Can we have an honest, respectful discussion about guns in America?

Gun control was originally about disarming newly-freed blacks in the Antebellum South.

 

I disagree. Too much gray area in the law and people are getting long stretches as it is.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fla-wo...rs-for-warning-shot-did-she-stand-her-ground/

 

Seriously. Been to Pacoima lately?

 

Blacks and Indians, if I recall correctly.

 

Exactly. There's more recent proof too as noted below. Let's not forget that Australia has less people than the state of Texas, about 7.5% the population of the United States of America. There's also the fact the United States, alone of all British colonies won its independence through revolution, setting the stage for the freedom of all British colonies.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box...-australia-style-gun-control-worth-looking-at
Hillary Clinton says a gun buyback program similar to the one Australia implemented in 1996 is “worth considering” in the United States.

“I don’t know enough details to tell you how we would do it or how it would work, but certainly the Australia example is worth looking at,” Clinton said at a New Hampshire town hall on Friday.

The Democratic presidential front-runner said data indicate the Australian program reduced the number of firearms in circulation by paying citizens to turn over their weapons.

“The Australian government, as part of trying to clamp down on the availability of automatic weapons, offered a good price for buying hundreds of thousands of guns, and then they basically clamped down going forward in terms of having, you know, more of a background-check approach, more of a permitting approach,” Clinton said.

The Australian government purchased more than 650,000 guns from citizens in the compulsory 1996 buyback program.

Clinton said individual American communities have tried to implement such gun control measures on the local level and that she would be open to testing it nationwide.

“Now communities have done that in our country, several communities have done gun buyback programs,” she said. “But I think it would be worth considering doing it on the national level if that could be arranged.”

She also compared the plan to Cash for Clunkers, a program that sought to stimulate the automobile market by giving citizens credit toward new vehicles for trading in older less fuel-efficient models.

The Australia gun control law, the 1996 National Firearms Buyback Scheme, was legislated after the Port Arthur massacre of the same year, in which a lone gunman killed 35 people.

Clinton criticized rival candidate Bernie Sanders for his record on guns at the first Democratic primary debate on Tuesday.

She announced a new gun control plan earlier this month that did not mention a gun buyback. A Clinton spokesman did not immediately return a request for clarification on Clinton’s stance on guns.

President Obama also referenced the Australia law in an address shortly after a school shooting in Oregon that left 10 people dead and nine wounded.

 

Agreed, but if the anti-gun Left wants to use Federal law to restrict Constitutional law, then the pro-gun Right can certainly use Federal law to enforce Constitutional rights.

 

I will confront the problem right here: Too many violent thugs on our streets. Get rid of them and watch the numbers plummet.

That said, if you remove the suicides, legitimate police shootings, and accidental discharge deaths, your number plummets below 5,000 making it statistically insignificant. So if we want to have an honest discussion, we are really talking about 5,000 or so deaths attributed to violence. And of those, the lions' share are in the urban centers, often perpetrated by repeat felons who are not legally able to possess firearms in the first place. So my solution to removing the violent people from our society will go a long way toward chipping away at the unfortunate number - a number which is still twenty times lower than death by heart disease, I hasten to add.

 

On what statistical basis do you make this claim?

 

Background checks should be MANDATORY for all gun transfers excepts gifts between close relatives.

All concealed carry permits should require training and competency exam.

Magazines should be limited to 10 rounds.

Ban all tools that facilitate rapid fire for semi-automatics.

 

Oh heck yes. Just mean to say the gun-grabbing blue states will be dragged kicking and screaming. And I will grin, widely.

 

I have no problem with that. I'd go a step further and put significant jail time for knowingly transferring a weapon to a felon or other restricted individual.

Fine with that. Again, most already do.

Why do you want gangbangers and drug dealers to be the only ones with high-capacity mags?

That would require banning your arms.

 

Trying to keep it respectful... please.

 

Dianne Fenstein.

 

Take out suicides and we're down there with Singapore.

 

That's really at the heart of all of this. The inordinately high rates of violence in minority communities is what leads to almost every gun death that isn't a suicide, a LEO shooting, or an accidental discharge. It seems those who don't have the stomach to confront these realities instead try to shift the blame to an inanimate object which is quite irrational in my view.

 

Where are you reading that the other poster wants to ban guns? I believe he is arguing exactly the opposite.

 

Yikes!

 

#4 especially. We are simply too soft on violent offenders.

 

why do you eat kittens?

 

Take suicides, LEO shootings, and accidental discharge out of your figures... then lock up the violent offenders for a long, long, long time. We have solved the majority of the problem.

 

Been to Pacoima lately? Van Nuys? San Bernardino?

 

Do you consider that comment consistent with the respectful debate I requested in my OP?

 

“Operate” is the keyword there. I will compare it to CCW where training should be required.

You can buy any car you want/can afford without a DL, you just can’t take it of your property. Similar to carrying outside of your property in public places.

 

just responding in kind to his ridiculous strawman

 

I do not advocate that armed humans do not get trained. This is why the NRA exists and was founded to begin with.

My high school gets credit for my gun training. Then comes the Army.