Gun Laws

In the wake of the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, there's been a lot of talk about gun laws. Some are saying we need stricter gun laws, others are saying we don't need stricter gun laws. So I'd like to know what gun laws could be passed that would have prevented this incident?

Here's a few things I've been thinking about. I've heard people mention limiting online ammunition sales. For those who don't know, you can buy ammunition online and have it shipped to your residence in the United States. I don't know if certain states have any particular restrictions on that, but in Missouri it's pretty lax. Some sites require a photo copy of your driver's license for proof that your old enough to buy the ammunition. Others sites do not (I'm not sure if they utilize the info on your credit card, or if there's just a checkbox saying "Yes, I'm of 18 years of age or older" etc).

The problem with limiting online ammo sales is that they would not have prevented the Aurora shooting. Yes, they guy bought 6,000 rounds of ammo, but he didn't shoot 6,000 rounds of ammo. If ammo sales were illegal, he could have simply gone to the nearest Walmart and bought the ammo.

If there was a law restricting the amount of ammo you could buy, it still wouldn't have made a difference. From what the news is reporting, he fired under a 100 shots. Most boxes of ammo come in 20 rounds per box or 50 rounds per box, so that's 2 to 5 boxes of ammo. It would be unrealistic to restrict sales to anything smaller than that.

Secondly, he was buying stuff for this incident over a period of at least 3 months. Any restriction on how much ammo you can buy at one time would fail to stop anyone whose willing to spread their efforts over a 3 month time span.

Another aspect I've heard people discuss is banning high capacity magazines. The Aurora gunmen used a 100 round drum magazine for his AR-15. If the drum mag had been illegal, it would not have prevented the shooting because according to the new reports, his drum magazine malfunction and the gun jammed, preventing him from firing off all the rounds in the magazine. In this incident the large magazine actually saved lives. Large capacity magazines are notorious for mechanical failures and are generally unreliable.

So what else could've been, should've been done?
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Master Joined: 15 Apr 2008 Posts: 4416 Location: Korriban

Short of screening for weapons at doors (much like they do in public schools) there was nothing that could have been done. This is tragic, but guns don't kill people. People kill people. I don't own a gun because I'm a clumsy, irresponsible person sometimes and wouldn't want an accident on my hands, but short of requiring a psychological screening to legally own a gun things like this will happen sometimes. You can kill people with a knife to, but we don't limit sales on kitchen knives. You can kill someone with bug poison, but there's nothing said about that either. Shoot, you can smother someone with a pillow but then we'd have to limit that. I think it was an awful, tragic thing to have happen but people get shot every day. Not in that amount or in that public of a venue but for a different city this just would have been another day, albeit a slightly more worrisome one. People snap, they get on drugs, and they do horrible things. I think that the amount of bullets had nothing to do with it. Hell, I've found un-fired bullets and even once a whole gun when I'm out and about (the gun was found when a friend tossed my book in the trash trying to get me to go downtown with them and when I reached for it I also found a gun) so its not like access to these things isn't easy to get. Should the regulations be stricter? Sure, but legally people are going to own guns and buy bullets. I hate to say it but there isn't jack-all we could have done to prevent this. No one could have known it would happen or stopped it.
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I agree there isn't an easy fix. I do think making a person have to go to the store to buy ammo rather than online would be a good thing to do (I recently found out that in Colonial Massachusetts there were no restrictions on how many guns you could own but powder was regulated). Sure the guy didn't need all 6,000 rounds but perhaps in his warped mind set he felt he NEEDED 6,000 rounds. Perhaps if he couldn't have bought 6,000 rounds he might have felt his ammo stockpile was inadequate for the job and decided against a shooting or postponed it until he had 6,000 rounds which would have given the authorities more of a chance to catch him (he makes a mistake or whatever).

I heard on the Colbert Report last night that gun sales online aren't always subject to background checks purchases in a real store are. So I think closing that loophole is a must even if it wasn't a major contributor to the shooting.

My personal thing but I would have a ban on the private ownership of assault rifles without a police or military ID (retired counts). I don't see any reason for civilians to own assault rifles to begin with and don't buy the explination of them being used for personal defense or hunting (why is a regular hunting rifle or shotgun inadequate for hunting and a pistol or shotgun inadequate for personal defense?).

I will grant that since he could buy a shotgun having or not having an assault rifle might not have made a difference in the dead and wounded. However, it might again have come down to his mindset, maybe he felt he needed the assault rifle and wouldn't have carried out the shooting without one. Sure if a guy really really wants an assault rifle they will find a way to get one but if the process is illegal they have a much higher chance of getting caught before they can use it in contrast to the current legal status of the weapon you only get risk getting caught after using it (assuming you aren't doing something stupid like tweeting your intentions).
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EUC Staff Joined: 09 Nov 2011 Posts: 1204 Location: Nirn

Knight Joined: 03 Apr 2012 Posts: 103 Location: UK

I'm not in favour of banning guns altogether, but I do believe that they should be restricted and controlled. As has been said, there's no real reason why a civilian should need an assult weapons, let alone several. If not banned outright, they should be restricted to use at gun clubs, and kept at gun clubs, not in homes.

People who go on shooting sprees not uncommonly have a fascination with the military, and with other mass killers. They fantasize, and by acquiring guns, ammo etc, begin to feel powerful and to believe in their fantasies. Sometimes, fantasy turns to reality. Others, of course, kill multiple people with handguns. Pistols don't have the same capacity, but they can still kill a dozen people in a few minutes, and over a distance.

Guns are, quite simply, more dangerous than knives, bows, pillows or anything else that can kill. Sure, it's 'people that kill people', but why make it easy for those people to kill people ? You can't prevent all gun crime, but you can certainly reduce it.

I won't say where, but I live in a state where you can purchase a gun in a private sale with no documentation required. You can also carry a gun on your person in most public places and can carry a concealed weapon without a permit. I know many people who own a half dozen guns, including assault rifles and that is not seen as anything out of the ordinary. There is a gun store called Second Amendment Sports that advocates resistance against the government as part of it's sales pitch and a few blocks away there is a store that sells to the public the weapons that are used to outfit police departments.

I've talked about guns before so I won't give my opinion on it, but based on what I just said I don't see American society as a whole having a drastic change in the way that it deals with firearms. They always say that after a gun related tragedy, but around here and in many places in America they don't see anything wrong with arming yourself as much as possible.
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Knight Joined: 03 Apr 2012 Posts: 103 Location: UK

Not so long ago, many people saw nothing wrong with slavery, racism and homophobia. With education and time, views on all three have changed. Given time and effort, views on gun ownership could be changed too.

It used to be cool and glamorous to smoke cigarettes. It was a 'right'. Now popularity has dropped, and smoking is banned in many public places. Change can be made.

First off, I don't buy into the idea that we should pass or consider laws on the basis that criminals feel a need to have some weapon and will not perform the crime without it. It's an interesting thought, though.

Secondly, if guns were harder to come by, I honestly believe these people who do these gun rampages would just turn to bombs. They seem to be out to kill a lot of people, and guns are just easier to acquire than bombs. If you took guns away, they'd still have that desire, they'd just find another way to do it. Even without bombs, they might turn to something as simple as arson.

As far as banning assault rifles, that's something that's not easy to dismiss. Assault rifles are purely fun guns. They're fun to use for target shooting. They also pose a threat if someone wanted to use one for a crime. I don't the use of an assault rifle in the Aurora shooting justifies banning them because from the sounds of it, his assault rifle jammed and he didn't use it much.

The other argument for not banning assault rifles is the idea behind the second amendment. It's about having the ability to stand against a corrupt government if it became absolutely necessary. On a more obscure level, the amount of armed citizens in the U.S. has factored into military considerations for opposing countries. I can't remember if it was Japan back in WWII or someone else, but I recall them commenting how an invasion of America would have been very costly and difficult due to the amount of guns among the populace. That doesn't factor directly into assault rifles cause they didn't really have those then, but if another scenario like that occurred, it would be a factor.

And then it just comes down to freedoms. Should we let a handful of crazy people every year force us to punish everyone else? Should we limit our freedoms because of a handful of incidents?

Regardless of all that, here's something else to consider. You can buy fully automatic weapons, true machine guns. You can also buy silencers. These things are not illegal. However, in order to get them you do have to do extra paperwork and go through extra procedures. These things are out there and people have them, but do you ever hear about a criminal legally obtaining such a weapon and using it?

When it comes down to it, criminals are lazy. They'll go for what's easy. Easy to acquire weapons and easy prey. There's no need to ban weapons people consider to be "unnecessarily deadly." Just make it so lazy people won't want to go through the effort to get them.
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The real fear concerning gun control, from my family's perspective, is the issue of the government having guns and the public not. The government is not perfect. We don't like the idea of not being able to defend ourselves from it, if it ever came to that. It has happened in other countries and throughout history, so it is not a radical idea. It is a valid concern.

Guns do assist in mass slaughter, but there are also other ways to accomplish such a thing. In this case, this kid could have used an explosive. He seemed perfectly capable of such a thing. And since when have "bad guys", for lack of a better term, ever not been able to access restricted items? The criminals will have the weapons, and the public will not.

I don't necessarily see anything wrong with tightening down on gun control a bit, but why now? Does no one ever consider the when and not the how? There are more mass killings now than there have ever been, and I would venture to say weapons were more easily accessible in decades past. So what else is a problem here? It's not just access to weapons. We are trying to doctor the symptoms and not the cause. There is a much deeper root issue in our country. Neutral

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"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker

Knight Joined: 03 Apr 2012 Posts: 103 Location: UK

Don't you think that America is perhaps past the stage of civilians needing to arm themselves against the government 'just in case' ? It's not like you're prone to having dictators seizing control with the backing of the Army, and banning free elections. Honestly, if you seriously suggested to the average person in the UK that they should have weapons to protect themselves in case the government 'went bad', (in whichever way you imagine they might) you'd be laughed out of the room.

Knight Joined: 20 Jun 2012 Posts: 128

Ok, while I understand the arming yourself against possible government corruption, I wouldn't say that's the strongest point. The America being more difficult to invade I think actually a very valid argument, that's not even the most valid point. Let's say I'm a criminal in a state where assault rifles are legal. While, 2 hours away, I enter a state where all guns are illegal. I'm a criminal my gun probably isn't even legally bought anyway, but in which area do you think I'm going to commit my crimes?? The one where guns are illegal. If I know that there is a possibility my target is armed, I'm going to think twice, while a house where I can be reasonably sure there is no weapons inside, to a criminal is a much better target. To me, that's the most valid reason for civilians to have the right to guns.

I didn't mean in case everything goes south tomorrow, I meant for the future. It was one of the reasons the second amendment was put in place in the first place. And I said it was a strong point for my family, not everyone.

And yes, I do think the United States is capable of falling into a dictatorship, eventually. Just like all the other countries that have become corrupt in the past, it is irresponsible to think this one somehow cannot. Take away the public's ability to arm itself? That is one step. As I said, the concern is for the future, not today.
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"It's not about the legacy you leave, it's about the life you live." ~Mara Jade Skywalker

Knight Joined: 20 Jun 2012 Posts: 128

I agree. No one thinks "man, I bet our country is gonna turn into a dictatorship soon, which stinks!!" while things are going good. In the past people didn't expect the Communist party to take over China, and the US even refused to acknowledge them S the government for awhile. Things change, noone Expects their country to fall, but then it happens.

Master Joined: 11 Jun 2009 Posts: 1349

I'm no "militia" conspiracy theorist, but I definitely think we have the right to bear arms in case of a government gone corrupt. Just like we need to have a plan just in case a killer asteroid comes heading our way. It may be unlikely, but it is possible, and it is something we need to be actively aware of. Thinking "Oh, that couldn't happen!" is very naive, IMO.

However, I do think there could be more regulation when it comes to gun ownership. There is a difference between gun laws and downright prohibition of guns. Gun laws could decrease the amount of questionable people owning guns, while still allowing the responsible individuals to own a firearm. Full prohibition is something that I am not in support of at all, though, because the real criminal geniuses will still find a way to get them.

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