Author: Sebastian

Robyn Ringler thinks it’s time for a change, for the children.

It did not escape me that the hog was killed with 8 bullets from a .50 caliber magnum revolver which I have been told is an unwieldy hunting gun, difficult particularly for a boy to handle, and is probably the reason it took so long and so many shots to kill the poor pig so cruelly.

It certainly wouldn’t have been my weapon of choice for an animal so large, but it’s not an unreasonable choice. I would have probably chosen a .50 BMG or rough ballistic equivalent for game so large, but a large caliber handgun, while not ideal in my view, isn’t a horrid choice, especially given the shooter’s age. A large caliber rifle might be a bit much to lug around.

In regard to the .50 caliber sniper rifle, many have made the point that it has not YET been used to shoot down a plane and has not YET been used to kill a lot of people. But, that is typical of America. We seem to wait for tragedy and then we take action. I want to PREVENT tragedy before it happens. I don’t believe I’m acting unreasonably afraid or emotional. I believe there is a real threat of terrorism from the .50 caliber sniper rifle and that it should be banned.

Yes, how very typical of America that we are very protective of our constitutional rights, and are demanding of those insisting we restrict them. And yes, you are acting irrationally and afraid, because there are other rifle calibers out there with capabilities similar to the .50BMG, which are used for big game hunting, which you’re not talking about banning. You want to ban .50 cals because they look scary.

Ironically, the argument that a particular weapon should not be banned if it has not already caused sufficient harm seems to support an argument (which I have not made) for the banning of guns that HAVE caused sufficient harm, namely, the handguns most often used in homicides, suicides and accidents involved in almost 30,000 gun deaths each year in America.

And they are used, even by conservative estimates, about 800,000 times a year by Americans in self-defense. They are also used by millions of Americans, including myself, for sport.

In regard to the question of whether we should consider children engaging in gang activity “children” when they are killed by guns, the answer is unequivocally yes. Children are children no matter who kills them with guns, even if they kill each other. We, as a society, are allowing them to have guns by not preventing them from having guns. WE are responsible.

Last I checked, federal and state laws prohibit children from purchasing firearms, or possessing them outside of lawful, supervised activity. Since this is already illegal, how are more laws going to help?

If banning guns in the inner cities is not keeping guns out of the hands of 12, 13, and 14 year old children, then we need to think of another way. I repeat. We need to keep children in the inner cities out of the gun loop. It is the only responsible thing to do.

I agree, we need to think of another way, so will you agree then that gun control is a mostly useless method for doing this?  If you want ideas on how to reduce inner city violence, maybe we can agree that the “War on Drugs” has been an utter failure, and has done nothing except encouraged a violent black market trade.   Perhaps the time has come, rather than criminalizing gun possession, we should decriminalize drugs.

Via David, this article gives us more information on the Wintemute “study”:

Another surprise was the straw purchases. Wintemute thought they would be uncommon no matter the location of the gun show because federal law bans straw purchases nationwide. Instead, he reported seeing “24 definite and three probable straw purchases” in the four comparison states, and “one straw purchase and one probable straw purchase” in California.

Some were fairly blatant. On three occasions, all outside California, he observed straw purchasers buying multiple guns in a single transaction. He even saw a licensed retailer at a gun show in Florida processing multiple straw purchases simultaneously.

Also in Florida, Wintemute saw a woman in her twenties buying a rifle with a bayonet and 30-round magazine from a licensed retailer while her male partner, who had selected the firearm, stood 15 feet away while she completed the paperwork. As the background check was being run on her, the man talked with the retailer about the rifle and then bought ammunition for it once the background check had been completed.

I don’t think Wintemute understands what a straw purchase is. Only if the other party is a prohibited person, which, unless you heard the guy say “I’m a convicted felon” or “I can’t pass the background check” or something like that, it’s not a straw purchase under the law. For all this guy knows, the boyfriend was helping his girlfriend buy her first rifle. This is not illegal activity, and portraying it as such is disingenuous and unethical. But that’s what we’ve come to expect from people like this.

Straw purchases, particularly in the comparison states, were “out in the open, with no evidence that the buyer or seller felt the need to hide their conduct,” Wintemute said. “So I infer from that that there’s no substantial effort to enforce [the federal law banning straw purchases] at gun shows.”

Of course it was out in the open, because it’s not a straw purchase, and not illegal, unless the other person is known to be a prohibited person by the person transferring the firearm to them.