Senate to vote on gun bill tomorrow

[Denny Crane]

The main feature they're talking about on MSNBC, and that they've been talking about most places I see for a while now, is instant background checks. These checks are supposedly supported by 84% of the people in some poll that those who'd trample on 2nd amendment gun rights like to cite.

I don't get it. I can't think of any incident, particularly the ones that supposedly require action against 2nd amendment rights, that instant checks would have made any difference at all.

Do explain.

 

[oldguy]

There is no explaination. If the anti-gun crowd can't take the guns in one fell swoop, they will take whatever they can get every time there is an incident that plays on people's emotions.

How many people were injured in the knife attack yesterday? 14?

Should we start requiring instant backgroud checks before you can purchase a knife? Limit the length of knives?

I will continue to vote against any politician that represents me when they vote to infringe on my 2nd amendment rights. Because they don't represent me for shit. And, I don't give a crap whether they are a D or an R.

w/e

Go Blazers

 

[RR7]

Are you oppose to background checks in general, denny?

 

[donkiez]

The main feature they're talking about on MSNBC, and that they've been talking about most places I see for a while now, is instant background checks. These checks are supposedly supported by 84% of the people in some poll that those who'd trample on 2nd amendment gun rights like to cite.

I don't get it. I can't think of any incident, particularly the ones that supposedly require action against 2nd amendment rights, that instant checks would have made any difference at all.

Do explain.

Nothing to really get, the opposition is so great and the other potential fixes for this issues are so unrealistic, from both pro and con crowd. This is the perfect political compromise, do nothing except pass a bill with Gun in the headline so everyone can be happy and politicians can pat themselves on the back.... till the next kindergarten shoot out at least.

 

[Denny Crane]

Are you oppose to background checks in general, denny?

The logic escapes me, frankly.

Unlike abortion rights, gun rights are specifically spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Yet if you were to have some sort of background check on women before they could have an abortion, even if the check took 5 minutes, the outcry would be deafening.

And yeah, you can make the comparison between the two for this purpose.

I'm pro choice, FWIW.

 

[donkiez]

I think the comparison is better made vs gay marriage, but I get your point.

 

[Further]

Cry me a fucking river if you have to get checked out before owing a gun. It may not catch a bunch of people, but even if it keeps guns out of the occasional persons hand who would do ill with a gun, then it's worth it.

 

[Denny Crane]

Cry me a fucking river if you have to get checked out before owing a gun. It may not catch a bunch of people, but even if it keeps guns out of the occasional persons hand who would do ill with a gun, then it's worth it.

Doesn't seem to catch anyone.

 

[oldguy]

Rights? Rights? We don't need no steenk'n rights!

Baaaaaa

Go Blazers

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

I like the idea of the checks and then every few years or so afterwards.

 

[RR7]

The logic escapes me, frankly.

Unlike abortion rights, gun rights are specifically spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Yet if you were to have some sort of background check on women before they could have an abortion, even if the check took 5 minutes, the outcry would be deafening.

And yeah, you can make the comparison between the two for this purpose.

I'm pro choice, FWIW.

You say it doesn't catch anyone, and that's just false. Did it catch people that carried out recent gun attacks? No. Can you list me how many people were turned down from buying a gun because of a background check? They stop people for different reasons for purchasing guns, and you can't say how many if any of them would have done something violent had they purchased one.

As for infringing on rights laid out in the constitution, we have freedom of the press and freedom of speech. We have laws that limit that freedom. Rightfully so in some situations, I'd say. You can't just print whatever you want without consequences. I can't say I have a bomb in an airport, I can't yell fire in a crowded theater, etc. Are you opposed to these awful limits on our freedom as well? They made the laws 200 years ago. It's ok to accept that they didn't get it perfect 200 years ago. But yes, god forbid we background check to make sure criminals are not trying to purchase guns, because it hurts YOUR right to bear arms.

 

[Denny Crane]

You say it doesn't catch anyone, and that's just false. Did it catch people that carried out recent gun attacks? No. Can you list me how many people were turned down from buying a gun because of a background check? They stop people for different reasons for purchasing guns, and you can't say how many if any of them would have done something violent had they purchased one.

As for infringing on rights laid out in the constitution, we have freedom of the press and freedom of speech. We have laws that limit that freedom. Rightfully so in some situations, I'd say. You can't just print whatever you want without consequences. I can't say I have a bomb in an airport, I can't yell fire in a crowded theater, etc. Are you opposed to these awful limits on our freedom as well? They made the laws 200 years ago. It's ok to accept that they didn't get it perfect 200 years ago. But yes, god forbid we background check to make sure criminals are not trying to purchase guns, because it hurts YOUR right to bear arms.

You can't say that anyone stopped would have murdered anyone with the guns they tried to purchase. The presumption is with the individual's innocence. What is clear is there are checks and people get guns and kill children at a school anyway.

Say you pass a check and buy a gun and then a bad guy steals it from your house during a burglary. How are you going to check that?

http://bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4534 says 232,400 guns are stolen each year.

You can print whatever you want. The consequences are civil 99.999% of the time (wikileaks is an exception because it's considered treason).

 

[mook]

I think it might have more impact than some might think. A great example might be found in organ donor rates. In countries where you have to opt-in to donate your organs, the rates are fantastically lower than in countries where you have to opt-out of being a donor:

But you will notice that pairs of similar countries have very different levels of organ donations. For example, take the following pairs of countries: Denmark and Sweden; the Netherlands and Belgium; Austria and Germany (and depending on your individual perspective France and the UK). These are countries that we usually think of as rather similar in terms of culture, religion, etc., yet their levels of organ donations are very different.

So, what could explain these differences? It turns out that it is the design of the form at the DMV. In countries where the form is set as “opt-in” (check this box if you want to participate in the organ donation program) people do not check the box and as a consequence they do not become a part of the program. In countries where the form is set as “opt-out” (check this box if you don’t want to participate in the organ donation program) people also do not check the box and are automatically enrolled in the program. In both cases large proportions of people simply adopt the default option.

You might think that people do this because they don’t care. That the decision about donating their organs is so trivial that they can’t be bothered to lift up the pencil and check the box. But in fact the opposite is true. This is a hard emotional decision about what will happen to our bodies after we die and what effect it will have on our those close to us. It is because of the difficulty and the emotionality of these decisions that they just don’t know what to do so they adopt the default option (by the way this also happens to physicians making medical decisions, and also to people making investment and retirement decisions).

The organ donation issue is just one example of the influence of rather “small” changes in the environment (opt-in vs. opt-out) on our decisions. The more general point is that the environment has a large effect on our behaviors-suggesting that if we want to have a validly descriptive model of human behavior we must incorporate the environmental variables into our models.

Obviously, this is quite a different piece of legislation. But I think you can see the point--a seemingly minor shift in legislation can have significant impact in real-world outcomes.

Personally, I doubt we'll ever see a headline where a mass shooting was prevented by background checks. But it seems pretty likely that some percentage of deranged people will be deterred by even a minor inconvenience, whether they are actually caught in the check or just deterred by a paranoid fear of the check. As an avid gun owner, I find that acceptable enough of a reason to support background checks. I can see how a reasonable person could disagree with that, though.

 

[Denny Crane]

The really deranged will steal a gun or find some other means (like knives, bow and arrow, whatever)

 

[oldguy]

You do get it that they already do require background checks, right? They make up these new laws after some nutjob kills someone. But the laws made in response to the incident don't have anything to do with what happened.

I like Denny's anaolgy. No background checks to kill babies. Lots more babies killed than people shot with guns. Why aren't you same anti-gunners clamoring for background checks and registration for any woman that requests an abortion? How would anyone make a case that isn't hypocritical?

Go Blazers

 

[Denny Crane]

You do get it that they already do require background checks, right? They make up these new laws after some nutjob kills someone. But the laws made in response to the incident don't have anything to do with what happened.

I like Denny's anaolgy. No background checks to kill babies. Lots more babies killed than people shot with guns. Why aren't you same anti-gunners clamoring for background checks and registration for any woman that requests an abortion? How would anyone make a case that isn't hypocritical?

Go Blazers

To be clear, my analogy was intended to point out that obstructing a person's Natural Right to "whatever" isn't a good thing under any circumstance.

 

[oldguy]

I like the idea of the checks and then every few years or so afterwards.

Do you think there should be background checks on women before they are allowed to kill their babies? I'm really coming around to that.

Once that law is in place, I think all women of child bearing years should have to submit to government pregnacy testing every six months. That way Big Brother can make sure that nobody gets an abortion without the background check.

Go Blazers

 

[oldguy]

To be clear, my analogy was intended to point out that obstructing a person's Natural Right to "whatever" isn't a good thing under any circumstance.

I get that. What I'm asking is why people that think it's fine to slowly erode one kind of rights don't press eroding the rights of people doing a lot more killing.

Go Blazers

 

[RR7]

You do get it that they already do require background checks, right? They make up these new laws after some nutjob kills someone. But the laws made in response to the incident don't have anything to do with what happened.

I like Denny's anaolgy. No background checks to kill babies. Lots more babies killed than people shot with guns. Why aren't you same anti-gunners clamoring for background checks and registration for any woman that requests an abortion? How would anyone make a case that isn't hypocritical?

Go Blazers

They require background checks, but then you can still buy them elsewhere without one. So why have them in the first place with a giant loophole readily available?

Do you think felons should be allowed to purchase guns?

 

[mook]

I get that. What I'm asking is why people that think it's fine to slowly erode one kind of rights don't press eroding the rights of people doing a lot more killing.

Go Blazers

The majority of Americans don't view abortion as "killing." If they did, I think it'd be a strong argument.

 

[mook]

The really deranged will steal a gun or find some other means (like knives, bow and arrow, whatever)

Every time, always, forever?

Obviously not. Laws matter. Restrictions matter. Or else there wouldn't be any.

Just look at suicidal people. I've known a few, and one remarkable trait is the sense that they just give up on everything. It's all too much of a goddamned hassle. If somebody in that state of mind tries to buy a gun to shoot himself and is thwarted by a background check, there's a definite chance they'll just give up.

 

[RR7]

The really deranged will steal a gun or find some other means (like knives, bow and arrow, whatever)

Why really have any laws, then? When people will break them.
Yes, some will steal a gun. Some will not, and instead go with a knife, like the attack mentioned above. Thing is, in that attack, nobody died from the knife wounds. What if he had easy access to a gun?

 

[Denny Crane]

Every time, always, forever?

Obviously not. Laws matter. Restrictions matter. Or else there wouldn't be any.

Just look at suicidal people. I've known a few, and one remarkable trait is the sense that they just give up on everything. It's all too much of a goddamned hassle. If somebody in that state of mind tries to buy a gun to shoot himself and is thwarted by a background check, there's a definite chance they'll just give up.

Every time, always and forever. Indeed!

Laws do matter. Laws against killing don't prevent killing, they're just applied after the fact as remedy (penalty).

 

[Denny Crane]

Why really have any laws, then? When people will break them.
Yes, some will steal a gun. Some will not, and instead go with a knife, like the attack mentioned above. Thing is, in that attack, nobody died from the knife wounds. What if he had easy access to a gun?

Funny thing is if they outlawed guns, there'd immediately be hundreds of millions of people breaking the law (owning guns). Funny how that works, eh?

 

[RR7]

They don't prevent it 100% of the time, no. And I bet no law is 100% effective. So again, why bother?

 

[Denny Crane]

They don't prevent it 100% of the time, no. And I bet no law is 100% effective. So again, why bother?

Exactly. Make laws penalizing people for using guns in a bad way and prosecute.

There's the win.

You don't prevent anything other than people having freedom.

 

[RR7]

do you think anyone should be allowed to own guns, felons, etc.?

 

[Denny Crane]

do you think anyone should be allowed to own guns, felons, etc.?

Felons do own guns.

It isn't a question of "should be allowed."

Wouldn't it be smart that when they're caught with a gun they shouldn't have, they're thrown in jail, mandatory, for 25 years?

 

[RR7]

Do you think they should be allowed to purchase guns like anyone else?

 

[MARIS61]

The logic escapes me, frankly.

Unlike abortion rights, gun rights are specifically spelled out in the Bill of Rights. Yet if you were to have some sort of background check on women before they could have an abortion, even if the check took 5 minutes, the outcry would be deafening.

And yeah, you can make the comparison between the two for this purpose.

I'm pro choice, FWIW.

Better example would be a background check on women before they can have sex.