought so at the time, but little did I imagine how horrific it would turn out to be! 
And funny that you should mention target shooting, I did that myself back in the day, I learned to shoot at summer camp, shot competitively on the team there and also on the team at my school. Sadly, neither place has a range or a team anymore, not that I blame them. I'm firmly in favor of gun control, it's a responsibility most people aren't up to - and requires thorough training. That said, welcome to DU! 
Link to tweet
Clash City Rocker
(3,390 posts)Interesting handle. Was it inspired by this guy?
I mostly agree with what you posted, although it basically means we just have to resign to the fact that many of us are going to die a bloody death because we’re so in love with our guns. Moving to Europe looks better every day.
radical noodle
(7,997 posts)We have. The law was allowed to expire.
gopiscrap
(23,726 posts)Cicada
(4,533 posts)If none of these shootings was known about then the number would dramatically decline, IMO.
Iris
(15,649 posts)I don’t think that’s the answer..
Voltaire2
(12,965 posts)Interesting.
Cicada
(4,533 posts)We have a few limits on the first amendment. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre, unless there really is a fire. I would add that you can’t broadcast the details of mass murder events. An extremely narrow constitutional amendment. It would probably work. Why not?
I support a minimum prison term of six months for owning a gun with limited exceptions. I think that’s the law in Britain. Something like that.
The real danger of guns is suicide. Only a bit over one third of gun deaths involve a crime.
I favor research on non lethal self protection.
Codeine
(25,586 posts)of the Constitution. I guess if you can’t toss the Second Amendment then you might as well toss the First? 
Cicada
(4,533 posts)I supported the ACLU defending the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie.
But do you believe it should always be legal to yell fire in a crowded theatre? The Constitution is not perfect and changing circumstances, such as a huge increase in mass killings, can be a good reason for amendment.
Do you oppose a constitutional amendment to permit some limits on political bribes, I mean contributions?
Do you oppose a constitutional amendment to repeal the electoral college? Did you oppose the sixteenth amendment?
What is wrong with a tiny limit on broadcasting some details of mass shootings? If that would save lives?
Joe941
(2,848 posts)Codeine
(25,586 posts)
MFM008
(19,803 posts)Restrictions on Oxycodone pain medication........
sunflowerseed
(273 posts)Low capacity mags would slow a shooter down.
Vinca
(50,237 posts)I think we have to pass all the laws that make sense including one that takes assault weapons off the street. What we need to change somehow is the mindset. I think back to when I was a kid in the 1950's. My grandfather had a hunting rifle that he kept in his bedroom closet. It probably wasn't loaded, but nobody would know because no one would even think of taking the gun out of the closet except during deer hunting season. Guns have purposes. They aren't toys. Somehow they've become collectibles like comic books and an entire social universe now revolves around them. Wish I had the answer to the problem, but I doubt anyone does.
3c273a
(63 posts)Test, register and insure. Just like driving cars.
Or
Second Amendment: but a gun, join a militia (national guard) until you sell the gun.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)of guns (and mags). And registering those that remain, owner licensing, and forcing all sales, w/BGC, to go through dealers.
Ban and confiscate all repeating arms with the ability to accept detachable mags, and limit any other repeating arms to 6 rounds.
Mass shootings will be reduced in that way, also by limiting potential capacity.
General crime numbers will be also be reduced by dealing with offenders more harshly.
With 400 million+ guns (and 25 million new ones bought every year), and millions of AW, tons millions of detachable-mag semis; only by substantially removing a huge portion of various repeating arms will make a difference.
A typical AWB (esp. with grandfather clause, goofy notations) won't matter; something similar to NY's may make a difference in a generation when the current non-transferable registrations run out - at least maybe on the tiny percentage that were actually registered.
lark
(23,065 posts)Full and lengthy background checks would have stopped others. Outlawing military style guns and rifles would have stopped a lot of them. Limiting guns and ammo purchased would have meant most of the dead people lived instead,
CrispyQ
(36,424 posts)Beat your spouse? We're coming to your house & takin' your fuckin' guns.
on edit: I don't know that it would have stopped half the shootings, but it would stop a lot.
Joe941
(2,848 posts)CrispyQ
(36,424 posts)What man, who really loves his wife, would discourage legislation that keeps guns out of the hands of domestic abusers? Paid off NRA whores, that's who.
I think four people have to be killed for a shooting to be categorized as a mass shooting, so unless the shooting is done in public, or unless the shooter kills enough people to be worthy of national attention, these shootings don't get much attention. A guy (almost always) gets pissed off at his spouse/girlfriend, hears about their family picnic, & next thing you know he shows up with a gun. Four or five people dead, but no national news on that.
Some other suggestions - not laws, but lift the federal freeze on funding research on gun violence, which has been in place since 1996!
Also, some may disagree, but release the photos from Sandy Hook. The public needs to see what these weapons do to human bodies.
theophilus
(3,750 posts)Taught with love from cradle to grave and exemplified by caring actions by caring people and by caring programs by governments interested in life, liberty, and happiness.
Enforcement of other peripheral laws as necessary and with the utmost strictness -- based on basic human caring amplified by the Founders' progressive ideas fully formed and realized by modern progressives.
Down Hate Up Love
You asked.
Bradical79
(4,490 posts)That's true of most laws and regulations. It's a non-argument. We can look at past laws and general overall trends though.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)MineralMan
(146,262 posts)A ban on 100-round magazines. Bans. That's the law that would stop some of these. Ban them and take them, with compensation, of course. Make the damned things illegal, and the accessories that make them more lethal, too.
Short of that, of course, nothing. But that's the law we need if we want to see fewer of these mass shootings. I'm for it.
Hekate
(90,563 posts)At the same time hedge the 2nd Amendment about with legislation that limits it at least as severely as some of our other "rights."
jmg257
(11,996 posts)that are/function pretty much the same to be bought and sold (i.e. Lanza's from CT was legal per ban)
Also would allow ALL those millions of hi-cap mags out there too.
We would need to do MUCH more to have a serious impact
Hekate
(90,563 posts)jmg257
(11,996 posts)That was not it.
maxsolomon
(33,252 posts)The Gilroy shooter bought his MSSA 3 weeks before attacking the Garlic Festival.
Maybe it wouldn't stop him from another attack, but it would have removed the ability to act on impulse and attack that particular target.
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)weapons like the AR-15. Background checks will do little to reduce the problem. Many of the mass shooting perpetrators had no records prior to their heinous act.
DBoon
(22,340 posts)No one law would have stopped the massacres.
A society that values human life over firearms ownership, and refuses to glamorize their use against other humans beings would go a long way.
The federal government cannot even fund research on firearm fatalities. What does that say about us?
qazplm135
(7,447 posts)how did mass shootings look before, during, and after the assault weapons ban?
The data is pretty clear...and answers your question.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)qazplm135
(7,447 posts)Read that chart way differently then.
It seems pretty clear the ban made a difference.
jmg257
(11,996 posts)Mother Jones, seems like there were 17 the 10 years before, 16 during, like 30+ the 10 years after.
Anyway - hopefully we could do way better then that piece of legislation which pretty much left all the ones out there alone, and new ones functionally the same - quite a few more millions out there now.
qazplm135
(7,447 posts)Seven of the 40 deadliest mass shootings in the U.S. since 1949 occurred in the decade before the assault weapons ban. The ban was in effect for 10 years, and during that time there were two mass shootings on the 40-deadliest list. In the 15 years since the assault weapons ban expired, the number is 26.
Captain Stern
(2,199 posts)Can you think of any one law that would have stopped...say, two of the last 10 mass shootings?
I'm interested in hearing which law (if any) you think could have stopped 2 of the last 10 mass shootings.
inwiththenew
(972 posts)If you could wave a wand and make mass shootings like we've witnessed over the last week go away you wouldn't make much of dent in the amount of gun deaths. Those only a account for few percent of gun deaths per year. Suicides and crime on crime usually tied to the drug trade are #1 and #2 in gun deaths in any given year. We should be looking at legislation to fight that rather than solely focusing on stopping mass shootings.
