[RD] Florida School Shooting

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By what criteria are you determining the current laws aren't working? Because I use crime rates to determine whether or not laws are working and, as stated above, violent crimes including gun violence, have been on a steady decline for 27 years now.

Alternative facts ! (hey it worked for Republicans)


Were working with a different set of data Comm
Not just US violent crime rate which has been down, but when you compare violent crimes, mass shooting with other first world countries it dosnt look so good



 
Also crime victimisation rates have been on the decline, in general, across the rich world, for like two or three decades now. That's necessary background to discussion of any other trendline in any specific country or crime type. Saying "crime rates have gone down" isn't necessarily evidence that one specific issue isn't a problem.

(recorded crime can behave differently because of changed administrative practices over time, and cultural change towards higher reporting rates for certain things, especially assault)
 
Were working with a different set of data Comm
Not just US violent crime rate which has been down

Yeah, we are. You are comparing data between countries, which is largely irrelevant to the gun control discussion in the US. Sure, we have higher crime rates than other developed countries, but the crime rate is declining, including the number of violent crimes in which a firearm is used. That is the important statistic because the claim made by gun control advocates is that gun violence is on the rise. This claim is patently false according to the statistics.

And while the percentage of violent crimes committed in the US is increasingly dominated by gun violence, the overall number of violent crimes is still going down, which means gun violence is decreasing as well. For example: if 100 violent crimes are committed in one year with 30% of them being gun-related, and the next year 40% of all violent crimes are gun-related, but there were only 50 total violent crimes, then gun violence still decreased despite taking up a larger percentage of violent crimes.

So it's not that either one of us is using "alternative facts", it's just we are using two different sets of facts that are both accurate, but one set of facts is just not relevant to the discussion. And I'm not trying to insult you by saying that, I'm just saying that the stats you are using may point to another issue worth discussing, but it doesn't really address the specific claims made by gun control advocates in the US.
 
On it's own, that looks like an absolutely terrible amount of gun deaths. However, even if we assume that there were 38,000 individual gun owners that committed those acts, that number is statistically insignificant when compared to the total number of gun owners in the US. Roughly a third of Americans claim to be gun owners, which means there are roughly 106 million gun owners in the US. That means, at most, 0.04% of gun owners use their guns to kill another human being. 0.04% is hardly what I'd call an "epidemic".
Just to clarify, among the 38,000 gun-related deaths, about two thirds are suicides. So it's not technically about killing "another" human being.

0.04% is hardly what I'd call an "epidemic".
We could say the same about road vehicles or airplane trafic. That doesn't mean that enhancing security shouldn't be done, even if that means heavier controls.

Another claim that gets made by the gun control crowd is that gun violence is on the rise. This is a claim that is 100% false. All violent crime, including gun violence have been on a steady decline in the US since 1990 and shows no sign of stopping that decline.
According to most figures I've found, gun violence is on the rise again since 2014. It's still too short though to make that a general trend. Nevertheless, the number of homicides has risen sharply in the last 3 years: from 14,500 homicides in 2014 to 17,250 in 2016.

Here is a graph comparing the number of homicides per year in the US with the cumulated one in the 5 largest EU countries (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain).
- The total population for the US was of 245 million in 1988 and 324 million in 2016.
- The total population of the 5 European countries was of 272 million in 1988 and 323 million in 2016.

 
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Geez, what happened in 1994 in those European countries?
 
Let me add/clarify so as to address your question/comment:

There are already requirements for local/state/federal agencies to report criminal convictions, mental health adjudications, etc to the federal databases that are utilized for the NICS background check system.
Yet many state (and even federal) agencies are not currently doing so. Steps should be taken to ensure that those reportings are being done--that existing requirements are being followed. If states complain that they lack the resources to do so, then increase federal funding so that they can comply with the requirements. Penalize states or federal agencies that are intentionally not complying with the process/requirements. Steps can and should be taken to improve the performance and effectiveness of the existing (as its designed) process.

If your vehicle is not running properly you can take it to a mechanic to fix/tune up that which is not working. Purchasing a new vehicle because your old one isn't running properly is not the only solution.

And yes, I believe that fixing the existing process would improve the process (so in essence make for more effective gun control).

I am saying that steps should be taken to make sure that the existing layers work (as they were designed). And I am saying that this should be done first, before new/additional requirements are added to the process.

Assumed in this would be that the existing "layers" were ever designed to work. There is no indication that they were. In fact, by all appearances they were specifically designed to not work...unless the meaning of "work" is "do not impede the profitable production of small arms for the US market in any way." All the futzing around in the world with making background checks better won't change the fact that straw purchases that bypass the system completely are allowed by design...but as long as the gun lobby can keep the discussion contained to "what can we do to make this background check business smoother/better/ more effective" they don't have to worry about any actual progress being made. Meanwhile their operatives can continue feeding their parrots with "what we need to do is arm the teachers, hur de hur" nonsense.
 
Everyone agrees that "arm the teachers" is insane charlatanism, right?
 
My responses in blue below (within your post)

Yeah, that's gonna be additional bureaucracy at a minimum and probably increased penalties to provide a stick for recalcitrant agencies to actually do the enforcement. It would be a fairly big step change towards actual regulatory oversight, and a fairly major reform of state-federal relations in this policy area.

It might be but I think it makes more sense. A major focus of the law is to keep guns out of the hands of those who are mentally ill. If 40% of states are not bothering to report into the database those who are mentally ill, then that is a flaw that any enhanced system may continue to suffer from.

Bureaucracy that doesn't want to change and whose local masters don't want it to change, can be very difficult to reform. I reckon it'd be a hell of a fight to be honest. Getting all the states and local governments to act as effective agents of gun regulation, potentially against the wishes of constituents? That might be a fight comparable with just changing the laws to bypass states and create a new federal licensing and registration bureaucracy.

That could (potentially) run into constitutional issues regarding what states are entitled to do and what the federal government is prohibited from doing under the US Constitution.

I'd also mention things like safe storage requirements where they already exist - I bet they're terribly enforced as a rule?

There might be some individual states that have this requirement (I'm not sure).
In the case of the shooter at the Parkland High School shooting in Florida the family that the shooter was staying with required that he keep his firearms in a locked gun safe. They thought that they had the only key (apparently the shooter had a 2nd key of his own).


In Australia, a condition of firearms licenses is that police can and do go and physically check on registered owners' storage methods from time to time ensure they meet the legal requirements. When someone gets a firearm license they sign a legally binding undertaking called a statutory declaration (I assume the US has similar) to that effect, which makes failure to properly store firearms a civil offence. Something like that is the difference between having a law on the books and actually enforcing it, and yeah as you say, it requires more resources and actual consequences.

Some US states require a person to obtain a license/permit before they can legally obtain a firearm. Other states do not.
I'm not sure whether any states have such a requirement as you describe for Australia.

When I lived up in Chicago, IL, the state required that a person interested in purchasing a firearm first had to apply and be approved for a "Firearm Owners Identification card. Only then could you purchase a firearm.
One of the stipulations though for such an approval was that the local law enforcement agency where you lived had to approve as well. Chicago also had a requirement that all firearms must be registered with the city, but they refused to approve any FOID requests. The Chicago Police Department simply refused to approve anyone. In essence, after 1982 it was legally impossible for a Chicago resident to legally purchase a firearm. Chicago's actions essentially meant that no one could legally obtain a firearm in Chicago. In 2010 the United States Supreme Court (essentially) ruled that what Chicago was doing was unconstitutional.
McDonald v. City of Chicago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago

I have now lived in the State of Florida for 17+ years. Florida does not have a requirement to obtain a license/permit before purchasing a firearm. You still must undergo a background check. And if you wish to "conceal carry" your firearm, then you do have to apply for a permit for that (and undergo another background check, as well as go through a firearms training class).
 
Assumed in this would be that the existing "layers" were ever designed to work. There is no indication that they were. In fact, by all appearances they were specifically designed to not work...unless the meaning of "work" is "do not impede the profitable production of small arms for the US market in any way." All the futzing around in the world with making background checks better won't change the fact that straw purchases that bypass the system completely are allowed by design...but as long as the gun lobby can keep the discussion contained to "what can we do to make this background check business smoother/better/ more effective" they don't have to worry about any actual progress being made. Meanwhile their operatives can continue feeding their parrots with "what we need to do is arm the teachers, hur de hur" nonsense.

So what is your solution then?
 
The 'direct evidence' in question was, IIRC, a YouTube comment. The right-wing media has been portraying this as the "FBI dropping the ball", in order to pretend that the problem isn't the guns, but I have no idea to what extent this is true. I would consider evidence that the FBI's own procedures in such cases were not followed to be evidence of 'dropping the ball' but I've seen no actual explanation of this, just headlines and "trending" topics.

Ah okay, that's good. If we can blame the FBI we can pretend there's no need to take action on guns!


So first you make an incorrect statement claiming that the direct evidence was a YouTube comment and that the right-wing media portrayed it as the FBI dropping the ball. You then say what would actually count as evidence that the FBI did drop the ball.

Next, when it was then shown to you the fact the the FBI admitted it didn't follow it's procedures, and that a close relative of the shooter had contacted the FBI in addition to the YouTuber, as well as the 39 incidents of the police showing up at his house, all of which I have already brought up in this thread, you respond, not by acknowledging that by your own previous comment this was in fact the FBI dropping the ball, but instead by completely misunderstanding what @ chijohnaok said by implying he said we don't need to take any action. He then responded by giving a number of realistic actions that could be taken, which show that what you previously said was also false, to which you respond with "see?"

As far is dishonest discussions and bad faith arguments, it doesn't get much worse than this.

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Yeah, we are. You are comparing data between countries, which is largely irrelevant to the gun control discussion in the US. Sure, we have higher crime rates than other developed countries, but the crime rate is declining, including the number of violent crimes in which a firearm is used. That is the important statistic because the claim made by gun control advocates is that gun violence is on the rise. This claim is patently false according to the statistics.

And while the percentage of violent crimes committed in the US is increasingly dominated by gun violence, the overall number of violent crimes is still going down, which means gun violence is decreasing as well. For example: if 100 violent crimes are committed in one year with 30% of them being gun-related, and the next year 40% of all violent crimes are gun-related, but there were only 50 total violent crimes, then gun violence still decreased despite taking up a larger percentage of violent crimes.

So it's not that either one of us is using "alternative facts", it's just we are using two different sets of facts that are both accurate, but one set of facts is just not relevant to the discussion. And I'm not trying to insult you by saying that, I'm just saying that the stats you are using may point to another issue worth discussing, but it doesn't really address the specific claims made by gun control advocates in the US.
Here's a graph that proves that indeed, the more there are guns legally owned in a US state, the highest will be its gun-related death toll.



And if we look more closely at the Australian case, they did limit gun access in 1996 which indeed reduced the number of gun-related deaths. The graph below shows the evolution of Australian firearm suicide rate:



If you want to know more, here's the source page with other pretty convincing charts:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts
 
So what is your solution then?

Registered ownership. If you want to sell your registered property you are responsible for the buyer being properly registered as the new owner themselves. If your registered property does any harm you are legally liable for the damage. If vetting someone to be a legal buyer takes a while and you are desperate to sell right now, too bad, go whine, or go sell to someone else who has been vetted. License to purchase or own subject to regular renewal, with repeat vetting. Every weapon documented to the registered owner through a modern database rather than the current pen, paper, and file cabinet system.

That's a start.
 
So first you make an incorrect statement claiming that the direct evidence was a YouTube comment and that the right-wing media portrayed it as the FBI dropping the ball. You then say what would actually count as evidence that the FBI did drop the ball.

Next, when it was then shown to you the fact the the FBI admitted it didn't follow it's procedures, and that a close relative of the shooter had contacted the FBI in addition to the YouTuber, as well as the 39 incidents of the police showing up at his house, all of which I have already brought up in this thread, you respond, not by acknowledging that by your own previous comment this was in fact the FBI dropping the ball, but instead by completely misunderstanding what @ chijohnaok said by implying he said we don't need to take any action. He then responded by giving a number of realistic actions that could be taken, which show that what you previously said was also false, to which you respond with "see?"

I said straight out in my post that I have no idea to what extent it is true that the FBI dropped the ball, and was happy to get the information in the response. As for "taking action" you clearly read a different post than mine, because there are zero serious suggestions of action to be taken in the post to which I responded "see?"

Perhaps more effort should be placed into fixing the current process, making sure that those responsible for the process are doing their jobs, before you decide to add another layer to the process.

I suppose this line is what you think of as "realistic actions that could be taken," but to me this is just an obviously bad-faith non-suggestion. It is a way of saying nothing really needs to be done while pretending to care about the issue.

As far is dishonest discussions and bad faith arguments, it doesn't get much worse than this.

Buddy, you've seen nothing yet. For example, there is a form of bad faith called "concern trolling" that you should probably look up.
 
Is that how Australia does it?

No idea. Perhaps @Arwon can let us know. I was basically just stealing the regulations regarding ownership of cars in the US.

Cue the NRA parrot chorus for a rousing rendition of "the constitution doesn't protect your right to own cars."

Meanwhile, to show people what you are up against, the alt-right echo chamber is currently sharing proof that this was a false flag operation conducted by anti-second amendment activist elements within the FBI.
 
Is that how Australia does it?

Basically yeah. Licensing which involves a police check and an undertaking to store guns safely. Registration of all firearms.

This was achieved in each state and territory via a cooperative harmonisation process - we are a federation and we don't have federal laws for firearms ownership, licensing and registration. The 1996 process of buybacks, licensing expansion and regulation tightening, was a cooperative venture of the nine Australian governments. National policy preferences being negotiated and then implemented by the states and territories is a relatively common policy process in Australia where the constitutional blocks on the federal government are an issue - in this csse John Howard's role was getting the states to sign on.

Licenses fall into categories with a general one for sport shooters and farmers, and then specialist ones for collectors and for occupations like armourers, security, and theatrical productions. Part of the process of pursuing a license is identifying the "reason" for the license and self-defence isn't one. You also sign a legally binding undertaking to store your firearms in a locked cabinet and there are occasional inspections on this.

In practice one criticism leveled at the state and territory licenses is they're rarely refused but I think the general consensus is going through the process is a decent impediment to many problematic people.

Basically as a city dweller with no occupational needs I could get a gun, but to get the license I would need to join a sport shooting or hunting club, I'd have obligations to store it well. And I'd really only be allowed to use it at such shooting venues.
 
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Well, clearly drawing inspiration from Australia is off the table, since not letting people have guns for self-defense makes them a blood-soaked Stalinist tyranny.
 
Just to clarify, among the 38,000 gun-related deaths, about two thirds are suicides. So it's not technically about killing "another" human being.

Yes, I was just using "worst case scenario" statistics to show that even when portrayed in its absolute worst light, gun violence still isn't the epidemic the gun control advocates claim it to be.

We could say the same about road vehicles or airplane trafic. That doesn't mean that enhancing security shouldn't be done, even if that means heavier controls.

Sure, but that's not specifically what I'm arguing against with this current line of discussion. What I'm arguing against is the fearmongering being used by gun control advocates when they describe gun violence as an "epidemic" or as a "crisis". Statistically, it is neither one of those things, but gun control advocates have to try to make it seem like it is, otherwise no one would even give them the time of day in this debate.

Here is a graph comparing the number of homicides per year in the US with the cumulated one in the 5 largest EU countries (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain)

I've already explained why comparing data between countries is irrelevant to the specific debate about gun control in the US. The claims being made by gun control advocates in the US make that data irrelevant since their claims mostly revolve specifically around the crime rate here in the US.

Here's a graph that proves that indeed, the more there are guns legally owned in a US state, the highest will be its gun-related death toll.

Okay. That just makes sense. More guns, means increased chance for gun violence. I don't think anyone seriously argues against that point. Overall though, gun violence is on the decline, and has been for some time now. As you state, there has been a recent spike in it, but that has happened occasionally since the steady decline started in 1990 so we'll have to wait and see if this is a real increase or just a small statistical aberration before it continues to decline again.

And if we look more closely at the Australian case, they did limit gun access in 1996

After looking it up, I wouldn't necessarily say they limited gun ownership, just kept better tabs on those that did own guns. After looking up the numbers and doing some quick math (mans can never be hot) there are an estimated 5.7 million gun owners in Australia which is about 24% of the population. So proportionally, gun ownership in Australia really isn't that much lower than in the US. In fact, in my searching I found several articles that say gun ownership in Australia is actually on the rise again, yet violence remains low.

Perhaps that may point to gun access not being the problem, but rather some cultural or societal difference between the US and Australia that leads to our higher rate of gun violence.

Registered ownership. If you want to sell your registered property you are responsible for the buyer being properly registered as the new owner themselves. If your registered property does any harm you are legally liable for the damage. If vetting someone to be a legal buyer takes a while and you are desperate to sell right now, too bad, go whine, or go sell to someone else who has been vetted. License to purchase or own subject to regular renewal, with repeat vetting. Every weapon documented to the registered owner through a modern database rather than the current pen, paper, and file cabinet system.

If that's really what you want to see, I have no disagreement with this. The only thing I probably wouldn't like about it is the inevitable fees that would come with such a registration process. That's not too big of a deal though as I'd treat that fee like I treat my car registration fee: something I roll my eyes at, but still do because I see the need for it. Registration of weapons has never been something I have contested. It's only outright bans and confiscations that don't sit well with me.
 
Yes, I was just using "worst case scenario" statistics to show that even when portrayed in its absolute worst light, gun violence still isn't the epidemic the gun control advocates claim it to be.

So if a preventable infectious disease were killing tens of thousands of Americans per year, you wouldn't consider that to be an 'epidemic'? AIDS was killing comparable numbers of people (tens of thousands per year) for a long time, and that was referred to as an 'epidemic'.


What I'm arguing against is the fearmongering being used by gun control advocates when they describe gun violence as an "epidemic" or as a "crisis". Statistically, it is neither one of those things,

Maybe you can tell us the "statistical definition" of an "epidemic" or "crisis", then?

Registration of weapons has never been something I have contested. It's only outright bans and confiscations that don't sit well with me.

I think registration, with attached criminal liability if you don't report it lost or stolen, is likely to be far more effective than either outright bans or confiscation at reducing gun violence.
 
I have now lived in the State of Florida for 17+ years. Florida does not have a requirement to obtain a license/permit before purchasing a firearm. You still must undergo a background check. And if you wish to "conceal carry" your firearm, then you do have to apply for a permit for that (and undergo another background check, as well as go through a firearms training class).

And if I own a firearm that I no longer want am I responsible for making sure you have completed this background check? No, I'm not. So that "must undergo a background check" isn't actually true, is it?
 
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