Build it and they won't come

On 10/14/2017 9:41 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/14/2017 10:06 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 17:12:56 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 1:20:47 AM UTC-4, John
B. wrote:

As I have been trying to point since this thread began,
the definition
of what constitutes a legal firearm, is not a simple
matter. ...

From an admittedly cursory reading of the law it
appears that the guns
used in the Los Vegas shooting were legal weapons.

Yes, it appears they were. The massacre happened in a
state where almost anything to do with guns is legal.

Frank, the laws I quoted are U.S. government laws...
applicable in
every one of the 50 states.

But regarding the "not a simple matter": Where do you
live again? What's the
gun murder rate? How often does your country have mass
shootings? How do they
define legal firearms?

ISTM that this problem, like so many others, is claimed
to be just too difficult
for the U.S. Yet somehow, it's a problem that'sbeen
largely solved in every
other advanced country.

- Frank Krygowski

Sure it is. But is it gun control that caused it?

You seem to be ignoring the fact that in a number of
instances in the
U.S. that States with minimal gun laws also have minimal
murder rates.

I'm not ignoring that. I'll point out (again) that an island
of gun control, so to speak, can't get excellent results in
a sea free of gun restrictions.

Canada is next to a gun-crazy nation. That's a problem for
them. They manage it pretty well by strongly resisting guns
crossing the border. Your handgun may be legal in Vermont,
but that cuts no ice when you try to take it into Quebec.

Britain's gun violence data is even better. I'm betting that
it's at least partly due to the fact that they are, indeed,
an island. No American nut-jobs are driving their with
pistols under their car seats.



Yes, I know that you argue it is the pressures of urban
living but
that argument doesn't seem to hang together either. Example:

New York City population of 8,550,861
murder rate of 3.0
rape rate of 14.0
Robbery of 198.2
crimes against property 1518

Los Angeles population of 3,962,726
murder rate of 7.1
rape rate of 55.7
Robbery of 225.9
crimes against property 2359

L.A. has less then half the population and more then
double the crime.

I know that New York City has very strict gun laws. I don't
know about Los Angeles. But things like this might make some
difference:
http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/0...and-their-guns




I suspect that we do not know all the variables or even the
most significant ones..

You point to Canada, which is legally restrictive of
firearms, being smack up against us feisty USAians on a long
border.

But Mexico is also highly restrictive, legally. And yet the
trade flow of illegal (both merely undeclared and also
statutorily proscribed, as in full auto) firearms is
northbound, Eric Holder notwithstanding.

Yes, people do highlight Chicago and Illinois generally as
one outlier (draconian statutes, ordinances, administrative
impedimenta and flagrantly unconstitutional practice, all
to no effect) while others note New England enjoys high
firearm ownership rates with low criminal use of them.

I'm adult enough to say I don't know.

Meanwhile, from first principles and a wealth of historical
examples I'm wan to accept disarmament. YMMV.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/14/2017 11:14 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:17:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Of course I know what "well regulated" means. My point was that the
founders expected to have a Well Regulated militia.

Sure, and the method that they selected to do it was to ensure that
the individual was not prevented from owning a gun.

.... BECAUSE they wanted a well regulated militia. That's not what we
have with most gun owners.

And understand, I'm not against people owning guns. If I were, there
wouldn't be a gun in this house. I am, however, against the nearly
totally uncontrolled ownership of guns designed only for killing people.


You might also want to look at
https://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/mu...fter-gun-bans/
as it is a bit illuminating regarding gun bans and murder rates.
also
https://crimeresearch.org/about-us/ and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott

I know there are people and websites promoting gun ownership and use.
"Crimeresearch" is one. They make the claim that there is no place where
gun control had the desired effect. Snopes disagrees.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp




What do we have instead? A massive gaggle of gun hobbyists, a bunch of
fat guys who buy Soldier of Fortune magazine, a coward who's afraid to
go to a nice music hall without a handgun, etc. Those people do NOT
qualify as being part of a Well Regulated Militia. Instead, those sorts
of people are unregulated. They are also generally untrained,
undisciplined, and uneducated regarding militia duties. They know only
what they see on TV crime shows, which is almost total bull****.

Yes Frank, I know. But I really do believe that you are a bit
overwrought.

Not all gun owners are fat.

Yes, you're right. Not all gun owners are fat, which is why I never said
that all gun owners are fat.

Example: The cowardly guy I know who won't go into a music hall if he
can't take his gun. He's pretty skinny. (He's also ex-military.)


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/14/2017 9:49 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/14/2017 12:41 AM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 11:50:47 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/13/2017 2:04 AM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 12 Oct 2017 22:59:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/12/2017 9:39 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 12 Oct 2017 13:59:32 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/12/2017 4:46 AM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:49:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/11/2017 9:38 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2017 11:29:00 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/11/2017 9:42 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 4:54:17 AM
UTC-7, John B. wrote:

It seems unlikely, at best, to believe that you
didn't understand the
content of the original posts between Frank and
I where he commented
that punching holes in a paper target with a
gun and thinking you were
a big, bad, man was childish.

I then replied "like a 60 year old guy on a CF
racing bike".

I can only assume that you are interjecting
your off topic remarks
deliberately. So yes, goodbye.

Walking off in a snit again John? Really, get
over yourself. You're beginning to sound like
Frank who denies that where the strongest guns
laws are we have the highest rates of gun crimes
and where the least gun laws are in effect the
murder rates are insignificant.

You mean like Canada vs. the U.S.? Or like
Windsor vs. Detroit? Got
numbers?

Even a casual look shows little correlation
between gun ownership in
the U.S. and homicides.

Gun ownership http://tinyurl.com/ybnxnu8x
States with Extremely High Populations of Gun
Owners (more than 50%)

1. Wyoming - 59.7% Homicide rate
2.7/100,000
2. Alaska - 57.8% 8.0
3. Montana - 57.7% 3.5
4. South Dakota - 56.6% 3.7
5. West Virginia - 55.4% 3.8
6. Mississippi - 55.3% 8.7
6. Idaho - 55.3% 1.9
6. Arkansas - 55.3% 6.1
9. Alabama - 51.7% 7.2
10. North Dakota - 50.7% 2.8

States with Below Median Populations of Gun Owners

40. Delaware - 25.5% Homicide rate
6.7/100,000
41. Florida - 24.5% 5.1
42. California - 21.3% 4.8
42. Maryland - 21.3% 8.6
44. Illinois - 20.2% 5.8
45. New York - 18% 3.1
46. Connecticut - 16.7% 3.3
47. Rhode Island - 12.8% 2.7
48. Massachusetts - 12.6% 1.9
49. New Jersey - 12.3% 4.1
50. Hawaii - 6.7% 1.3

Homicide rate from
http://tinyurl.com/gp9usuy

The State with the lowest homicide rate is New
Hampshire (1.1/100,000)
and gun ownership of 30%.

I've been generally aware of that data for quite a
while. Digging
deeper, here is what I think it shows:

States with lower population density, and
especially with a greater
percentage of their population living in rural
areas, tend to have more
people who own rifles and shotguns used for hunting
and "varmint"
control. They also have much less of the social
stress derived from
mixed cultures in dense cities.


Whether it is lower density or whatever I'm fairly
sure that the
people are the major problem area.

Well, I'm sure that's true. As I understand it,
places with no people
have very little crime!
But please note: I'm strongly in favor of hunting
with guns. I'm
strongly in favor of most varmint control. I'm not
talking about
reducing the number of guns in general.

Instead, I'm talking about reducing (or ideally,
eliminating) the number
of guns specifically designed for killing other
people. Those would
include guns designed or modified to shoot rapidly
and to shoot many
rounds without reloading. And to further infuriate
the gun nuts, I'd be
in favor of eventually reducing the number of
handguns, since almost all
of those are intended as people killers.

The problem is, as I tried to point out, is that any
configuration of
a "gun" can be used to kill people. Wild Bill Hickok
kill at least 8
people with a .36 caliber cap and ball revolver,
which is classified
as an antique and can be legally owned by anyone today.

From what I've just read, Hickok did kill several
people, during a time
when lawlessness and drunken shootings were quite
common. In most cases,
he killed them as a law officer acting in self
defense, although several
of those seem to be questionable. But they were
almost always one-on-one
situations. I don't see that having a gun that fired
only once in five
seconds would have made a difference.

In any case, "Other things can kill so don't ban guns
specially designed
for killing people" seems a specious argument. We do
ban other things
specially designed for killing people, and no sane
person thinks it's an
attack on their second amendment rights. (Thank God
the National Hand
Grenade Association isn't as flush with money as the
NRA.)

So: If we could correlate the number of non-hunting
guns with gun
homicide rates, I suspect we'd see much different
results. I think the
number of people-killing guns correlates pretty
well with the rate of
gun deaths.

But I doubt that information is out there. The NRA
has successfully
purchased laws that prohibit studying gun violence
too closely.

I'm not so sure about that...

Really? See
http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...nap-story.html


... as without very much effort I seem to find
a considerable amount of official data regarding
shootings.

Find me the data I asked about: the correlation
between the number of
guns designed specifically for killing people vs.
homicide rates. The
types of guns I'm thinking of are rapid fire (say,
more than one round
per second) and/or high capacity (say, more than 20
rounds), plus
handguns. Yes, I understand that a very few handguns
are used for
hunting, but that's a very small percentage of
handgun use.

Ah Frank, now you are down to one shot per second :-)

But more to the point, why should I - a law abiding
citizen - be
deprived of my right to use a pistol to shoot deer
with? Or woodchucks
for that matter? To my personal knowledge no one in my
family has shot
a human for five generations.

Why should you be deprived of that "right"? For the
same reason that an
avid admirer of explosives of all kinds is not allowed
to possess hand
grenades. Heck, it's getting really difficult to find a
place to buy C-4
plastic explosive material, just because of the
oppressive and unjust
anti-explosive laws!

(Fun fact: I have a friend who bought some C-4 from a
local guy as part
of a sting operation, which sent the seller to prison.
After his
release, in a completely unrelated event, I got to meet
the guy with the
prison time. He remarked at one time "These things are
so strong you
couldn't even blow them up!" My friend said "Yep. He
would know.")

Getting back to the point: Why should handguns,
grenades and explosives
and rapid-fire people killers be highly controlled?
It's a matter of
benefits vs. detriments. Regarding the handgun, the
benefit is some dude
gets to brag "I took that buck with a handgun!" (IOW
"Wow, I am highly
skilled and manly!") the detriment is thousands of
handgun deaths per
year, far more per capita than any other advanced
westernized country.
The detriment is far greater than the benefit.
It might also be noted that of the large "gun death"
numbers quoted in
many articles about the dangers of gun ownership, that
for the past 35
years (as of 2015) the majority of the "gun deaths"
have been suicide.

Yes, depending on the article. Some data counts gun
deaths, some data
counts homicides.

I suppose some might say "If someone wants to shoot
themselves, that's
no problem." But society as a whole tends to disagree.
Much work is done
to prevent suicide. Lots of money is spent on 911
operator training,
counseling centers, psychiatry and psychology etc. A
lot of that is
employed after a failed suicide attempt, and the
near-victims are often
glad they got a second chance to avoid the "permanent
solution to a
temporary problem." But with guns, there usually is no
second chance.


You appear to keep ignoring my point(s) that none of
your suggestions,
i.,e. 5 seconds between rounds, big magazines,etc., are
at all
practical.

What are the laws where you're living?


Here, firearms seem to be divided into two categories, I
can't provide
the exact translation but in broad terms they would be
"war weapons"
and "not war weapons". An M-16 or a .45 colt, 1911, pistol
are war
weapons and a 9mm pistol is not. Military hand grenades
are war
weapons while a ping-pong ball full of black powder is not.

The difference seems to be in the penalties imposed. War
weapons seem
to get jail sentences while not-war may or may not.

What are the laws in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany,
etc.?

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-w...ere-this-36131


Motor vehicles:
http://www.newsweek.com/2015-brought...0-years-427759

38,300 deaths and 4.4 million injured

Bicycles:
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm
818 deaths and 45,000 injured

http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...g-mandalay-bay

59 deaths and 527 injured

A: Logic problems. You're comparing annual deaths for motor
vehicles and bicycles to deaths from ONE nut case on one
evening in Las Vegas.

B: As has been stated, motor vehicles, bicycles, stairs,
beds and other items causing death have valid uses. The
deaths they cause are regrettable side effects.
People-killer guns are different. Those deaths are their
_intended_ effect.



Well, we have hope, and perspective.

After we get our full communist medical system, we'll stop
being shocked by a few mere firearm deaths:

https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/wp-co...ss-Release.pdf

[paragraph two is a knee slapper]


Likely will make traffic fatalities a rounding error in the
tragic deaths column.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/15/2017 11:11 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/14/2017 11:14 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:17:02 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Of course I know what "well regulated" means. My point
was that the
founders expected to have a Well Regulated militia.

Sure, and the method that they selected to do it was to
ensure that
the individual was not prevented from owning a gun.

... BECAUSE they wanted a well regulated militia. That's not
what we have with most gun owners.

And understand, I'm not against people owning guns. If I
were, there wouldn't be a gun in this house. I am, however,
against the nearly totally uncontrolled ownership of guns
designed only for killing people.

You might also want to look at
https://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/mu...fter-gun-bans/

as it is a bit illuminating regarding gun bans and murder
rates.
also
https://crimeresearch.org/about-us/ and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott

I know there are people and websites promoting gun ownership
and use. "Crimeresearch" is one. They make the claim that
there is no place where gun control had the desired effect.
Snopes disagrees.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp




What do we have instead? A massive gaggle of gun
hobbyists, a bunch of
fat guys who buy Soldier of Fortune magazine, a coward
who's afraid to
go to a nice music hall without a handgun, etc. Those
people do NOT
qualify as being part of a Well Regulated Militia.
Instead, those sorts
of people are unregulated. They are also generally
untrained,
undisciplined, and uneducated regarding militia duties.
They know only
what they see on TV crime shows, which is almost total
bull****.

Yes Frank, I know. But I really do believe that you are a bit
overwrought.

Not all gun owners are fat.

Yes, you're right. Not all gun owners are fat, which is why
I never said that all gun owners are fat.

Example: The cowardly guy I know who won't go into a music
hall if he can't take his gun. He's pretty skinny. (He's
also ex-military.)



Maybe if we had just the right laws, we could hire
government employees to enforce those laws.

What could go wrong?

http://www.channel3000.com/news/doj-...-him/637288478

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/15/2017 1:59 AM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:31:31 -0400, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Something similar would be easy to design into guns. To fire, you'd have
to push button A before each pull of trigger B. Single action guns do
this (e.g. you must pull back the hammer before pulling the trigger) but
something similar could be made as inconvenient as necessary to slow
firing rate down to whatever was desired.

Nope. There are relatively few "single action" weapons built today,
i.e., that you have to manually cock.

I know the few are sold today, although I shot a new one belonging to a
friend about six weeks ago. I was using them merely to illustrate that
simple means can be used to control firing rate.

But more pertinent an action where you had to push a button and then
pull the trigger to fire would mean that you could no longer fire
aimed shots.

Baloney. You can fire aimed shots with a single action gun right now.

But why this emphasis on rate of fire any way. Do you somehow feel
that if you were to be shot 10 times you would be deader then if only
shot 5 times?

Because in Las Vegas, a gun nut was able to wound hundreds of people
largely because of his high rate of fire. If he thought it was
unimportant, why would he have bothered with the bump stocks?

Rapid fire added greatly to the carnage in that mass shooting, as well
as in others. That's its detriment. What is its advantage for any
legitimate gun user? Do hunters really need to fire ten rounds in five
seconds?

"Pow pow pow pow pow pow pow" is attractive only to people with the mind
of an 8-year-old pretending to be an "army man." Sadly, many
50-year-olds love to pretend that way.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/15/2017 2:14 AM, John B. wrote:
4On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:41:52 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/14/2017 10:06 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 17:12:56 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 1:20:47 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote:

As I have been trying to point since this thread began, the definition
of what constitutes a legal firearm, is not a simple matter. ...

From an admittedly cursory reading of the law it appears that the guns
used in the Los Vegas shooting were legal weapons.

Yes, it appears they were. The massacre happened in a state where almost anything to do with guns is legal.

Frank, the laws I quoted are U.S. government laws... applicable in
every one of the 50 states.

But regarding the "not a simple matter": Where do you live again? What's the
gun murder rate? How often does your country have mass shootings? How do they
define legal firearms?

ISTM that this problem, like so many others, is claimed to be just too difficult
for the U.S. Yet somehow, it's a problem that'sbeen largely solved in every
other advanced country.

- Frank Krygowski

Sure it is. But is it gun control that caused it?

You seem to be ignoring the fact that in a number of instances in the
U.S. that States with minimal gun laws also have minimal murder rates.

I'm not ignoring that. I'll point out (again) that an island of gun
control, so to speak, can't get excellent results in a sea free of gun
restrictions.

Canada is next to a gun-crazy nation. That's a problem for them. They
manage it pretty well by strongly resisting guns crossing the border.
Your handgun may be legal in Vermont, but that cuts no ice when you try
to take it into Quebec.

Britain's gun violence data is even better. I'm betting that it's at
least partly due to the fact that they are, indeed, an island. No
American nut-jobs are driving their with pistols under their car seats.



Yes, I know that you argue it is the pressures of urban living but
that argument doesn't seem to hang together either. Example:

New York City population of 8,550,861
murder rate of 3.0
rape rate of 14.0
Robbery of 198.2
crimes against property 1518

Los Angeles population of 3,962,726
murder rate of 7.1
rape rate of 55.7
Robbery of 225.9
crimes against property 2359

L.A. has less then half the population and more then double the crime.

I know that New York City has very strict gun laws. I don't know about
Los Angeles. But things like this might make some difference:
http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/0...and-their-guns


But Frank, when I wrote about Vermont with their almost nonexistent
gun laws and extremely low murder rate you argued that it was because
the Vermonters all lived in rural bliss and that other places were
subjected to the pressures of living in urban environments.

But that doesn't seem to hold water as New York with its 8.5 million
population has far less crime then L.A. with less then half the
population.

By the way, Detroit, with its paltry population of 673,225 has:
murder rate of 43.8
rape rate of 78.7
robbery of 513.5
crimes against property 3529.9

A city 1/12th the size of N.Y with a murder rate 26 times higher?
Should we term it "the urban myth"?

Does Detroit do this?
http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/0...and-their-guns



--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/15/2017 2:31 AM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:49:28 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/14/2017 12:41 AM, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 13 Oct 2017 11:50:47 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/13/2017 2:04 AM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 12 Oct 2017 22:59:40 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/12/2017 9:39 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 12 Oct 2017 13:59:32 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/12/2017 4:46 AM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 12 Oct 2017 00:49:57 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/11/2017 9:38 PM, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 11 Oct 2017 11:29:00 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/11/2017 9:42 AM, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 11, 2017 at 4:54:17 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:

It seems unlikely, at best, to believe that you didn't understand the
content of the original posts between Frank and I where he commented
that punching holes in a paper target with a gun and thinking you were
a big, bad, man was childish.

I then replied "like a 60 year old guy on a CF racing bike".

I can only assume that you are interjecting your off topic remarks
deliberately. So yes, goodbye.

Walking off in a snit again John? Really, get over yourself. You're beginning to sound like Frank who denies that where the strongest guns laws are we have the highest rates of gun crimes and where the least gun laws are in effect the murder rates are insignificant.

You mean like Canada vs. the U.S.? Or like Windsor vs. Detroit? Got
numbers?

Even a casual look shows little correlation between gun ownership in
the U.S. and homicides.

Gun ownership http://tinyurl.com/ybnxnu8x
States with Extremely High Populations of Gun Owners (more than 50%)

1. Wyoming - 59.7% Homicide rate 2.7/100,000
2. Alaska - 57.8% 8.0
3. Montana - 57.7% 3.5
4. South Dakota - 56.6% 3.7
5. West Virginia - 55.4% 3.8
6. Mississippi - 55.3% 8.7
6. Idaho - 55.3% 1.9
6. Arkansas - 55.3% 6.1
9. Alabama - 51.7% 7.2
10. North Dakota - 50.7% 2.8

States with Below Median Populations of Gun Owners

40. Delaware - 25.5% Homicide rate 6.7/100,000
41. Florida - 24.5% 5.1
42. California - 21.3% 4.8
42. Maryland - 21.3% 8.6
44. Illinois - 20.2% 5.8
45. New York - 18% 3.1
46. Connecticut - 16.7% 3.3
47. Rhode Island - 12.8% 2.7
48. Massachusetts - 12.6% 1.9
49. New Jersey - 12.3% 4.1
50. Hawaii - 6.7% 1.3

Homicide rate from
http://tinyurl.com/gp9usuy

The State with the lowest homicide rate is New Hampshire (1.1/100,000)
and gun ownership of 30%.

I've been generally aware of that data for quite a while. Digging
deeper, here is what I think it shows:

States with lower population density, and especially with a greater
percentage of their population living in rural areas, tend to have more
people who own rifles and shotguns used for hunting and "varmint"
control. They also have much less of the social stress derived from
mixed cultures in dense cities.


Whether it is lower density or whatever I'm fairly sure that the
people are the major problem area.

Well, I'm sure that's true. As I understand it, places with no people
have very little crime!
But please note: I'm strongly in favor of hunting with guns. I'm
strongly in favor of most varmint control. I'm not talking about
reducing the number of guns in general.

Instead, I'm talking about reducing (or ideally, eliminating) the number
of guns specifically designed for killing other people. Those would
include guns designed or modified to shoot rapidly and to shoot many
rounds without reloading. And to further infuriate the gun nuts, I'd be
in favor of eventually reducing the number of handguns, since almost all
of those are intended as people killers.

The problem is, as I tried to point out, is that any configuration of
a "gun" can be used to kill people. Wild Bill Hickok kill at least 8
people with a .36 caliber cap and ball revolver, which is classified
as an antique and can be legally owned by anyone today.

From what I've just read, Hickok did kill several people, during a time
when lawlessness and drunken shootings were quite common. In most cases,
he killed them as a law officer acting in self defense, although several
of those seem to be questionable. But they were almost always one-on-one
situations. I don't see that having a gun that fired only once in five
seconds would have made a difference.

In any case, "Other things can kill so don't ban guns specially designed
for killing people" seems a specious argument. We do ban other things
specially designed for killing people, and no sane person thinks it's an
attack on their second amendment rights. (Thank God the National Hand
Grenade Association isn't as flush with money as the NRA.)

So: If we could correlate the number of non-hunting guns with gun
homicide rates, I suspect we'd see much different results. I think the
number of people-killing guns correlates pretty well with the rate of
gun deaths.

But I doubt that information is out there. The NRA has successfully
purchased laws that prohibit studying gun violence too closely.

I'm not so sure about that...

Really? See
http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...nap-story.html

... as without very much effort I seem to find
a considerable amount of official data regarding shootings.

Find me the data I asked about: the correlation between the number of
guns designed specifically for killing people vs. homicide rates. The
types of guns I'm thinking of are rapid fire (say, more than one round
per second) and/or high capacity (say, more than 20 rounds), plus
handguns. Yes, I understand that a very few handguns are used for
hunting, but that's a very small percentage of handgun use.

Ah Frank, now you are down to one shot per second :-)

But more to the point, why should I - a law abiding citizen - be
deprived of my right to use a pistol to shoot deer with? Or woodchucks
for that matter? To my personal knowledge no one in my family has shot
a human for five generations.

Why should you be deprived of that "right"? For the same reason that an
avid admirer of explosives of all kinds is not allowed to possess hand
grenades. Heck, it's getting really difficult to find a place to buy C-4
plastic explosive material, just because of the oppressive and unjust
anti-explosive laws!

(Fun fact: I have a friend who bought some C-4 from a local guy as part
of a sting operation, which sent the seller to prison. After his
release, in a completely unrelated event, I got to meet the guy with the
prison time. He remarked at one time "These things are so strong you
couldn't even blow them up!" My friend said "Yep. He would know.")

Getting back to the point: Why should handguns, grenades and explosives
and rapid-fire people killers be highly controlled? It's a matter of
benefits vs. detriments. Regarding the handgun, the benefit is some dude
gets to brag "I took that buck with a handgun!" (IOW "Wow, I am highly
skilled and manly!") the detriment is thousands of handgun deaths per
year, far more per capita than any other advanced westernized country.
The detriment is far greater than the benefit.
It might also be noted that of the large "gun death" numbers quoted in
many articles about the dangers of gun ownership, that for the past 35
years (as of 2015) the majority of the "gun deaths" have been suicide.

Yes, depending on the article. Some data counts gun deaths, some data
counts homicides.

I suppose some might say "If someone wants to shoot themselves, that's
no problem." But society as a whole tends to disagree. Much work is done
to prevent suicide. Lots of money is spent on 911 operator training,
counseling centers, psychiatry and psychology etc. A lot of that is
employed after a failed suicide attempt, and the near-victims are often
glad they got a second chance to avoid the "permanent solution to a
temporary problem." But with guns, there usually is no second chance.


You appear to keep ignoring my point(s) that none of your suggestions,
i.,e. 5 seconds between rounds, big magazines,etc., are at all
practical.

What are the laws where you're living?


Here, firearms seem to be divided into two categories, I can't provide
the exact translation but in broad terms they would be "war weapons"
and "not war weapons". An M-16 or a .45 colt, 1911, pistol are war
weapons and a 9mm pistol is not. Military hand grenades are war
weapons while a ping-pong ball full of black powder is not.

The difference seems to be in the penalties imposed. War weapons seem
to get jail sentences while not-war may or may not.

What are the laws in Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, etc.?

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-w...ere-this-36131

Motor vehicles:
http://www.newsweek.com/2015-brought...0-years-427759
38,300 deaths and 4.4 million injured

Bicycles:
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/factsheet_crash.cfm
818 deaths and 45,000 injured

http://www.billboard.com/articles/ne...g-mandalay-bay
59 deaths and 527 injured

A: Logic problems. You're comparing annual deaths for motor vehicles and
bicycles to deaths from ONE nut case on one evening in Las Vegas.

Why ever not? After all you equate rate of fire with a dangerious
weapon.

B: As has been stated, motor vehicles, bicycles, stairs, beds and other
items causing death have valid uses. The deaths they cause are
regrettable side effects. People-killer guns are different. Those deaths
are their _intended_ effect.

What is the legal definition of a "people killer gun"?

It's not a legal term, John. It's a descriptive term I'm using.

I'm including handguns and guns with firing rates over a certain limit.
Hunters and people controlling animals like agricultural pests (anything
from crows in corn to groundhogs in gardens) don't need to use handguns.
They don't need to fire ten rounds in five seconds. Those features (and
some other ones as well) are useful only for killing people.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/15/2017 1:50 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/15/2017 2:14 AM, John B. wrote:
4On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:41:52 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/14/2017 10:06 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 14 Oct 2017 17:12:56 -0700 (PDT), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Saturday, October 14, 2017 at 1:20:47 AM UTC-4, John
B. wrote:

As I have been trying to point since this thread
began, the definition
of what constitutes a legal firearm, is not a simple
matter. ...

From an admittedly cursory reading of the law it
appears that the guns
used in the Los Vegas shooting were legal weapons.

Yes, it appears they were. The massacre happened in a
state where almost anything to do with guns is legal.

Frank, the laws I quoted are U.S. government laws...
applicable in
every one of the 50 states.

But regarding the "not a simple matter": Where do you
live again? What's the
gun murder rate? How often does your country have mass
shootings? How do they
define legal firearms?

ISTM that this problem, like so many others, is claimed
to be just too difficult
for the U.S. Yet somehow, it's a problem that'sbeen
largely solved in every
other advanced country.

- Frank Krygowski

Sure it is. But is it gun control that caused it?

You seem to be ignoring the fact that in a number of
instances in the
U.S. that States with minimal gun laws also have minimal
murder rates.

I'm not ignoring that. I'll point out (again) that an
island of gun
control, so to speak, can't get excellent results in a
sea free of gun
restrictions.

Canada is next to a gun-crazy nation. That's a problem
for them. They
manage it pretty well by strongly resisting guns crossing
the border.
Your handgun may be legal in Vermont, but that cuts no
ice when you try
to take it into Quebec.

Britain's gun violence data is even better. I'm betting
that it's at
least partly due to the fact that they are, indeed, an
island. No
American nut-jobs are driving their with pistols under
their car seats.



Yes, I know that you argue it is the pressures of urban
living but
that argument doesn't seem to hang together either.
Example:

New York City population of 8,550,861
murder rate of 3.0
rape rate of 14.0
Robbery of 198.2
crimes against property 1518

Los Angeles population of 3,962,726
murder rate of 7.1
rape rate of 55.7
Robbery of 225.9
crimes against property 2359

L.A. has less then half the population and more then
double the crime.

I know that New York City has very strict gun laws. I
don't know about
Los Angeles. But things like this might make some
difference:
http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/0...and-their-guns



But Frank, when I wrote about Vermont with their almost
nonexistent
gun laws and extremely low murder rate you argued that it
was because
the Vermonters all lived in rural bliss and that other
places were
subjected to the pressures of living in urban environments.

But that doesn't seem to hold water as New York with its
8.5 million
population has far less crime then L.A. with less then
half the
population.

By the way, Detroit, with its paltry population of 673,225
has:
murder rate of 43.8
rape rate of 78.7
robbery of 513.5
crimes against property 3529.9
A city 1/12th the size of N.Y with a murder rate 26 times
higher?
Should we term it "the urban myth"?

Does Detroit do this?
http://reason.com/archives/2017/08/0...and-their-guns





well that's a nice red herring. I'm sure Vice Lords & Latin
Kings will giggle while reading it.

Frank, could you posit a possible meaning for the phrase,
"shall not be infringed" ? What ever could they have meant
by that?

Besides all that, harassment of citizens is not the same as
removing homicidal moslem maniacs from the community, which
is, in theory, why taxpayers pay taxes:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/nypd-office...ry?id=27757097

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Sunday, October 15, 2017 at 12:09:18 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:

well that's a nice red herring. I'm sure Vice Lords & Latin
Kings will giggle while reading it.

Frank, could you posit a possible meaning for the phrase,
"shall not be infringed" ? What ever could they have meant
by that?

As someone mentioned earlier, there is a long history of state and local gun regulation, even in the old West. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/02/op...ol-237490.html . Even the Colonies had gun control, prohibiting blacks, Catholics and immigrants (or some combination of the three) from owning guns. The states and cities could and did regulate gun ownership until 2010 and the 5/4 opinion in McDonald v. City of Chicago. The notion that gun ownership is somehow sacred and untouchable is nonsense. Even under the Second Amendment, reasonable regulation is permissible, although its political suicide in some states where guns have become religious articles.

-- Jay Beattie.

On 16/10/17 05:56, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 10/15/2017 2:31 AM, John B. wrote:


What is the legal definition of a "people killer gun"?

It's not a legal term, John. It's a descriptive term I'm using.

I'm including handguns and guns with firing rates over a certain limit.
Hunters and people controlling animals like agricultural pests (anything
from crows in corn to groundhogs in gardens) don't need to use handguns.
They don't need to fire ten rounds in five seconds. Those features (and
some other ones as well) are useful only for killing people.


An immobile injured or sick animal can be euthanized effectively with a
handgun. On the horse racing tracks they use a captive bolt pistol for
the job. I have heard of hunters carrying a pistol to finish the job.

When you encounter a mob of feral pigs or goats, for example, rapid fire
can be very useful in eradication programs. Perhaps not fully automatic,
because aiming is not really possible, but certainly semiauto can be
very useful.

You can argue that a tradesman doesn't necessarily "need" a particular
tool, but should that prevent tradesmen from having access to that tool
if they find it useful? Should we go back to hand saws and files
because electric saws and angle grinders are the cause of many trips to
the ER?

--
JS