GTP
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Just mind boggling...no words
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Sky-Knight
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Need to know what state that's in. Here in Arizona you cannot sell a weapon at a gunshow without being a licensed dealer, and as a licensed dealer there's a background check made. Also, you have to be 18, or have a parent present.
These videos often omit this critical detail, and even in this specific case... there are states where it's legal for a 13 year old to purchase a small caliber rifle at 13. .22 qualifies, it's considered a toy almost. And, they aren't used in homicides or any criminal activity in any statistically significant numbers.
But sure, if you want to be alarmist about it you can be. But this is a state level issue in the US, Federal regulation can be made but considering how screwed up the states that did "gun control" did it... they aren't going to get much traction. That's why this issue is dead. We have one party that wants to control guns, do a piss poor job of it, upset a ton of people in the process. Against others that are so tired of the stupidity they refuse to listen to anything anymore.
So we're in a place where you need an amendment to fix it, that requires a stupid amount of support in Congress, which won't happen because of the above. Convince the gun control activists in the US to actually negotiate in good faith, and eventually... we may see something shift in a positive way. Until then, you've got people that will literally die on this hill.
P.S. Much of what I said above is explored in the comments. Which brought up another point of interest...
You cannot even enter a gun show without an adult present. Which makes this footage utterly staged, old man sold the gun because mom was standing right there. This video is pure propaganda.
These videos often omit this critical detail, and even in this specific case... there are states where it's legal for a 13 year old to purchase a small caliber rifle at 13. .22 qualifies, it's considered a toy almost. And, they aren't used in homicides or any criminal activity in any statistically significant numbers.
But sure, if you want to be alarmist about it you can be. But this is a state level issue in the US, Federal regulation can be made but considering how screwed up the states that did "gun control" did it... they aren't going to get much traction. That's why this issue is dead. We have one party that wants to control guns, do a piss poor job of it, upset a ton of people in the process. Against others that are so tired of the stupidity they refuse to listen to anything anymore.
So we're in a place where you need an amendment to fix it, that requires a stupid amount of support in Congress, which won't happen because of the above. Convince the gun control activists in the US to actually negotiate in good faith, and eventually... we may see something shift in a positive way. Until then, you've got people that will literally die on this hill.
P.S. Much of what I said above is explored in the comments. Which brought up another point of interest...
You cannot even enter a gun show without an adult present. Which makes this footage utterly staged, old man sold the gun because mom was standing right there. This video is pure propaganda.
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Metanis
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Exactly. It's designed to widen the gulf rather than close it. Makes me want to double my contribution to the NRA this year.
britechguy
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Whether the video is propaganda or not, it's very difficult for any thinking person not to recognize that we have a major problem with gun violence in the United States that's unlike any other nation on earth.
If we insist on doing exactly what we've always done it's not only going to remain, but get worse.
I'll be in the ground for decades before we finally reach the point where the 2nd Amendment, as currently interpreted, is changed. And it's going to have to be changed. What the Founding Fathers knew of as firearms are tinker toys by today's standards, and I have no problem with anyone owning that level of technology. What the Founding Fathers could also expect as far as general knowledge of how to use firearms as a routine thing is entirely different than prevailing conditions today, too. I'll not even get into the fact that firearms were, to a much greater extent than today, a "luxury item" that relatively few could afford and it was mostly "the landed gentry" that owned the vast majority of them. We're no longer a rural, agrarian society with the type of low tech firearm that existed at the founding and all presumptions that what exists now, both socially and technologically, is equivalent to what would have been envisioned at the time the Constitution was written is undoubtedly incorrect.
If we insist on doing exactly what we've always done it's not only going to remain, but get worse.
I'll be in the ground for decades before we finally reach the point where the 2nd Amendment, as currently interpreted, is changed. And it's going to have to be changed. What the Founding Fathers knew of as firearms are tinker toys by today's standards, and I have no problem with anyone owning that level of technology. What the Founding Fathers could also expect as far as general knowledge of how to use firearms as a routine thing is entirely different than prevailing conditions today, too. I'll not even get into the fact that firearms were, to a much greater extent than today, a "luxury item" that relatively few could afford and it was mostly "the landed gentry" that owned the vast majority of them. We're no longer a rural, agrarian society with the type of low tech firearm that existed at the founding and all presumptions that what exists now, both socially and technologically, is equivalent to what would have been envisioned at the time the Constitution was written is undoubtedly incorrect.
Sky-Knight
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@britechguy Sure, and by then it'll be a nonissue...
The best thing the gun control lobby can do to actually control guns is SHUT UP. Seriously... just shut up!
Obama was in office, guns / bullets flying off the shelves... same thing is repeating under Biden. Trump is in office? Remington went bankrupt... Now there's more to that story of course but the sales numbers do not lie. Every time some idiot says Gun Control from a government pulpit, sales go through the roof! They shut up, sales drop off... hard.
So if you shut up, over time the number of guns on the street goes down faster than it already is... because gun sales are in a downward trend over all when read over decades.
Which only reinforces the right side of the argument I'm afraid... it's not about guns, it's about control! If the government wanted weapon owners to be responsible it'd be calling for a licensing program. But nope... licenses mean full faith and credit kicks in, and NYC can't extort travelers of their freedom and wealth because they checked their traveling side arm at JFK.
If the "Gun" Control idiots would stop talking about controlling sales, and start talking about licensing and training for weapon ownership, I'd be ALL OVER that. But they won't... because they're clueless, and they insist on solutions that simply will not work for our people at this time.
The best thing the gun control lobby can do to actually control guns is SHUT UP. Seriously... just shut up!
Obama was in office, guns / bullets flying off the shelves... same thing is repeating under Biden. Trump is in office? Remington went bankrupt... Now there's more to that story of course but the sales numbers do not lie. Every time some idiot says Gun Control from a government pulpit, sales go through the roof! They shut up, sales drop off... hard.
So if you shut up, over time the number of guns on the street goes down faster than it already is... because gun sales are in a downward trend over all when read over decades.
Which only reinforces the right side of the argument I'm afraid... it's not about guns, it's about control! If the government wanted weapon owners to be responsible it'd be calling for a licensing program. But nope... licenses mean full faith and credit kicks in, and NYC can't extort travelers of their freedom and wealth because they checked their traveling side arm at JFK.
If the "Gun" Control idiots would stop talking about controlling sales, and start talking about licensing and training for weapon ownership, I'd be ALL OVER that. But they won't... because they're clueless, and they insist on solutions that simply will not work for our people at this time.
britechguy
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They have, on multiple occasions. And the two things are not mutually exclusive, far from it. Licensing would be one of the things I'd favor most highly, and the requirements to obtain it would be stringent as far as having gun safety training that requires actual demonstration of ability to control the specific firearm being licensed.
But at least we can agree on what we've currently got not working.
Sky-Knight
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Can you imagine a world where everyone can get whatever gun they want, so long as they met the same legal requirements as local law enforcement?
I can... and it's so simple and easy to do! Support it with sales taxes on arms and ammo... "free" training, "free" licensing all powered by a simple excise tax on the thing we're wanting to keep an eye on.
Sadly... the wrong people lose money in that equation for some reason so it doesn't happen.
But that's the rub though... you and I have different priorities but we can agree on this stuff. We can find something we're both mostly OK with! That doesn't happen in congress anymore.
GTP
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You need a politician with the balls to say "enough."
Australia is a far better place with the strict gun control laws we have.
Imo, there is absolutely no need for anyone to own a gun. Period.
Add: Like cigarette smokers and alcohol abusers - they will always defend the habit with a million and one excuses why they need to.
Australia is a far better place with the strict gun control laws we have.
Imo, there is absolutely no need for anyone to own a gun. Period.
Add: Like cigarette smokers and alcohol abusers - they will always defend the habit with a million and one excuses why they need to.
britechguy
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Au contraire! We need way more than a (singular) politician who's willing to speak the obvious truth: The second amendment needs to be repealed and strict gun control, including licensing and registration, must come into existence. Then, those same politicians must do the work to make it happen.
Sadly, living in the USA, I am all too well aware that the political will to make this occur simply does not exist, nor will in the immediately foreseeable future. In fact the very idea that such a coherent, rational, and necessary action will occur under prevailing and foreseeable conditions is beyond comprehension. But, ultimately, it's got to happen.
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Sky-Knight
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I don't think the 2nd needs repealed. I think all the evidence required to make a focused reorganization of the right in question exists under the law. The reason no attempts have survived so far is because they've been written terribly. Because the amendment addresses the individual, while the gun controls attempted in the US thus far address the object.
Again, I don't care that people have guns. I care that the people that are nuts have guns. The US isn't going to do what AU did. We simply don't have the culture for it. And there are PLENTY of uses for guns that are good, and used as such every day. And as such I believe a licensing system can be deployed with the 2nd intact and still survive a court challenge.
Again, I don't care that people have guns. I care that the people that are nuts have guns. The US isn't going to do what AU did. We simply don't have the culture for it. And there are PLENTY of uses for guns that are good, and used as such every day. And as such I believe a licensing system can be deployed with the 2nd intact and still survive a court challenge.
britechguy
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And that's where we disagree. And I think that any reading of legal precedent is on my side on this one. Licensing is considered an infringement by definition. But neither one of us is going to be alive to see any functional change, and I think on that we can both agree.
YeOldeStonecat
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It's a long discussion...and I say "discussion"....with quite a bit of truth on both sides. Unfortunately a discussion usually degrades into a debate, with people on far opposite sides insisting their side is correct, and the other side is wrong.
But bear with me for a few minutes....
***First, we have to ask ourselves "What changed?" And when I say "changed"...I mean in society, and especially todays youth, in recent decades. First..when I grew up in the 60's and 70's, done with high school early 80's....where I grew up, we walked around with our rifles over our shoulders, going through the woods behind neighbors homes, walking down the street to other woods, going over friends houses where there were often hunting rifles right up on the living room walls, the old mans clear glass door gun cabinet in the living room. Neighbors never cared about the boys walking around squirrel hunting with our guns. If a cop drove by while we walked down the road with a rifle over our shoulder..they didn't care, sometimes a wave.
When I was in high school, we had a rifle team. Members of the rifle team could bring their guns to school, keep in their locker, take on the school bus.
It wasn't a problem! Kids weren't shooting up kids! We didn't shoot up the school. We didn't shoot out the school bus windows. We didn't shoot our neighbors homes.
....our fathers would have whooped our arses. And our neighbors would have whooped our arses too! But back in those days, there was this thing called "accountability" and "punishment". Not excuses like.."but he was a good kid". We were all told/taught to respect guns by our fathers, and the hammer of thor was brought down on us if we didn't.
***My next point. The AR-15 is not a recent invention. Came out in 1959. Was widely available in the mid 60's...it was available for sale to civilians in 1964. By the end of the 60's....Colt was selling quite a few to civilians each and every day...they were flying off the store shelves. How did we go for quite a few decades before having a problem with todays youth utilizing large capacity semi autos (like various ar-15 clones) in mass shootings?
...."What changed over recent decades?"
***We have had mass shootings that did not involve ar-15 types, such as, in 1966, the University of Texas tower shooting (15x dead)..the kid had a bunch of single shot rifles and pistols.
***If you look at "many" of the other mass shootings, the bad guy had a long, proven track record of problems. Now I know HIPAA laws prevent this from happening, but we MUST allow that to tie in with law enforcement, and the ability to "not" purchase firearms. If you go review the history of most mass school shooting bad guys, you'll documented history of mental problems, seeing psychiatrists, being on medication, prior problems with law enforcement, etc. We have to open the laws up to allow law enforcement to connect the dots. There are many situations where some homes just should not have guns in them. The Sandy Hook shooting (not far down the highway from me) is a classic example, that kids (Adam) mother was a gun hobbyist, she had a collection of guns, and ....despite many years of warnings....she paid the ultimate price (she was one of his first victims before he drove to the school).
***You can take the above point...and find many similar situations in other school shootings.
***While I grew up with guns in the house, and spent much of my youth shooting in the back yard, and at the gun range, and my father was a life long NRA member, and I am too, I am a firm believer that a carry permit is not a right, but a privilege. I need to earn it, and I need to maintain a law abiding, problem free life, to maintain it. If I turn out to be some cause of domestic violence, or start getting multiple arrests due to aggravated assaults or other violence related crimes....I'd expect my carry permit to be revoked in a hurry! I had no problem going through background investigations by local PD et all as part of my process in obtaining my carry permit, I'm totally comfortable with that.
But bear with me for a few minutes....
***First, we have to ask ourselves "What changed?" And when I say "changed"...I mean in society, and especially todays youth, in recent decades. First..when I grew up in the 60's and 70's, done with high school early 80's....where I grew up, we walked around with our rifles over our shoulders, going through the woods behind neighbors homes, walking down the street to other woods, going over friends houses where there were often hunting rifles right up on the living room walls, the old mans clear glass door gun cabinet in the living room. Neighbors never cared about the boys walking around squirrel hunting with our guns. If a cop drove by while we walked down the road with a rifle over our shoulder..they didn't care, sometimes a wave.
When I was in high school, we had a rifle team. Members of the rifle team could bring their guns to school, keep in their locker, take on the school bus.
It wasn't a problem! Kids weren't shooting up kids! We didn't shoot up the school. We didn't shoot out the school bus windows. We didn't shoot our neighbors homes.
....our fathers would have whooped our arses. And our neighbors would have whooped our arses too! But back in those days, there was this thing called "accountability" and "punishment". Not excuses like.."but he was a good kid". We were all told/taught to respect guns by our fathers, and the hammer of thor was brought down on us if we didn't.
***My next point. The AR-15 is not a recent invention. Came out in 1959. Was widely available in the mid 60's...it was available for sale to civilians in 1964. By the end of the 60's....Colt was selling quite a few to civilians each and every day...they were flying off the store shelves. How did we go for quite a few decades before having a problem with todays youth utilizing large capacity semi autos (like various ar-15 clones) in mass shootings?
...."What changed over recent decades?"
***We have had mass shootings that did not involve ar-15 types, such as, in 1966, the University of Texas tower shooting (15x dead)..the kid had a bunch of single shot rifles and pistols.
***If you look at "many" of the other mass shootings, the bad guy had a long, proven track record of problems. Now I know HIPAA laws prevent this from happening, but we MUST allow that to tie in with law enforcement, and the ability to "not" purchase firearms. If you go review the history of most mass school shooting bad guys, you'll documented history of mental problems, seeing psychiatrists, being on medication, prior problems with law enforcement, etc. We have to open the laws up to allow law enforcement to connect the dots. There are many situations where some homes just should not have guns in them. The Sandy Hook shooting (not far down the highway from me) is a classic example, that kids (Adam) mother was a gun hobbyist, she had a collection of guns, and ....despite many years of warnings....she paid the ultimate price (she was one of his first victims before he drove to the school).
***You can take the above point...and find many similar situations in other school shootings.
***While I grew up with guns in the house, and spent much of my youth shooting in the back yard, and at the gun range, and my father was a life long NRA member, and I am too, I am a firm believer that a carry permit is not a right, but a privilege. I need to earn it, and I need to maintain a law abiding, problem free life, to maintain it. If I turn out to be some cause of domestic violence, or start getting multiple arrests due to aggravated assaults or other violence related crimes....I'd expect my carry permit to be revoked in a hurry! I had no problem going through background investigations by local PD et all as part of my process in obtaining my carry permit, I'm totally comfortable with that.
YeOldeStonecat
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And our next problem....printed guns. Yup..they're a thing. with 3d printer technology having advanced, and with plans available on the internet...we have zero/zip/nada control. Yes a decade or more ago 3d printed guns were almost useful, tended to blow apart after a round or several. But....the plastics used have greatly advanced since then, and you can make some pretty cool guns now, full automatics even, that can sustain quite a period of time squirting lead before they fail. Only getting more advanced.
Yup, no permits, no background investigations, no tracking, no purchasing at stores or shows, no licensing.....yeah....oh yeah..just follow how this evolves.
Yup, no permits, no background investigations, no tracking, no purchasing at stores or shows, no licensing.....yeah....oh yeah..just follow how this evolves.
britechguy
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Would that the position of the NRA itself mirrored your eminently sensible one. But it doesn't, at least not in any meaningful way. They fight the requirement for carry permits tooth and nail, and have succeeded in having those legislated away. The NRA is not the only example, but if ever there were a perfect example of a special interest having political influence far out of scale to the size of its membership, it's the NRA.
My upbringing was, to a very large extent, similar to yours, though the casual carrying of rifles on any random day outside of hunting seasons would have raised attention. My father was and my brother is an very active hunter, mostly deer (I just could never "get into it"). My brother also happens to be a retired cop. I don't come from an urban area, but the changes we are witnessing, and we are undoubtedly seeing significant changes, mean that we need to be rethinking "what we've always done" because it's just no longer working.
britechguy
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And a thing that requires "special consideration" much like sawed-off shotguns have even currently (in the USA, anyway, and based on something I just saw on PBS about Scottish castles, and hunting, in the UK as well).
YeOldeStonecat
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Yeah I'm done with the NRA pretty much. They've evolved from what I grew up with..the educational, hunting, camping, safety outdoorsman club...to the political lobbying giant that they are now. And making their leadership rich....very very rich. Actually I'll change what I said above...my father was a life long member (he passed in the 90's), but I've not been life long, actually last year I did NOT renew.
While I've enjoyed sending lead downrange with full automatics, had my time in law enforcement, have enjoyed shooting AR-15's and many variants, I'm not interesting in owning those. I'm content with smaller firearms for...defending the home/family (I do believe in the castle doctrine), and defending oneself and helping others while out 'n about. Legally.
Sky-Knight
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The NRA USED to support all of this... then it made a turn into stupid.
YeOldeStonecat
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Yeah, agreed....what we've always done, isn't working. I still keep wondering "what has changed". At the risk of sounding like a Boomer..."Todays lack of discipline for kids?" "Too many kids being pacified with A.D.D. meds?" "Schools aren't allowed to discipline kids anymore?"
I'm not sure...just not sure.
Sky-Knight
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What's changed is the middle class is shrinking at record pace, and kids have no hope of any sort of future worth having. Despair is a powerful thing.
