Summations Only

Funny enough, you are incorrect on this, it is just super expensive to own them and you must continually renew licenses, I believe every three years to own a "Destructive Device". M203 Grenade LauncherGo to the section entitled "Civilian Ownership in the USA.Now, this portion is not in response to CS, but rather just a thought I recently had while thinking about all of this....As many of these crimes occur because someone does not properly store his or her firearm and someone else gains access to it, would it be possible to regulate and register gun safes?What I mean by this is that individuals would not be permitted to purchase any weaponry without first having a regulation gun safe registered with the Federal government. This registration would include capacity of the safe as well. When an individual has purchased enough firearms to occupy the capacity of the registered safe, he or she will no longer be able to purchase guns until a new safe is registered under his or her name.This forces individuals to have the ability to properly store firearms and the government could take action against both the perpetrator of the crime and the owner of the safe and gun if a crime is committed using their firearm.This will not defeat the problem of unregistered weapons or the black market, but would ensure that legally purchased guns are able to be properly stored preventing individuals who should not have access to them from getting their hands on them.I just thought of this today and it is an idea that I have never heard proposed, so please tear the idea apart if need be, but I would think it could avoid these types of scenarios where an individual simply takes mom's guns to create havoc...

My fault, I meant that guns also should be registered. This way the Federal government can be aware when the gun safe is full and place the restriction on the individual until a new safe is purchased and registered.

Yes, I did not think of this negative aspect...However, an individual could remove a handgun at night to ensure the it is more accessible in case of break-in, locking it back up when there is not a risk to members of the family in the household......in fact, most gun owners I know keep the all of their guns in their safe except for the one that they have normally in their possession.Perhaps, this restriction could be strictly for the purchase of large capacity magazines or similar, instead of an outright ban on assault rifles.Really, what I am thinking is that with the current culture as it is in the US, this topic constantly breaks down into an argument, with no resolution coming through. Perhaps looking for new and innovative solutions is the plan that we must adopt.

I never stated that the vast majority of individuals do follow this practice. I was only speaking of those individuals that I know. And in fact it is only most that I know. I actually do have a couple of friends that do not own any gun safe, but own multiple rifles, handguns, and shotguns. Not expecting 100% compliance, but with the requirement to own a gun safe, the owner of the gun could be prosecuted for a crime committed using his or her gun without his or her knowledge because the gun should have been properly stored.ABE - I am just kind of annoyed with the fact that we keep coming to the same points with the two groups, gun owners and non-gun owners. We hear, "Ban all Guns", "Ban Assault Rifles", "Guns save lives", "Right to Bear Arms"...etc ad nauseum.No one is attempting to find legislation that can meet somewhere in the middle. We have all the right wing people saying Obama is going to take my guns away, well wouldn't this plan shut them up? He isn't going to take them away, just ask you to be responsible in your ownership or you can and will be held liable. Likewise, for those who are against gun ownership, we can state that not only will more individuals properly store weapons, but those who do not can face prosecution.It just seem like we have to stop looking at the extreme and start finding a way to work together or there will be zero progress anyway.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : Forgot the words "his or"

Except that is not the case, since many gun enthusiasts know how to reload their own shell casings. In fact, there is even a wikihow page explaining exactly the steps to do so. All an individual would have to have to replenish ammunition is a small bag of shell casings. The rest can be put together pretty simply. How to Reload Ammo: 10 StepsIn fact, no offense intended to my friend (he would agree with my assessment of his intelligence), but I have a friend who is about middle of the road on intelligence and he regularly refills his casings for his .45 Glock, because the ammunition is simply cheaper for him that way. So, you do not even have to be a genius to manage to make ammunition should the government ban new ammo.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

Three things which can be easily smuggled into the United States from Mexico (or elsewhere, living in Arizona a lot of the drug trafficking I hear of comes from Mexico, hence my predilection for mentioning that country), so it will create a market for these three things to come over because it will profitable. I will agree that the casings do not last for an unlimited number of reloads, although these also can be smuggled.......or even better found. I go camping up north in the National Forest a lot and there are simply shell casings laying around everywhere in the woods. I agree that the majority of reloaders are not potential risks. However, if there is a motivated individual who wants to wreak havoc, we need to realize that banning guns and ammo will not stop him or her from acquiring what they need. Crash keeps mentioning the War on Drugs and it is a good analogy. The market exists and so some sort of smuggling will occur to ensure that these products are never removed.Now, what we are left with is an unarmed populous with those motivated individuals still able to find access to the products they need to make ammo and fire it. Not sure that this is what we need instead of better regulation and holding individuals responsible for the damage that is caused by a gun that they legally own. My fault for simplifying it far too much.Also, a quick question for the thread about this topic. I was attempting to find statistics on how many crimes are committed with stolen guns and I could not find anything I felt was super reliable. I found percentages ranging from 60% to 90%. Even if it is at the low end of this spectrum, wouldn't proper locked storage go a long way toward diminishing this statistic?ABE - Now I have even found Stats from California that say stolen guns are as low as 4%....so it really seems that there is no good spot for this information. This one was from a gun crime report from the Attorney General's office though.PS - If someone can find a better site for stats on this, please let me know.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : Added a new percentage that was found.

Asking for a percentage would really require that we know exactly how many guns were forged during that time period. However, it took me less than ten seconds to find a list of 68 working guns on one site from the Revolutionary War and Civil War. Revolutionary War, Civil War Antique Guns and FirearmsI am sure that I can find more, but a percentage, that is a ridiculous request without more knowledge.Also, if you are in the market for a Kentucky Long Rifle, this site has about 70 of them. Antique Kentuckey RiflesEdited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : Added second linkEdited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

Yes, you are correct he cannot calculate a percentage. However, I think that finding 138 guns for sale in working condition by checking only two sites does kind of imply that guns are made to be pretty durable. It is by no means conclusive evidence but it could show us that at least 138 guns could be sitting around from our current manufacture in 238 years, and that is only based on two websites.Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

These are originals, not replicas.Some of the conditions of the weapons are not great, but they claim to be working...I think the oldest one that I saw is actually from between 1795 and 1810, so I guess it would be in only 202 years at the high end. Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : fixed wording

Yes, we already had this clarified by Theodoric. However, it would be pretty simple to smuggle powder over from other countries (Mexico comes to mind, since I live in Arizona), just the lead portion can be simply manufactured in the home or smuggled, primers can be smuggled relatively easily as well, and the casings can be saved or found (Go to the woods, and you can find 1000 casings on the ground in under two hours, they are literally everywhere).

I think I know enough about the subject to make a few points, although not relatively major ones. After all, I am for Gun Registration and more regulations, just not for an overall ban (and I am not even a gun owner, and never wanted to be)I was not sure on the exact dates on the weapons, but my main point on this is that these weapons are pretty durable. Even if we go with the low end of the dates that these guns are from, let's say this Hawken rifle, we are still looking at some weapons surviving 123 years. I do not think that banning guns and then waiting that long for them all to disappear or fall into disrepair is the most effective strategy we can devise. This is why I keep pushing to try and determine another course of action aside from a blanket ban.

Again, using Mexico and the War on Drugs as a analogy...tell that to the Marijuana Dealers. Seems they get product here quite easily enough because they know the demand exists.

Yes, in this current year I would agree. But it was not the war on drugs that led to this good ol' homegrown USA weed. Rather it was the removal of the blanket ban and allowing growers to operate in medicinal marijuana states. Prior to that the good stuff came from Canada and the cheaper stuff from Mexico. Legalizing medicinal weed and removing that blanket ban was the first step, correct? I think you and I are actually at s similar position on gun control actually.

Definitely could be location specific. As a resident of Arizona, one of the states with the loosest gun laws, shooting with any type of weapon is not frowned upon in National Forests (except during our dry season). This is where a lot of individuals in this area go to blow off a little steam.Yes, the availability would drop off, but do we really want to fully disarm the law-abiding population and allow them to wait for it to drop off, while those who do not obey laws collect the means to make more ammo? At least in AZ. Lol. That is just it...according to many people that I know who own guns, they will not give them up. For them the need is high and they will want to continue to utilize firearms for whatever purpose. Also, for those planning something deadly the need is also high. The individuals that the need is not high for are those who would then need protection from the illegally gained firearms. Right, but why not make the process of obtaining a gun more difficult. Requiring guns to be registered, gun safes to be owned before guns can be purchased, and limiting ammo (both capacity and amount allowed to be held at once by a single person) could serve the same purpose without disarming the population of law-abiding citizens who do not use their guns for incorrect purposes.Someone earlier mentioned that Guns coming from Mexico are made in the US, so if we ban guns, our manufacturers will still be selling items to other countries, including Mexico. These guns will then find their way back into the system through the black market. A blanket ban is not the answer for this country but rather better regulation and better mental health treatment are what we should really be looking for.

However, when you actually look at those number homicide is not the number one cause of firearm-related deaths. At least in the case of Arizona, my home state, the highest cause was suicide with a firearm. The totals for Arizona in 2009 are:Homicide: 224
Suicide: 596
Accidental: 7So, looking at this it is not our aggressive nature as much as it is related to mental health and depression. If we can achieve beneficial results in the fields of mental health treatment, then we can begin to lower these gun related deaths without even removing guns from the street. I mean seriously, depression is responsible for 72% of the firearm-related deaths! 72%!!!!!Another thing is that whatever study you cited seems to have extra deaths that are not accounted for in the numbers from the Arizona Department of Health Services. There are 29 deaths extra listed in your numbers and not sure where they came from. Firearm-related Deaths: ArizonaLook, I am all for registration of guns and safes, closing the gun show loophole, requiring a background check even for private citizens selling guns, and holding gun owners legally responsible for any crime committed with a firearm registered to them. However, guns are not the main issue. If we do not do something about the mental health aspect, then this suicide rate is not going to diminish by much because these are motivated individuals who will find a way. This means we will still be dealing with a high rate of preventable death, and the other homicides are not even guaranteed to diminish, but could change to another means of murder.What I am saying is let's focus on the 72% first and then we can worry about the other levels.PS - I can't seem to find the group responsible for these reports for the other states yet, but I will post the percentages once I can figure out the correct group to retrieve them from.