A good solution would be fiercly attacking the illegal gun owners, and not the everyday-joe who jumped through all the hoops, paid all the charges, and passed all the tests.

I feel like I am getting screwed here, and all I ever shot was paper, and deer. Mostly paper.

I can start shooting humans, others seem to do it with impunity. That may be the best solution.

There's no need for that, you just have to constantly put them in a state of fear, ignorance and disinformation then you can do whatever you want with your puppets, euh, I mean the people... (particularly referring to the last war in 2003).

Soopaman, I see what you mean.

Steeve, according to Wikipedia, Montreal has a population of 1,649,519 and there's about 30 homicides per year (and yes, a lot of them is caused by gangs), and if you want to do the math, go on...

I know I come across as a lunatic here with this, but I did everything right to own.

I should not be a criminal just because people misuse tools.

If I beat my wifes head in with a hammer, you gonna ban carpenters?

RFID chips are a terrible idea. They don't belong in passports, they don't belong in guns either. So does a lot of the stuff suggested in the article like GPS devices - :nope: The potential for abuse is enormous. Apart from the potential abuse by citizens, the risk for abuse by the state is even bigger. History has shown that if you give instruments of surveillance to the government, they will use them, often only stopped by the courts, which remain one of the last resorts to defend citizen rights.

All the measures suggested in the article are too high tech solutions. This means a system could also have a high failure rate in situations where it must not. Despise the high tech, sensors, of any kind, are not that smart and can be fooled much easier than a human being.

A lower tech suggestion, to stop spontanious misuse could be fingerprint sensors. This way a weapon that is taken from you, can not be used against you - at least not directly. Of course the control, whose fingerprints are registered to the gun, should remain in the hands of the legal owner. For example your weapon for home defense could be green-lit to be shot by the owner, the spouse, the teenage kid, but not the 4 year old child.
I got this idea from Shadowrun, so there might be real life objections, or even tests which make my suggestion moot. I am open to hear which flaws you folks see in this idea.

Finally, the most efficient way to bring crime down in America, would be adopting a social security web that is worth its name. Maybe you would have more freeloaders, but imo the overall positive effects would trump the negative ones in any aspect.

Well, it depends doesnt it? Sure, if out of the blue the white house gave the order to armed forces to 'start rounding up and attacking U.S citizens, SS style" I doubt they would follow through on it either. But that is not how these things unfold is it?

Sometimes the Police are required to attack American Citizens in order to defend American Citizens, and of course (most of the time) American Citizens attack American Citizens, so I dont know what makes you estimate that 90% of the Military and NG would not be prepared to do it under circumstance that are still widley percieved to be justified.
Depends on the situtation and numbers of course, but dont underestimate the power of politics and psychological conditioning. In a scenario where 'militants' are still in the minority, Id expect they'd be presented to both the military and the people as 'Domestic terrorists' / 'traitors' / 'internal threat' /criminals' rather than merely as 'Americans' (Assuming they were significant enough to need the military to deal with them, rather than civil law enforcement)

For the U.S military (or even elements of it) to turn its back on the white house, you'd need to pass a point where the American people collectivley no longer support the actions of their government. So what do the military do before they reach that point? - for the most part, they do as they are told. Its The same rule that applies to any other nation that has undergone a revolution, when armed forces realise that they are approaching a situation where they will be fighting a people to defend a government - THAT is usually the point where they turn their guns around. But the whole process doesnt happen over night.

Anyway all I was really saying is that I dont belive America is anywhere near that kind of situation today.

I bow to your superior wisdom of my country, it's military and it's people... :roll:

Im just going on past history. I dont know what makes your country so different from any other in this particular case? But feel free to educate me on what the basis is for your estimate.
Sorry I forgot the rule that I cant possibly know anything about a country if I dont live there, its not like their are books, websites, news articals, documentries and people talking about them or anything.
I'd pay more attention to UK politics, but ours is just not as interesting as yours.

In the normal course of duty the police don't "attack" citizens. They question citizens in an attempt to get information, but even forced interrogations are illegal. If you're refering to gunfights, then the police are defending citizens against criminals who by definition have relinquished their citizenship rights.

You mean criminals attacking citizens? Criminals by nature don't see other people as being real anyway. 'Center-of-the-universe' syndrome at its worst.

Back in the heyday of the Vietnam war, the Utah National Guard was called out to disperse an anti-war protest rally being staged in one of our larger parks. When the Guard arrived they realized that many of the protesters were friends and family. The end result was the National Guard guarding a peaceful and lawful assembly of citizens in defiance of orders from the Governor.

Of course you're right about the persuasive powers of politicians, as has been pointed out by everyone from James Madison to Hermann Goering. This is always a potential problem. Part of the solution is the ingrained ideal that the Constitution is more important than any President or Congress.

This is also true, but we're talking about a potential order from the Federal Government to forget the Constitution. If a significant portion of the American People, or more importantly the States themselves, rose up in defiance of that, I think you'd see major support, first from the National Guard, and then from major portions of the military.

My late friend Rocky once told me a story about one of his teachers. The teacher was Jewish, and jokingly blamed the Holocaust on the Jews themselves (and no, I'm not trying to Godwinize the thread). The teacher's justification for the statement: "If they'd shot the first SS SOB that came throught the door, the next SS SOB might have thought twice, and the whole thing might have been a little less one-sided!"

And if you don't think that armed civilians can do damage to the military, just remember what the French (and Polish, and others) underground accomplished against the Nazi occupation.

Anyone who enlists in the US Military or is commissioned as an officer swears an oath to defend the Constitution not necessarily the government.As a result it is highly likely if a seriously objectionable order where given that clearly violated the Constitution many troops would refuse to obey it and most likely side with the people.

This is the oath of enlistment:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Notice the first part that means that if an officer or the President of the United States gives an order that clearly violates the Constitution the order is null and void.The President of the United States also swears an oath to defend the Constitution if he or she ever does violate this their position becomes null and void and any order given would also be null and void.

Here is a National Guard oath:
I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the State of (STATE NAME) against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the Governor of (STATE NAME) and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to law and regulations. So help me God.

Well if push ever comes to shove (and I hope it doesn't) I hope you are right in that the Military will stand by their oath to uphold the consitution and not the Government, because to be brutally honest, they (Government) dont seem all that bothered about doing unconstitutional things once in a while.

Welfare, The Patriot Act, Invasion & rebuilding of Iraq, The Monetary system, The Frederal Reserve, Bank Bailouts, Medicare (to name a few)

Almost all mass shootings in recent decades have happened in areas where guns are expressly forbidden, even in the hands of employees, like schools, most theaters, etc. If a teacher wanted a CCW, it would not be allowed to take the weapon to school, for example. Of course if a teacher was already a homicidal nut, he/she would just bring the gun (or knife, etc) anyway. Allowing them to be armed would result in zero increase in school attacks, and might, just might, lower a death toll. That said I don't agree with guards in schools, or metal detectors, etc. It's wasteful for something so rare (yes, it's rare). Letting teachers, etc arm themselves voluntarily seems perfectly reasonable to me. Bottom line is you cannot prevent a crazy from arming themselves with some kind of weapon, and if you are a 100 lb teacher in a room of 6 year olds and a nut comes in, you need a tool, and the only tool that will do is a firearm.

The cultural issue is NOT the culture of the insane that do these mass shootings. That is a mental health problem and has exactly nothing to do with culture.

The current (mid 2000s are the best the DOJ has) rate for victims by race have the rate for blacks at 6X that for whites (they are 7X more likely to murder with guns, whites, OTOH, commit around 80% of the murders by poison). The majority of killers using guns are black. A majority, which is a lot considering they are ~12% of the population (and most are mean, dropping them to just 6% of the population committing 50.9% of gun murders).

The "white" rate of homicide is around 3 per 100,000. This is by all attackers, and includes many cultures within the US that are nominally labeled "white" by the US government. Not really far from a few places in Europe like Liechtenstein (2.8:100,000), or Luxembourg (2.5). Are their high (for europe) rates because of their culture, or perhaps an invasive culture?

While these terrible mass shootings get a lot of press, but more kids are killed in the inner cities almost daily. In 2012, something like 60 children were murdered, the vast majority black kids by other blacks.

What perhaps the non-gun people out there (at SS, and the world at large) don't "get," is that the vast, overwhelming majority of us with guns can state with certainty that we would NEVER use them criminally. As a result, the idea of armed people doesn't scare us. Guns don't make people violent. I've had guns for decades, and been VERY angry on numerous occasions, and it never even crossed my mind that a gun was a useful tool for my anger. This is true of 90-something % of gun owners, I'd wager. The ones it is not true of... already do crimes with guns, or think about it.

I'm reminded of this...

Oh yea note to self: Use human shield...

:nope:

@tater

I don't want to go in a ''I'm right and you're wrong'' discourse, I think that leads nowhere. :down:

But I take the Montreal case again: it's a very multicultural city, in fact I hate this city, each time I go there I feel like I'm in a different country and it's very dirty. But nevertheless, it's the safest city (for a metropolis) in North America.

The only thing, I think there's less black people than in the U.S.

http://www.studyinmontreal.info/en/node/3092

http://www.spvm.qc.ca/en/documentation/gd_19.asp

BTW, I know this city is only one city, and therefore isn't enough in a scientifical point of view.

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And yes we have gun control laws, and that didn't prevent my friend (who's in the reserve) to spend nearly 10 000$ on several guns (maybe 5 or 6, I don't remember). There are maybe some limitations (I should ask him about it) but for sure I know he has a lot of fun whith it when he goes in the wood.

And I know laws are not the only solution, gun violence is surely a complex social problem (related to lot of things) to be examine by specialists.

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I'm glad you admit it, I think it's precisely one of the objective of gun control, to prevent nuts from having these, maybe also those who are on medication (and believe me you can be really ****** up on this, I know, I experienced it)

And the police really like to know what kind of weapon (if any) an individual can have when they go for an arrest (I know my own sister is a police officer).

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On the other hand, let's face it, when you compare the stats between nations (by nations I mean western nations, not third world countries where gangs and drug dealers do almost whatever they want) US is by far the country where gun violence is at it's highest.

In the end it's a choice, I mean you could still think, ''no we want gun freedom at all cost'' everything is a question of values (although those values might change when you experience something dramatic).

I would even support those who want to create an independant country with their state (if they estimate their values to be dramatically different) as long as it's done democratically (even if I disagree with those values).

Peace out :sunny:

See that Obama unveiled his gun law proposals, same old stuff and will never pass congress.

You're confusing controversial issues with unconstitutional issues. The only thing in that list that could be considered unconstitutional is the Patriot Act.