"Just like the debate over automatic weapons is a canard, since they're very rarely used in murders"

There is no debate surrounding automatic weapons, or, at least there isn't one on the national stage. Automatic firearms are dramatically different from semi-automatic firearms, and it's been a (specifically expressed) political maneuver to confuse/conflate the two.

The number of deaths attributable to automatic firearms is effectively nil, as they've been highly controlled since the days of Al Capone and his ilk.

When people are referring to "automatic firearms" in today's political arena, they almost always mean to say "semi-automatic firearms", which most closely maps to the sorts of weapon used in the Newtown and Aurora shootings.

It's a subtle, but important distinction, but as those who are trying to conflate the terms generally intend to do so to confer additional scariness to semi-automatic firearms that are simply not there.

You are correct of course, regarding auto vs semi-auto, but I mean that the anti-gun lobby makes a lot of noise over 'big scary rifles' when it's actually handguns doing the most damage.

I'm for gun regulation myself, but even if do rifles get heavily regulated in the US, it'd do very little to the stats. It'd actually work against the anti-gun lobby, because the pro-gun lobby would be able to point to the relatively unchanged stats.

That said, thus far, handgun regulations are the most easily struck down under Heller & McDonald. The sea change of going after "assault weapons" has less to do with mass shootings and more to do with the Brady group's adaptation to the court's relative intractability on handgun regulations.

As ownership (keep) and carriage (bear) of arms has been upheld by the Supreme Court as individual rights, the shift has been more and more towards "feature tests" that are defined as such that the assault weapons fail them. California has had luck simply increasing the feature list such that almost every firearm is effectively banned, but I suspect that won't last.

Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons.

Where of course self-defense is not "a practical use", e.g for bog standard "plastic gun" "assault weapons" such as the Glock.

That's from an "assault weapons" political campaign he had ready for the first screaming headline abuse of one, conveniently in the following year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockton_schoolyard_shooting

Thanks for the correction.

And, yeah, well, I suppose we might be the two most "expert" on this subject, with my having joined the gun politics battle in the early 1970s (sic), and you having worked at the ATF (!!!, I hope that was a youthful indiscretion! :-). I'm just particularly ... sensitive? in that the Brady groups are now really fading (see especially their $$$ lawsuit loss WRT to the Colorado movie theater shooting), and Bloomberg replacing them as the big threat. Hmmm, haven't heard much about the VPC since I and many other research minions helped Clayton Cramer destroy their "Concealed Carry Killers" paper.

attuned is, I think, the word you're looking for.

As for my dalliance at the ATF, it was, frankly, about three years worth of time in which I had not yet developed much of a political conscience.

Actually working for the government has helped shape much of my opinions of the government, and in most ways, for the poorer.

Politics aside, I would have a very hard time convincing myself to work for any of the agencies again, if only because I can't bear to watch tens of millions of dollars evaporate when someone's opinion changes, or an election year happens, or the government decides that, despite having gotten to year 4 of the project with all milestones succeeding, they've neglected to budget for years 5+.

Well, since we're going to be pedantic, this should really say "the number of deaths attributable to legally owned automatic firearms", since there is quite a bit of criminal violence (as in, violence to support criminal activities, like drive bys, rip deals resulting in shootings etc) and deaths involving automatic weapons (although it's quite hard to find statistics on this, to my surprise). MAC 10's and Mini Uzis are rather popular for that sort of shenanigans, because of their small size (thus easily concealable). An AR15 style weapon (which is usually the type of weapon people talk about when the discussion is about 'assault rifles') is very impractical for such a thing, as per your point.

> there is quite a bit of criminal violence and deaths involving automatic weapons

Is that true? I don't know that it is. Because of the inflated value of automatic firearms, I would simply have assumed that the cost to benefit ratio just wasn't there for automatic weapons.

I suppose the two arms you mentioned may have easily replaceable sears or something to that effect, but every time I've seen an incident in the news involving a Mac 10 or the like, it's been a semi-automatic version.

One incident I remember specifically from when I was working at the ATF had been recently (e.g., within a few months) from when it was initially purchased to when it was used in a crime, but its initial purchase was a straw purchase from an FFL, and was decidedly not full auto.

That said, I've only anecdata at this point as I no longer have the ability to scan the ATF databases.

Since you have provided no citation, I can only judge this statement by my own anecdotal experience.

As someone who is closely involved with "gun culture", I'm aware of only a handful of cases where automatic weapons were confiscated in the US - and of no cases they were used in a murder in my adult lifetime.

If you get your hands on an old enough SKS, for example, a full auto conversion is dead simple (though obviously illegal without the $200 tax stamp), but for that very reason, those types of arms tend to get snatched up by the legitimate collectors and spirited away into collection vaults while their value climbs.

I'd guess it as unlikely that there are fully automatic firearms in use in crime of any significant amount, but that's only a guess, and not really based on anything other than my gut.

As far as political strategies go, I agree, in theory. As with all deeply held sentiments, in practice, it's harder to live and let live to those in opposition than just trying really hard... a fault I share with many.

You are very evenhanded about this subject. I would like to thank you for it.

I tend to freely acknowledge my biases, but I've learned long ago that there's no "right" political answer. I can tell you that my opinion is very well educated, and predicated on (literally) years of research that begins with Madison's original 19 amendments, but as it's a matter of opinion, I can't prove that my opinion is more right than the other guy's, and I try to keep that in mind as much as I'm able.

Danke, for appreciating the effort I'm making at least.

I absolutely fault any movement that refuses to use correct terminology in order to scare people and misrepresent reality. Because ultimately it makes it far more difficult to have a logical discussion about the issue at hand, and it often results in the focus being put in the wrong place.

Rather than focusing on scary 'semi-automatic' weapons maybe if the focus were more on what leads to shootings we could develop better social programs and policing strategies. Maybe the focus would shift towards ending the drug war and reducing criminal recidivism.

Instead many people focus on 'assault' weapons and there's never any progress because pro-gun people rightly point out that focusing on assault weapons is misguided.

So rather than remove some of the ease with which people obtain firearms, why don't we build a European style welfare state and decriminalize drugs? I'm all for it. How likely is that?

Progun forces describe their opponents as actual traitors that are actively trying to destroy the basics of what makes us a free people... for regulating a dangerous consumer product. When you start policing their tactics I will take you seriously, until then I support anything that defeats them.

There are pro-gun that spout silly things like, "We need to arm every teacher!" and there are anti-gun people that say things like, "We should go door to door and confiscate every gun by force!"

"When you start policing their tactics I will take you seriously, until then I support anything that defeats them."

How am I supposed to 'police' anyone's tactics? People have a right to free speech and that means spouting nonsense to further their goals. My point is that spouting nonsense rarely results in meaningful progress.

I take your point, I really do, but I think that you are overestimating the desire to have a meaningful debate on the progun side. The two sides are not equally obstructive or vitriolic. They just aren't. Perhaps you have heard people like me... some guy on a forum... say something bombastic, but the progun leadership are purveyors of extreme fear mongering and slander of their fellow citizens that disagree with them. They equate compromise with appeasement and negotiation with collaboration. Gun control people don't go around threatening armed rebellion.

I'm sorry for going on, but I get really tired of the way that no one seems to be able to change their mind. A large chunk of the vehement progun crowd are also fundamentalists who think the world is six thousand years old. I grew up around them. I'm very clear about their position.

Joe the Plumber: "Your Dead Kids Don’t Trump My Constitutional Rights"

I appreciate your point and what you are trying to say, please don't think I'm being disrespectful... In fact, I'm kind of typing out loud, if you will. I'm still coming to grips with my own changes of position on the issue. Its really difficult. Its such a foundational issue where I'm from. Its at least as big a deal as coming to grips with being an atheist. Its really about identity at a core level... and being able to really look at those deeply held ideas in the face of a life that contradicts them.

My bad...i'll stop. Cheers.

As far as people who want to ban guns outright, there are certainly people who believe fervently in that, but I think a lot of those people don't necessarily think about the enormous financial and human cost of doing so. They look at a country like Japan and say, "See, if we ban guns like they did..." But ultimately if someone seeks to confiscate guns by force, they're advocating for violence because there are many, many people who would kill and die for the 2nd amendment. Most people don't see it that way, but in practice that is what it would come down to.

I agree that a lot of extreme pro-gun folks are opposed to any and all sorts of compromise. And you're right that there is a significant contingent "Earth is 5000 years old" people in there. But there are a lot of liberal gun owners, white-collar gun owners, and everything in between.

Either way the discourse is not helped by coming to the table with intentional falsehoods designed to scare people who don't know better. Whether it's 'Obama is trying to take over Texas' or 'Assault weapons are to blame for mass shootings'.

Can you specify any compromise offered to us by the gun grabbers in, say, the last 50 years, that wasn't of the form "we'll only take half of your arm off"?

Maybe the Firearms Owners Protection Act of '86, which had a poison pill ending sales of new machine guns to civilians? Nowadays lots of gun owners who weren't watching the BATF exterminate gun culture in the '70s and early-mid '80s say we shouldn't have accepted that deal for the precedent it established, which was furthered in "assault weapons" bans (prior to that there were no firearms technically banned from civilian ownership, even if NFA arms like machine guns had onerous acquisition regimes ... which the BATF is even now trying to make more onerous/impossible).

Stepping back a bit, after, oh, 81 years of bad faith (going back to the NFA of '34 which attempted a de facto ban on handgun transfers for all but the rich), might we be somewhat justified in not being willing to give up another fraction of an inch? Especially when we have members of our community like my father who remember how things used to be, without problems? (OK, he was 4 years old when it passed, but you get the idea, e.g. when he was in high school in mid-late '40s he and others would store their guns in their school lockers while attending to make hunting before or after more convenient, and "school shooting" were unheard of.)

Onerous acquisition regimes were put in place for machine guns because of the psychopaths that were running from county to county gunning down law enforcement officers. That's the thing, the law in question wasn't a beachhead to take more of your stuff...they may have actually wanted to make sure that we didn't have a wave of new Machine Gun Kelly's running around.

Does your dad remember how it used to be for everyone or just people like you? I'm not trying to be too facetious, here. My dad mentions a time when you could take a sack of squirrels to the doctor for payment as an example of the good ole' days...but I don't think that's a good idea just because it worked for him and my grandfather. (Though I still like squirrel stew.)

Many, many, things are different between now and the 40 s including all of the weird social/psychological pressures that are at the root of many school shootings. Hell, when I was a kid I remember seeing people have deer rifles in their gun rack in their truck at school. (I was very little.) Would that be a good idea today? Surely, I don't have to answer that question...because things have changed. Radically.

What would be a place where we could compromise? Is it even possible? What's an area where you think there is some give and take on?

Hmmm; I suppose there are pro-gun individual who say we should arm every teacher, but I'm unaware of any; that certainly seems less mainstream than the very common calls for house to house confiscation, which we can see upon occasion in HN.

It is mainstream in pro-gun groups like the NRA to say it should be an option that teachers and administrators can be armed and that it should be encouraged to a degree, while it's no longer mainstream for anti-gun groups to admit they want to ban all guns in civilian hands (that may have finished going out of style when Dukakis' wish to that effect helped sink his presidential bid 1988 ... against the rather anti-gun G. H. W. Bush...).

The US has a gun violence legitimization problem. Yes, other countries have guns. But America has a particular culture surrounding the idea that shooting someone whom you percieve to be a threat is a reasonable thing to do, and moreover you're likely enough to encounter this situation that it's worth arming yourself beforehand.

Whenever one of the controversial police shootings happens, there are plenty of commentators on hand to say how the victim deserved it (and therefore his grieving relatives should shut up and stop complaining about the police). But this attitude isn't limited to the police, it's part of wider American society. So whenever two people get into the kind of stupid altercation that in other countries results in black eyes and lacerations, in the US somebody might pull a gun. Undoubtedly this makes a lot of domestic violence situations worse.

The US concept of "right to life" is applied really narrowly, leaving both judicial executions, police shootings, and wider acts of negligence in public safety untouched.

Not to mention the racism problem. You don't need guns for this, other forms of attempted mass murder are available: http://time.com/3942688/black-church-burning-mount-zion-ame-...

I think the scale of violence here is really hard for Europeans to understand. New York is one of the safest large cities in the U.S., and the murder rate there is more than 3x that of similarly-sized London.

Neal Knox, one of the top figures there in the last century, got his start at boot camp, where he heard an eyewitness story from a recent immigrant from the Netherlands. The Nazis went to a family's house where a handgun was registered to the homeowner but since he couldn't find it, they took the whole family and machine gunned them in the village/town square.

The issue is entirely about fear. If people really cared about the most effective policies to decrease premature deaths, maybe we'd all be arguing about traffic safety issues or banning swimming pools or something.

I'd also like to point out that the Supreme Court of the United States of America affirmed that individual ownership of semi-automatic handguns (cited example, but, "common use" is the test) is a protected right.

We have a financial inequality and mental health problem (somewhat stemming from said inequality) in this country, not a firearm problem. These are the problems that need addressed to reduce crime.

However, a crazy relative can still kill you without a handgun. In countries that introduce gun laws, they get more murders with knives, blunt objects, etc.

US murder rates may be partly driven by guns. But they're mostly the result of education, prison sentences, and other social factors. The US is a developed country with the welfare system of a developing country (and a bunch of very expensive bandaids to catch the people who have fallen too far to really recover).

Do you have data to back up this claim? I hear it quite often in these debates, but have never seen anything to back it up, and it seems suspect: It's pretty easy to imagine that even if the number of assaults were the same per capita, that the lethality of the weapon involved in the assaults will have a bearing on the total number of fatalities.

(As for me, I would be happy with a sane approach to prisons, better mental health treatment, AND better gun controls... These need not be mutually exclusive.)

They don't mention Australia, because the murder rate gradually decreased (though it was on a trend down anyway).

Or you can find cherry picked data about how gun related crime falls if you ban guns.

The only reason this debate keeps going is that there's bugger all hard evidence on either side. Sometimes overall crime rates drop. Sometimes they rise. So both sides just cherry pick stats, and call the other side idiots.

If the occasional mass shooting is acceptable, there's no reason to either ban guns or keep them. "Guns cause crime" and "guns stop crime" are both red herrings.

Whether the freedom to have a gun (which won't make you statistically more or less safe) is more important than stopping mass shootings is a value judgement. The statistics are a wash.

I'd say something similar to Australia is a good compromise - allow single-shot long guns (for sport), and ban semis / handguns (unless you have a really good reason). There's also laws about gun safes, safety tests, etc.

The most well-known mass shooting in Australia since guns were banned left three people dead - a shooter with a double-barreled shotgun, and two victims. Australian style laws do a good job keeping mass shootings from causing too much damage.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/

Here are the key points from the paper:

> A radical gun law reform occurred in Australia after a gun massacre (35 dead and 18 seriously injured) in April 1996. Semi‐automatic and pump‐action shotguns and rifles were banned; a tax‐funded firearm buyback and amnesties saw over 700 000 guns surrendered from an adult population of about 12 million.

> The total firearm deaths, firearm homicides and firearm suicides had been falling in the 18 years preceding the new gun laws. In all, 13 mass shootings were noticed in the 18 years preceding the new gun laws.

> In the 10.5 years after the gun law reforms, there have been no mass shootings, but accelerated declines in annual total gun deaths and firearm suicides and a non‐significant accelerated decline in firearm homicides. No substitution effects occurred for suicides or homicides.

edit: it is interesting that they looked for substitution effects. Like `sdenton4` commented, the lethality of the weapon matters.

If it is difficult to access firearms and there isn't really a similarly lethal alternative to easily kill someone else or yourself, it seems intuitively reasonable that we might expect to see less death.

Ban the sale of new guns to the public but allow secondhand sales. That cuts off the gun manufacturer money to the NRA; leave it a few years to bed in and the politics change. Then ban moving guns across state lines, and allow states, cities and counties to impose their own bans or permitting regimes. That would probably suffice.

I don't see how you and wisty deny that people on my side would turn our current cold civil war into a hot shooting war. We've read our 20th Century history, we know the potential end games for us and our families. We haven't been buying guns and ammo at historically unprecedented rates just to bury them.

Then again, you at least acknowledge a constitutional amendment would be required to do this legally, and that's not currently foreseeable. E.g. starting in 1986 with Florida, about the same number of states that would be required to pass an amendment enacted legal "shall issue" concealed carry regimes, which now cover 42 or so states, with the Federal courts only forcing Illinois and maybe California and Hawaii (that's still being litigated), see the first two country maps at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concealed_carry_in_the_United_...

My favourite trolling suggestion for getting popular support for gun control would be to find a couple of extremely brave people to restart the Black Muslim Gun Owners organisation. It would reprint all the gun advocacy material that talks about defending against state violence but with "black" or "muslim" inserted at key points. It would require extremely brave organisers because the chances of getting jailed as terrorism suspects or having your HQ burnt down by racists would be extremely high.

Roughly 85% of the NRA's money comes from sources other than gun manufacturers.

The big, bad, evil gun companies are a much easier target to lambast. Never mind the fact that many of those boogieman companies turn a profit by arming those same millions of citizens.

It's just another avenue for hoplophobes to attack something they don't like.

If you'd like to see stricter laws or the outlawing of personal ownership, feel free to lobby for an amendment to the Constitution.