Why did I click on this. I knew it was going to be bad.

Quote from: Flee on October 07, 2015, 11:35:59 AM

GWG is great though. The fact that you don't lose all your games the second you stop paying your subscription is godlike.

Yeah, Xbox Live has always been good about stuff like that. 

...Wait, does PS+ take them away if you cancel?

As far as I know, they remain permanently fixed to your account but you can only keep playing them as long as you have an active PS+ membership.

Quote from: Flee on October 07, 2015, 12:20:59 PM

Quote from: Kernel Kraut on October 07, 2015, 12:09:50 PM

Quote from: Flee on October 07, 2015, 12:07:01 PM

Doesn't really sound very good, no.

Then why is it okay to call a registry a compromise when gun owners get nothing out of it? Every expansion if gun control has been labeled a 'compromise'

I don't see how less mass shootings, less gun violence, lower suicide rates, lower homicide rates, usually less violent crime in general, less shootings or gun accidents, a diminished illegal black market, a better name for actually responsible gun owners and so forth could possibly be understood as "we get nothing out of it".

Except none of what passed has had any effect on crime, mss shootings, black markets what so ever. They've done nothing but sever as more hurdles to lawful gun ownership.

So really, we gut nothing out of it.

That isn't even true, and if it would be than it would having everything to do with the instated measures being halfassed and hardly strong enough.

Quote from: Flee on October 07, 2015, 12:07:01 PM

Doesn't really sound very good, no.

Then why is it okay to call a registry a compromise when gun owners get nothing out of it? Every expansion if gun control has been labeled a 'compromise'

I don't see how less mass shootings, less gun violence, lower suicide rates, lower homicide rates, usually less violent crime in general, less shootings or gun accidents, a diminished illegal black market, a better name for actually responsible gun owners and so forth could possibly be understood as "we get nothing out of it".

Doesn't really sound very good, no.

OT: looks like someone else besides Trump is trying to ruin his own campaign.

I was hoping you'd do IT law or privacy in the digital age or something in that neighborhood next

I could and I probably will end up doing talking about those. The main problem with those is that they'll require me to do some more reading myself. Don't forget, my area of expertise is still European and in particular Belgian law. I could easily do a topic on Belgian or European IT law, cybercrime or privacy without even having to look anything up, but I don't think many people would be interested in that. This forum consists almost entirely out of Americans and a few British bongs, so I'd imagine that most people would just ignore a thread like that.

That's mainly why I was going to talk about some international law first. It's something that I know quite a bit about and that obviously affects all of us, so it seems like a good topic for people to read. I'm reasonably familiar with the basics of American IT law and privacy / data protection, but I'd have to do some additional reading first before I could make a thread on it that would live up to my standards.

Gun control is such a self-conflicting topic with many of my ideals and political motivations.
It has to happen at the federal level. It absolutely must for anything to be effective. I see this, I recognize this, and I think I can compromise my hatred for federal powers to allow reasonable gun control measures to be enacted.

Agreed. It's pretty clear that creating "islands" of stricter regulations or open borders between states with different standards does not work. Looking at Chicago, for example, ti's pretty clear that most of the guns used in criminal activities are (very often legally) bought and imported from neighboring states or counties.

What are reasonable measures? Now this is a position that I fluctuate on, but usually criminal background checks and psych history I agree should be looked at. People will lose their private pilot's medical just for having a coronary surgery at sometime in their life. If you have a history of clinical depression, or mania, or other issues, you probably shouldn't be handed a firearm. The same should apply for those with violent criminal history, and in some places, it does.

I also agree on that. Those two should be a bare minimum though, with a proper reason to own a firearm and stringent limits on public carrying being the more restrictive measures. 

Straw purchasing remains a huge problem though.

That is true. As I said in my OP, "illegal guns" aren't made from scrap in underground criminal gun factories. They are almost entirely legal guns bought, stolen, lost or sold through private trades or straw purchases. It's hard to deny that the existence of such an extensive legal market and easy access to firearms directly fuels the black market and the amount of illegal guns. While stricter gun regulations do not completely prevent illegal firearms or black markets, it does make them more expensive, less accessible and less likely to succeed due to the difficulties of obtaining weapons in the first place. It's one of the most compelling arguments in favor of tighter gun control, in my opinion.

A full registry is something that I don't like the idea of, especially when a newspaper can put in an information request to the government and then publish that list. Not cool.

Disagreed on the first part, agreed on the second. The public (which includes the media) should not have access to such a registry. I do think that it should exist though, primarly because it creates a very clear paper trail that indicates how and through which people guns made their way into the hands of criminals.
 

Mandatory firearms safety courses to get a purchasing license would be okay by me. Guns are a big fucking responsibility.

Again, agreed. But only as a minimum measure.

What is not reasonable or personally acceptable to me:
Magazine restrictions
"Assault weapon" bans
short barrel rifles being an NFA firearm
Additional tax stamps to purchase or transfer a classII/III firearm or suppressor
National firearms registry
City ordinances that restrict carry beyond state law
Gun free zones
Defensive ammunition bans (see NJ state law)

Not entirely sure what you mean by "defensive ammunition bans", but I personally don't have that many issues with a lot of the other ones.

I haven't seen any good proof that suggests that limits on high capacitiy magazines is terribly detrimental to gun owners, while the argument of the opposition seems to be a pretty clear one. Even though reloading does not take very long, several shooters that ended up being taken down were done so while they were reloading. It only comes to reason that the less reloads, the more damage a person can cause at a faster rate while decreasing the amount of opportunities for others to escape or intervene. On top of that, high capacity magazine restrictions have been shown to reduce the amount of such magazines successfully being used by criminals.

The access to "assault weapons" should be at least as restriced as access to handguns, so I'd agree that singling them out is pointless. The use of those guns in (mass) shootings is negligible. All firearms should be heavily restricted, so singling one group out because it's black and has a scary name makes no sense.

I believe that registries are good and that every public place should be a gun free zone, so there's not much to talk about there.

do international law next

Anything specific?

4 looked so horribly boring that I skipped it. This looks interesting.

Just started playing 4 the other day and it's been great so far. Might even do a thread on it.

#Banime

Weebs go home.

Just to play devil's advocate so it doesn't turn into one big circlejerk in favour of gun control:

Spoiler

Interesting picture, but a lot of the stuff seems doubtful at best.

"In America, we can demonstrate that private ownership of guns reduces crime". I'm not going to bother going over that again, but my OP is riddled with several very recent and thorough studies and meta-analysis of existing data that concludes the exact opposite. More guns seems to be directly related to higher crime rates in the US, and the presence of more privately owned guns does not deter crime in the slightest. Also, the picture really does not give a single source to back up its claim.

"No correlation between availability of guns and higher homicide rate". Again, this simply seems to be untrue when evaluating murder rates in developed countries. The only source the picture gives is 18 year old data that only seems to find that Northern Ireland and Scotland (which as you know have a longstanding history of extreme violence) are the anomaly in the developed world. Every other developed country has homicide rates and gun ownership rates that are only fraction of what the US has.

"No evidence of any relationship between the total number of legally held firearms in society and the rate of armed crime." Eh, what? Their source for that is a 15 year old article that starts off by saying "surveys completed in the past 20 years show". So, that's data from the 1980's and 1990's being used to make a point that is directly opposed and debunked by numerous sources that my OP is riddled with.

"Switzerland has relatively lenient gun control for Europe". Yeah, at this point I'm starting to have issues taking this seriously. Not only is the information there outdated and from before Switzerland changed its gun policy, it's also simply incorrect. Switzerland's gun regulations are actually very strict and not by any means a gun utopia.

"Brazil has strict gun control and higher homicide rates than the US." I don't even see how comparing the US to a South American third world country that is incredibly corrupt, impoverished and has massive issues with cartels and drug production even holds any weight. Also, have a look at this. Gun violence and homicide rates were already higher in Brazil than in the US before they instated stricter gun control. And after making guns harder to get, their homicide rates dropped significantly.

"Finland experienced a school shooting in 2007 despite strict gun regulations." Yet Finland has both significantly lower homicide rates than the US does and only 14% of their homicides are commited by firearm as opposed to 70% in the US. A single school shooting taking place 9 years after stricter gun control was instated does not make for a proper argument.

Then it goes on to reference China and the Philippines to make another moot point of cherrypicked comparisons with third world countries.

Finally, the arguments about Australia are the strongest point they're trying to make. Australia is a very convoluted issue with many arguments to support both sides of the argument. While it's true that their violent crime went up after instating stricter gun regulations, there are many other reasons (such as changes in the police system and registration of crimes) that contribute to this. It's not a clear cut issue and one that I admittedly am on the fence about. But, despite all of that, it's hard to deny that their approach worked in the long run. Some good reads are: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Quote from: Flee on October 05, 2015, 05:13:55 PM

This is one of the most reasonable things I think you've ever posted.

How so? This really just is a compilation of my general opinions on the matter. I already went over pieces of it in several different threads, so I figured it would be a good idea to just put it all together for once.

Not a very meaningful statistic, though. Gun owners are still a (declining) minority with a relatively low amount of people owning multiple firearms each that drastically inflates this statistic.

Quote from: Flee on October 05, 2015, 04:59:16 PM

extraordinary circumstances

What would constitute such a circumstance so as to make gun ownership acceptable?

Self defense and home security is the most common one, I believe.

I looked it up myself, and these are the reasons a person can obtain a firearm license:

- Hunting and animal / pest control
- Sport shooting and recreational shooting
- Executing a specific activity which brings forth extraordinary risks that require the carrying of a firearm (for example: private security)
- Collection of (historical) firearms
- Participation of historical, cultural or scientific activities
- Personal and home defense of persons who are at an abnormal risk of being harmed

Using a firearm to film a movie or as part of play, military re-enactment or scientific research, people who are under constant threat and so forth would constitute extraordinary circumstances. If your request ends up being denied, you can appeal the decision and take it to court.