[MT2008]

I'm very happy to see that we're having a much more constructive dialogue here than what I have seen previously. This is the type of conversation I think that gun owners need to have a little more often.

Originally Posted by commando552

The UK licensing system works here, but there are a couple of parts that would never be accepted in America. First and foremost is the fact that in the UK, self defence is not an acceptable reason to own a firearm which would make a lot of Americans very unhappy. Secondly, in the UK you need to obtain permission for each new firearm you want to acquire (with the exception of regular shotguns or antique weapons), and give justification for why you want it. There are a few other parts which I think the USA could benefit from adopting, such as the requirement that firearms are locked up with only the license holder having access to them, along with limits on the amount of ammunition that can be stored, or purchased in one transaction.

Agreed, self-defense should be regarded as a perfectly acceptable reason for owning a firearm. But in my opinion, someone who does carry a firearm for self-defense also requires a greater level of scrutiny than those who wish to own firearms for recreation or hunting. I would not, for example, be comfortable approving a conceal-carry permit for a senile old dude who thinks that every black guy walking down the street is casing his house for a robbery. And while I sympathize with a woman who gets raped and applies for a conceal-carry permit in order to defeat future would-be rapists, I would still wonder whether she was of sound mind to carry (because she might be a little too paranoid to be trusted with a weapon).

(Both of these examples are based on real people who I've actually known, though neither of them ever tried to get carry permits.)

Originally Posted by commando552

Any changes in legislation that come in the following months need to be well thought out and reasoned, and not the knee jerk over-reactions that followed Hungerford and Dunblane massacres.

I agree that the sort of kneejerk reactions that followed massacres in the U.K. are certainly NOT the type of reaction I want to see. I have said many times that bans should, as a rule of thumb, be considered one extreme that is to be avoided. But I think that it is possible to acknowledge that an AR-15 is a far more dangerous weapon than a bolt-action hunting rifle, while simultaneously arguing that a ban on AR-15s would be unnecessary.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

I'm still not clear on the details of the shooting myself, but from what I heard A: he wasn't wearing body armor, and B: he didn't use his Bushmaster, just his pistols. If that's the case, then (even though in hysteria it doesn't matter) calling for an AWB in the wake of this shooting is really unfounded.

You are correct; it was indeed errant reporting. However, James Holmes was in fact wearing armor.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

No matter what weapon he used, I don't necessarily agree that someone is useless in this situation with a concealed handgun. Outgunned, definitely, but it's reasonable to say that you can make up with a lack of firepower with proper tactics. I'm not saying it's easy, just that it's conceivably doable, especially if the CCW has a reasonable amount of training/skill, and the shooter doesn't. Yes this is semantic, but it seems to be the case in most respects.

Maybe "useless" is too strong a word, but I have trouble imagining that anyone who doesn't use guns for a living (i.e. a well-trained police officer, federal agent, or soldier) would be able to defeat a well-armed perp with only a handgun. That sounds more like something from a movie than real life. In real life, there are plenty of examples of BGs with assault weapons outgunning scores of police officers who had only handguns (i.e. North Hollywood, though obviously, those were illegally converted full-auto AKs and ARs).

That being said, if I were in a building where a mass killer was loose, I would definitely prefer to have some type of gun than none at all.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

The other thing is the idea that mass shooters tend to quit at the first sign of resistance, because, again, they usually lack skill as well as coherence in the situation to understand that they can outgun a single person wielding a pistol with their rifle or whatever they are using, and just like in any other gunfight, they have to take in all this information at 200 miles an hour, where the shots are coming from, how many shots and with what, and given they're in a mass shooting solely to go out with a bang, they can come to the conclusion that they are beat (thats why they were there in the first place), and so they off themselves even if rationally they may have been able to win said gunfight against said concealed weapon holder.

Mass shooters may retreat when faced with resistance, but off themselves? The whole point of a mass killing is to get the highest possible body count, so I would expect a mass killer to retreat only so that he could survive long enough to kill more people. But simply give up completely and kill himself? I realize that the NRA has cited examples of shootings that were stopped by armed citizens, but is that really the norm?

You're also not taking into account the ways that mass killers might anticipate and try to mitigate this threat, like wearing body armor with trauma plates.

Also, recall that in Columbine, the two shooters exchanged gunfire with the school's security guard, and they didn't off themselves.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

No, I don't think an AWB will do anything to prevent mass shootings, it will only serve to restrict law abiding gun owners.

If a new AWB were passed (politically impossible, even after Newtown), and ATF could somehow confiscate all of the assault weapons in private hands (physically impossible), it would certainly deprive mass killers of their weapons-of-choice, and it might make these incidents less deadly. It will always be easier to buy an AR-15 and some 100-round drums than to learn how to build a bomb. The question is whether these incidents will become less common.

Also, the fact is that there are too many AWs now in private hands for a ban to ever work. It might make them more expensive or harder to get, but it will never eliminate the threat completely. So from a practical point of view, there is no reason to deprive law-abiding gun owners of their rights. I do, however, believe that we should consider laws to reduce proliferation of AWs in the wrong hands.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

Mag capacity is also not correlative to any of these crimes either, especially since VTech, the most violent shooting happened with nothing but 10 round mags. Granted it reduces reloads, practically speaking, giving people the chance to rush the shooter but rarely do shooters get rushed and taken down anyway (the Arizona shooting is an exception). And again, a ban isn't going to delete weapons or mags or bullets from existence (even if it could, we shouldn't want to be stripped of our great equalizers anyway) and just as well, a CW with as many rounds on tap as possible is a pawn for a pawn in that situation.

Yes, the VT shooter used 15-rounders in his Glock 19 (not 10-rounders; the AWB had expired by the time that incident took place). Obviously, it's possible to kill more people with lower magazine capacity. But that still doesn't mean that higher magazine capacity doesn't make it easier to shoot multiple victims in a short period of time. If there was no practical difference between ten 10-round magazines and one 100-round magazine, 100-round magazines wouldn't have been invented.

Originally Posted by Yournamehere

I agree with Matt frankly, you do consistently fail to use proper grammar or produce coherent thoughts or sentences, and it makes you seem uneducated and an easy target for those with whom you'd argue. I don't think he means to pick on you, he's just repressed the fair criticism to the point where it's just boiled over, and given the political climate at the time, we need both intelligent thinking and proper display of such to discuss these issues, that's all. It'd be worth it to either put the extra effort to make sure the voice you want heard is polished and coherent, or that you step aside from being a voice and do other things to benefit the collective cause.

Thank you for the support, though I still feel a need to respond to him anyway...