Lies Gun Grabbers Tell, or, How to Educate Your Progressive Friends on Guns

I couldn't care less about what the rest of the civilized world thinks on the matter, and I doubt that designation considers some places like Bosnia or the Czech Republic, but I'm with you on the merits of some restrictions. Waiting periods, universal (free) background checks, detachable magazine limits, bump stock bans all get my support. I also think it's unconstitutional to implement any of them without amending the Second.
 
Lie 5.) The Gun Show Loophole

The Gun Show Loophole is one we've all heard. Gunless bad guy, fresh from prison with a violent felony conviction, knows he can't pass a background check to buy a gun in a gun store. Our bad guy comes up with a nefarious plot, he'll go to a gun show where he can buy guns from various seedy arms dealers without having to pass a background check!

Fortunately, this scenario is stuff and nonsense. Any commercial dealer of firearms has to run a background on any purchaser, unless the purchaser has something like a state issued carry permit that meets the requirement.

The only loophole is in private party sales. Private parties are not required to run background checks when selling a gun second hand. Since private parties don't have the ability to run background checks, the only alternative to this policy is to ban private party sales.

Regardless, the Gun Show Loophole does not exist.
 
Jaw said:
Waiting periods, universal (free) background checks, detachable magazine limits, bump stock bans all get my support.
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It amazes me that we can't even get policies like this passed despite 80-90% of support across all Americans in some cases. Truly symbolic of the American political gridlock we've seen for the majority of this century.
 
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Lie 6.) Gun purchases, Amazon Prime style!

This one is short and sweet, has surprised more people than seems possible. You can buy guns online. Lots of them. New, used, antique, tiny, huge, as many as you want. The world wide web is chock full of glorious blue and stainless steel firearms for you to purchase and have shipped. Some places even offer overnight shipping.

What none of them offer, is shipping to your house. That's because every gun has to be shipped to a licensed federal firearms dealer in your state for you to pick up there, after meeting the background check requirement. So there's no bad guy loophole here either, no working around the system, no Glocks in the mailbox.
 
McCann'sCans said:
It amazes me that we can't even get policies like this passed despite 80-90% of support across all Americans in some cases. Truly symbolic of the American political gridlock we've seen for the majority of this century.
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I think the bad actors on both sides have poisoned the well, which is why I wish any restrictions were done via amendment.
Gun control advocates remember the assault weapons ban and see what happened when it expired, so they believe the NRA types are always going to work for no restrictions. Gun rights types see people calling for confiscation or NY/Cali laws nationwide and believe that allowing any restriction is just a step towards total restriction.

I think both groups are correct, which is why I believe a revamped Second Amendment that clearly states what restrictions are national, what rights are guaranteed, and what is at the discretion of states, is the only way forward. I also think it's the type of red meat divisive issue that both enjoy having in the toolbox too much to compromise on.
 
Tapate50 said:
Curious how educated you were on them before you read through this. Fully educated or were there any surprises in there ?
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Of the "lies" listed none of them strike me as significant to the debate. But I'm always happy to learn something that corrects a misapprehension I might have had. Which is the case with #5.
 
Jaw said:
Lie 3.) Assault rifles

The guns commonly referred to by gun control advocates and the media (but I repeat myself) as "assault rifles" are actually semi automatic rifles. This means that the gun will fire exactly one bullet with each pull of the trigger. True assault rifles are used by the military and are capable of firing more than one bullet with a pull of the trigger. Civilians actually can obtain equivalent weapons, but they come at great cost, require the same in depth background check described above, are stored in ATF databases, and must be produced on demand at the request of lawmakers.

To review, this is a semi automatic rifle that I used to use to squirrel hunt, when I was 10:
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And this is also a semi automatic rifle that fires the same bullet as the rifle above:
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You are correct here. And it's frustrating to see people make that mistake.

That being said, the top gun also doesn't have the attachments the bottom gun does, making the top gun inherently less deadly overall. The bottom gun certainly isn't used for hunting. I hunt occasionally (may be once a year). Most of my friends/family hunt. I've never known them to use their AR15 hunting. Pretty much all of them own one because they are fun to shoot and they look cool. It is, I believe, the most popular gun in the US. Simply put, it isn't a super practical gun. If I asked them, I'm sure they mention something about home protection, but a shotgun is just as easy to use and WAY more effective since you don't have to be very accurate.
 
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nsacpi said:
Of the "lies" listed none of them strike me as significant to the debate. But I'm always happy to learn something that corrects a misapprehension I might have had. Which is the case with #5.
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Agreed. I definitely learned something in both #5 and #6, but none of them are particularly relevant to the debate. Could that same guy fresh from prison go to a gun show and easily buy an AR from a private seller without a background check? Yes. Could I go on Armslist right now and buy a gun that gets delivered to my house without a background check? Yes.
 
Carp said:
You are correct here. And it's frustrating to see people make that mistake.

That being said, the top gun also doesn't have the attachments the bottom gun does, making the top gun inherently less deadly overall. The bottom gun certainly isn't used for hunting. I hunt occasionally (may be once a year). Most of my friends/family hunt. I've never known them to use their AR15 hunting. Pretty much all of them own one because they are fun to shoot and they look cool. It is, I believe, the most popular gun in the US. Simply put, it isn't a super practical gun. If I asked them, I'm sure they mention something about home protection, but a shotgun is just as easy to use and WAY more effective since you don't have to be very accurate.
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Cheap, parts are interchangeable, and it fits smaller shooters.

The AR platform is popular with youth shooters. My son has taken several deer with a .223
 
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Please don't buy a gun for home delivery on Armslist. You'll almost certainly just be scammed and the gun never shipped. It would only be legal if you're both in the same state anyway, and I don't think anyone you want to trust with that type of value is going to be willing to ship it to someone they haven't met.

I do wish background checks were more accessible, that would be an easy way to stop this without hindering lawful p2p transfers.
 
Tapate50 said:
Cheap, parts are interchangeable, and it fits smaller shooters.

The AR platform is popular with youth shooters. My son has taken several deer with a .223
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Yeah I don't think there is a more popular platform for deer or hog hunting. Pre COVID there were plenty of $500 ARs that would outperform $800 traditional semiautomatic game rifles. I don't own one and don't especially want one, but the value blows any other hunting rifle out of the water.
 
I don't care if people use Guns. Just jack up the mandatory minimums for crimes committed with guns. Robbery say carries a 1 year minimum,if there's a gun, make it 10.

Also abolish the NRA, they are just the worst.
 
I’m probably not far off from Jaw as far as his bottom line about hypothetical remedies to the ambiguity in gun law and jurisprudence. I agree with what striker said in the SCOTUS thread about proposed gun regulations often tending to be reactive and not particularly efficacious. I would welcome legislation and jurisprudence that would make it more clear-cut and concrete. Jurisprudence around guns is in a ridiculous state, and I would welcome welcome more clarity about what the rights and responsibilities of the fed vs the states are, etc. IMO, Heller was one of the most egregiously bad SC decisions of my lifetime, not because I disagreed with the principle of the decision (I did) but because the legal reasoning of the opinion was just such blatant hocus-pocus horse****.

That said, while I admire the desire for objectivity and specificity in the conversation, I found the items I this thread to include a bit of fuzz and sleight-of-hand.

The Forbes article struck me as a bit propagandistic, but it even noted that the number of DGU is not known, and indeed hard to know. The Kleck analysis is considered to be high, and significantly so. It suggests some issues with over reporting that aren’t properly weighted. Further, we’re then comparing it with gun crime statistics in an effort to draw a conclusion about the relative safety of guns, which strikes me as intellectually dishonest. There are myriad well-reported problems with collecting that data, many of which result in it being undercounted. Whatever the case, not including it in a comparison purporting to assess gun safety is a bit of a trick.

Alongside that is my anecdotal observation that as many conversations that I’ve had with folks online and IRL over the years, everyone seems to express concern about restrictions on “responsible gun owners,” and how onerous those restrictions are. Could be true, as far as it goes, but I find that (“responsible gun owner”) to be a really nebulous term. You are until you aren’t, I guess. Like, I guess I’m not really sure that every single gun advocate I’ve ever crossed paths with is a responsible gun owner any more than any random person is a responsible motor vehicle operator. As I think I’ve said before, my personal reason for not having a firearm in the house is because I think it would be more likely to hurt someone in the household rather than protect same. Where I live, and in this era of a decades-long decrease in violent crime, I think that’s a smart bet. I have a lot more respect for gun advocates who will just admit that they think that guns are cool and fun than for people who try to make an extremely tenuous and cherry-picked case that guns make them safer, or worse yet, that the point of private gun ownership is eventual and ill-defined resistance to “tyranny.”
 
I think part of the issue is that if you are a responsible, law abiding gun owner, you are absolutely safer with the gun than without. Keeping a gun from doing anything bad is extremely easy. Anytime someone says there was an accidental discharge they're wrong, there's no such thing. What they are really talking about is a negligent discharge.

I have always had a hard time understanding why suicides are used to villainize guns, but a waiting period is a proven deterrent there. If the person still goes through with it several days later, they likely would have worked out another way without the gun.

I think all that leaves is what I think of as the only blameless victims, which is kids who manage to get their hands on a loaded gun thanks to an adult's carelessness and a child's curiosity. Requiring all guns to be sold with a manual safety would eliminate most of those. That combined with enforcing extreme punishment on the guilty adult would nearly eradicate the problem.
 
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