Thread: PoliceOne's Gun Control Survey: 11 key lessons from officers' perspectives

Originally Posted by Nuckle

I cant remember a single post where any of the pro gun people asks that those that do not have a gun go buy one.

Use our hello kitty lunch box to defend your home. I am good with that.

Preserving as proof that Nuck has a Hello Kitty lunchbox.

Originally Posted by Morningfrost

And once again, I ask what kind of an idea you're bringing to the table other than "arm everybody". Yeah there are negatives about a national gun registry, just like there are negatives about every single thing in life. The idea is not to just shoot something down because it has negatives, but to actually come up with something better....and right now all I hear is "No," rather than anything even coming close to an idea.

How would you propose we do something about the proliferation of illegal weapons? And "enforce current laws" isn't much of an answer, considering our current laws have almost as many loopholes as the tax code.

~Morningfrost

"The proliferation of illegal weapons" is a straw man assertion. Here is the bottom line on gun related crime as far as I'm concerned. I posted this information in another thread:

http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL32842_20121114.pdf


From an extreme high in 1993 to 2011, firearms related deaths were cut in half in the United States. And they continue to drop today.


Another principal source of national crime data is the National Crime Victimization Survey
(NCVS) conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
(BJS). The NCVS database provides some information on the weapons used by offenders, based
on victims’ reports. For example, based on data provided by survey respondents in calendar year 2009, BJS
estimated that, nationwide, there were 4.3 million non-lethal violent crimes (rape or sexual
assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault). Weapons were used in 22% of these
incidents, and firearms were used by offenders in 8% of these incidents. The estimated number
of firearms-related non-lethal violent crime incidents decreased from 428,670 in 2000 to 326,090
in 2009, and from 2.4 persons to 1.4 per 100,000 of the population ages 12 and older.


The example here is that 8 percent of violent crimes in 2009 involved a firearm.


What part of that 8% is due to illegal guns do you think? What if it was all 8%? Would that be significant enough to have the huge focus that this issue has right now? I think not.


The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says the following:


"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It's not me who needs to come up with anything. Our rights are already secured by the constitution, and the current laws are invasive enough to provide the protection you seek. Nothing really needs to change and the statistics don't even support making a change. It's you that needs to come up with a compelling reason to make more laws. The numbers show clearly that if the real intent is to reduce the number of crimes, or even simply the number of murders, or even the number of deaths, focusing on crimes involving guns provides severely limited returns. It's a dumb point of focus.

Folks, this is what the left does. Try to control the narrative by deciding what the starting point is and exaggerating. I've heard lefties on here talk about "rampant" gun crime, the need for banning "assault weapons", and the "proliferation of illegal weapons", when the actual data does not support it at all.

Frost, you are trying to make the starting point for any discussion that we have to "do something", we have to decide on more gun control that we can agree on. I reject your assertion, and I have the data to back it up. Both for "assault weapons", and for other types of firearms. Oh and in reference to the original post, most police officers agree with me.

Manchin-Toomey Gun Control Amendment: Compromise lacks votes to avoid GOP-led filibuster.