Chicago police: Gun laws blamed for weekend killings

[NeverSure]

I am an American who has never owned a gun, and have no plans to ever own a gun. The problem in America is not permissive gun laws, but a lack of enforcement of those gun laws on the books. Until there are real consequences for the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, ie. a 10 year sentence enhancement for the non-fatal use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, mandatory life for use of a firearm in which a death occurs, 20 year enhancement for a felon in possesion of a firearm, there will be no reduction in weapons use by criminals. Stop and frisk dramatically lowered murders and assaults in New York, but the new mayor, de Blasio, catered to the minority complaints and suspended the law. Murders and assaults immediately increased. 91% of Chicago's firearms crimes are black on black, and the majority of those are gang related. If stop and frisk was implemented in Chicago, there would be a dramatic reduction in firearms crimes. Taking guns away from law abiding citizens is not the answer, throwing the book at the use of a firearm in criminal activity is.

And you are willing to pay for those long-term incarceration costs in the form of higher taxes?

The reason I ask is that most Americans are upset their taxes are already too high and many teaparty members right here on TV think there should be no taxes.

Cheers

Well there seem to be people on here who want laws against guns but they don't offer a way to pay for that enforcement. The people who are the biggest problem should already be in prison for prior offenses. But a soft justice system lets them back out to walk the streets and get illegal guns.

Everytime you pass a law it costs money. Every time.

[ClutchClark]

We already have laws restricting many uses of guns. I think a major fine levied against someone who left guns out to be easily stolen would be a good idea. Mine are all locked in a safe and the safe is disguised. I have one or two out at a time, but they are with me.

I think that hammering people who let their kids get their guns or who fail to maintain control of them would help secure my gun rights, giving fewer arguments against those rights.

I think quite a few gunowners would agree with your last sentence.

I do.

[ChoakMyDee]

It's a very sick society that can't even protect their little ones. I would have thought that Sandy Hook would have convinced them to tighten up their gun laws considerably. As long as the NRA can buy the politicians nothing will change.

And did the Sandy Hook shooter buy that weapon?

I don't know if he bought the weapon or if it was transmitted from another galaxy via a wormhole...and I don't care.

My point was, he broke several laws, but he didn't have to break one to make a purchase, he didn't bother. That seems to be a point that many seem to miss when saying there should be more restrictive laws on purchases. But, when you buy out of a crack house or the trunk of a car, you don't need to do background check.

What about no guns, period? If there were no guns then people couldn't shoot innocent people.

[NeverSure]

What about no guns, period? If there were no guns then people couldn't shoot innocent people.

You at least need to be realistic and not extreme. You're talking about a culture you don't understand and never will.

100+ million Americans own 300+ million guns. They are not what you might think they are. Many are liberals, conservatives, whatever, but they have the one thing in common.

Because the exact number isn't known, and guns don't have to be registered, the actual number of owners could equal the entire populations of England, Canada, and Australia.

Additionally you have people who don't bother to own a gun but they support the right to own one. They want the freedom to own one.

Gun rights supporters are in the majority by a good margin. This is why Obama couldn't get his falsely labeled "assault weapons ban" passed by his own liberal Democrats in the Senate. It was very simple. They wanted to get re-elected. If the people won't tolerate outlawing "assault weapons," what do you think they'd say about banning their hunting rifle or their handgun?

Whatever idea you advance needs to be realistic and doable, or you're just tilting at windmills.

[Chicog]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

[ChoakMyDee]

What about no guns, period? If there were no guns then people couldn't shoot innocent people.

You at least need to be realistic and not extreme. You're talking about a culture you don't understand and never will.

100+ million Americans own 300+ million guns. They are not what you might think they are. Many are liberals, conservatives, whatever, but they have the one thing in common.

Because the exact number isn't known, and guns don't have to be registered, the actual number of owners could equal the entire populations of England, Canada, and Australia.

Additionally you have people who don't bother to own a gun but they support the right to own one. They want the freedom to own one.

Gun rights supporters are in the majority by a good margin. This is why Obama couldn't get his falsely labeled "assault weapons ban" passed by his own liberal Democrats in the Senate. It was very simple. They wanted to get re-elected. If the people won't tolerate outlawing "assault weapons," what do you think they'd say about banning their hunting rifle or their handgun?

Whatever idea you advance needs to be realistic and doable, or you're just tilting at windmills.

Yes, I understand I am being very unrealistic but as long as everyone has the power to kill at their fingertips the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns. Until you do that, there will be more innocent people killed including, tragically, children. It is a very sick society that can't even protect its own children in my opinion. That there is even a debate about it shows how mentally ill American society is. The rest of the world finds it incredible that the USA is willing to sacrifice its children to uphold a "right" written on an old piece of paper.

[neverdie]

Well,

Here we go again. The experts in this matter, ie: Police Superintendent, will tell us how it is and then all the nay sayers and gun slingers will race in and litter this spot with some more tosh and hyperbol.

The american laws and systems are killing its own people. When will they ever learn?

How much blood has to be spilt unnecessarily?

What a shame, a damn shame.

RIP to all those men, women and children that are being slaughtered so needlessly in the streets. Is this 2014?

Tell everybody about Port Arthur neverdie, and the changes that led to in Oz. They need our laws in the States desperately.

What I would like to do though Trentham is expose some of these so called weapons gurus to some of the mess thats created by these weapons.

Id like to see the look on some of their faces when we clean up. The blood, the gutts, the gore, the pure emotion involved when it comes to bagging up dead children, innocent victims of crime.

I remember at one shooting I went to, several victims lay on the ground, i had to gather up their bits and place them into body bags. As I reached down and attempted to move the body of one victim I realised that her shattered skull had allowed her brain to exit rearwards and a section of it was now snagged around a section of tree branch.. The more I tried to untangle the brain the more it stuck to other parts of the finely woven branch. I could smell the blood and its congealing muck stuck to my gloves, it wasn't long before the front of my overalls were smeared with blood. As I moved onto the next victims I became confused about which tangled bit of mess belonged to which body......the damage to the human body after they have been shot multiple times by high powered weapons is insane.

Later that evening, as I undressed in my yard, outside my laundry door, I commenced to remove a few items from my pockets. I removed something from my top pocket and unsure of what it was I reached for the light switch only to reveal I was holding a section of human skull with hair attached to it, somehow in the dark it had fallen into my pocket without me realising it. I use to keep a special bucket for washing uniform, fouled in such a way. My wife, my family, they were forbidden to go near the bucket, nor were they allowed to witness me dealing with what laid within the bucket.

Dealing with the blood muck and grime of crime is only one thing, the hardest job of all is dealing with the loved ones, the family, the mothers, fathers and brothers.

Yep, don't see many of the gun slingers lining up for the gritty jobs, meanwhile thousands of dedicated Police and Paramedics and so forth are dealing with these issues, second by second, hour by hour, day by day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Simply, failed policy and some old archaic constitution is letting the American people down, sadly some of them are too stupid to realise it.

You know you aren't the only one to see the damage resulting from being struck by a bullet. Get over it.

I never laid claim to be the only one, in actual fact the message was theres TENS OF THOUSANDS of people effected by these crimes, every year. For every man, woman or child slaughtered, theres DOZENS of people who are affected.

Its a pity most of what I said seemed to pass you and thats the problem with people like you. Try getting over it yourself.

[neverdie]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

Its funny you know. Some of the pro-gunners here that quickly denounce suggestions for tighter gun related laws are suddenly accepting that certain things could change in relation to the way the laws are enforced etc. This thread and others on the subject display various posts about that.

What part of gun law reform, dont they understand. All facets of the issue need to be addressed. I for one never suggested that all firearms be removed from the community, far from it. Theres still many firearm owners in Australia, many.

As for suggestions by the pro lobby that Police arnt doing their enforcement duties correctly and that being responsible for the firearms deaths......give me a break, you cant tell me all Police USA wide are lax with their firearm law enforcement duties, ridiculous. What some people fail to understand is that Police and Law enforcement people are a finite resource, while they are busy moping up the bloodshed at one end of the scale they cannot be conducting pro active duties at the other end, something must give first. Can you imagine the call, "Mass shooting in progress at XXXX high school, cars to respond" NY23, we cant get there radio, we are busy doing firearms inspections, can you put it on the log for the day after tomorrow."

time to get real people, the laws in the USA need a tune up, this issue is threatening more innocent people than the 9/11 attacks did.

[notmyself]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

Its funny you know. Some of the pro-gunners here that quickly denounce suggestions for tighter gun related laws are suddenly accepting that certain things could change in relation to the way the laws are enforced etc. This thread and others on the subject display various posts about that.

What part of gun law reform, dont they understand. All facets of the issue need to be addressed. I for one never suggested that all firearms be removed from the community, far from it. Theres still many firearm owners in Australia, many.

As for suggestions by the pro lobby that Police arnt doing their enforcement duties correctly and that being responsible for the firearms deaths......give me a break, you cant tell me all Police USA wide are lax with their firearm law enforcement duties, ridiculous. What some people fail to understand is that Police and Law enforcement people are a finite resource, while they are busy moping up the bloodshed at one end of the scale they cannot be conducting pro active duties at the other end, something must give first. Can you imagine the call, "Mass shooting in progress at XXXX high school, cars to respond" NY23, we cant get there radio, we are busy doing firearms inspections, can you put it on the log for the day after tomorrow."

time to get real people, the laws in the USA need a tune up, this issue is threatening more innocent people than the 9/11 attacks did.

As you say, there is NO valid reason to object to strict gun regulation.

[neverdie]

^ thanks for posting notmyself. I didnt need to see the video, I know the laws worked, I was active right throughout that entire period.

Somehow the pro gun lobby will say its not relevant in the USA, apparently the laws of gravity are different there. Go figure !

[NeverSure]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

Not fair. Spaztisics. The US has the world's 3rd largest population and the 3rd largest land mass behind Russia and Canada. The US has much more "habitable" land than either Russia or Canada.

India and China have the world's largest populations, and gun ownership is effectively denied in both.

So the US has by far the most people who are allowed to own guns, and on the largest land mass.

The US has a lot more of everything than most other countries, good and bad.

[NeverSure]

Yes, I understand I am being very unrealistic but as long as everyone has the power to kill at their fingertips the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns. Until you do that, there will be more innocent people killed including, tragically, children.

-snip-

"...the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns."

As the old saying goes, "You and who's army?" Do you want to see a whole lot of people die? Try to take away Americans' guns. You don't understand the culture and you never will.

Who would be stupid enough to try to take them? They'd have to go door to door. 100 million people in one army would be by far the largest fighting force the world has ever known.

I predict that the people assigned to take them would either bolt rank and side with the citizens, or would know better than to side with the government. The American constitution gives power to individuals over the government and one thing the government may not do is take guns. You'd see a civil war and within 48 hours anyone still stupid enough to be in a police or military uniform would be dead. Everyone in Washington DC stupid enough to stay there in government would be dead.

You'd see the biggest and fastest civil war the world has ever seen.

Americans will stay free, even at the cost of lives. SOME THINGS ARE WORTH DYING FOR. Freedom is one of them and that's the American culture.

Long after W. Europe has been wrapped up by Islamic immigration and a high birth rate within country, and its governments soft stance, and long after Australia has been ruined by it's loss of freedoms to its style of government and to its welfare state for anyone who walks in, and its bad deals with China, Americans will be standing.

In the 1930's, the Wiemar Republic forced all Germans to register their guns. That made it easy for Hitler to take them away. If the German people had refused to give up their guns and instead fought back, Hitler and his Nazis would have been wiped out right there and there wouldn't have been a WWII.

I'm going to tell you I told you so, even if it's 40 years from now from my grave.

[chuckd]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

How about providing a link to your quote?

I'd like to read the entire article, not something possibly taken out of context.

Cheers

[Chicog]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

How about providing a link to your quote?

I'd like to read the entire article, not something possibly taken out of context.

Cheers

http://www.factcheck.org/2013/01/child-homicides/

The original report:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20571454

CONCLUSIONS:

The United States has far higher rates of firearm deaths-firearm homicides, firearm suicides, and unintentional firearm deaths compared with other high-income countries. The US overall suicide rate is not out of line with these countries, but the United States is an outlier in terms of our overall homicide rate.

[Chicog]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

Not fair. Spaztisics. The US has the world's 3rd largest population and the 3rd largest land mass behind Russia and Canada. The US has much more "habitable" land than either Russia or Canada.

India and China have the world's largest populations, and gun ownership is effectively denied in both.

So the US has by far the most people who are allowed to own guns, and on the largest land mass.

The US has a lot more of everything than most other countries, good and bad.

I really don't understand why you think land mass has anything to do with it. If 563.5 million people in 22 countries are the key numbers here.

I would have thought the majority of shootings occur in cities anyway, so if population density is an issue then its probably still a pointless statistic.

[ChoakMyDee]

Yes, I understand I am being very unrealistic but as long as everyone has the power to kill at their fingertips the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns. Until you do that, there will be more innocent people killed including, tragically, children.

-snip-

"...the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns."

As the old saying goes, "You and who's army?" Do you want to see a whole lot of people die? Try to take away Americans' guns. You don't understand the culture and you never will.

Who would be stupid enough to try to take them? They'd have to go door to door. 100 million people in one army would be by far the largest fighting force the world has ever known.

I predict that the people assigned to take them would either bolt rank and side with the citizens, or would know better than to side with the government. The American constitution gives power to individuals over the government and one thing the government may not do is take guns. You'd see a civil war and within 48 hours anyone still stupid enough to be in a police or military uniform would be dead. Everyone in Washington DC stupid enough to stay there in government would be dead.

You'd see the biggest and fastest civil war the world has ever seen.

Americans will stay free, even at the cost of lives. SOME THINGS ARE WORTH DYING FOR. Freedom is one of them and that's the American culture.

Long after W. Europe has been wrapped up by Islamic immigration and a high birth rate within country, and its governments soft stance, and long after Australia has been ruined by it's loss of freedoms to its style of government and to its welfare state for anyone who walks in, and its bad deals with China, Americans will be standing.

In the 1930's, the Wiemar Republic forced all Germans to register their guns. That made it easy for Hitler to take them away. If the German people had refused to give up their guns and instead fought back, Hitler and his Nazis would have been wiped out right there and there wouldn't have been a WWII.

I'm going to tell you I told you so, even if it's 40 years from now from my grave.

I actually agree with most of what you say but I do disagree with a couple points...

1. Sacrificing your children is not worth it. Some things are worth dying for but the freedom for some lunatic to have a gun at the expense of your children's lives isn't one of them.

2. You talk about freedom being so important to Americans. You need to wake up. The USA is a police state. Americans are being murdered in the streets by your own police. Your freedoms have been seriously eroded by the fascist neocons that introduced the Partiot Act among other things. You are bleating on about freedoms while you are losing them and you don't even see it.

I could go on but I'll keep it short.

[chuckd]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

Thanks for providing the links. Having said that, permit me to quote from one of your links:

_________________________________________________

The report makes a compelling case that the homicide rate for children in the U.S. far surpasses that of the other 22 high-income nations combined. But it is not a statistic that included the entire world. As the report notes, it is looking at 23 countries with a combined population of just over 854 million. The world population in 2003 was 6.3 billion. In other words, the study looked at countries that made up less than 14 percent of the world’s population.

<snipped due to fair use rule>

Not included were any countries in Central or South America or Africa, where many countries have higher gun homicide rates than the U.S. According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the U.S. gun homicide rate was 3.2 per every 100,000 people in 2010. Every country in Central America, for example, had a much higher homicide rate, led by Honduras, where the homicide rate was 68.4 per every 100,000 people in 2010.

So what percentage of total children gun deaths occur in the U.S.? We could find no research to answer that question.

“I have no idea what percentage of the world’s (childhood gun deaths) are from the U.S.,” said David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and coauthor of the report from which the statistic originated. “But it is well, well, well under 85 percent.”

“The problem is that the data from many countries is not that good,” Hemenway said. “Another problem is how you count all those countries with civil wars going on. Are those gun deaths or war deaths?”

Again, the data in Hemenway’s report present an alarming picture of the frequency of child gun homicides in the U.S. compared with 22 of the world’s highest-income countries. But without that qualifier, the statistic is grossly inaccurate.

http://www.factcheck.org/2013/01/child-homicides/

[Basil B]

I wonder if "3D Printing" technology will ever reach the point where guns can be "printed". Find the digital file online somewhere, obtain the raw materials somewhere, and...? Even if the materials were expensive and hard to find, or even if the product were useable for only a limited number of rounds, the essential fact is that such a "self-manufactured" firearm would have no serial number or other history and be untraceable.

This has already been done and a pistol was made and assembled with I think 13 parts but the files were removed from the web by the feds.

By law, (a little help here neversure) a firearm can not be made 100% of composite materials so one part was made with an alloy that will set off the metal detector at the airport or the Federal courthouse or anywhere else some nutjob want s to go kill people.

You're kind of missing the point. The "Feds" can only force removals from U.S. webservers: such files only have to find their way to servers SOMEwhere in the world, for SOME periods of time, and knowledgeable guys in the U.S. (or anywhere else) will be able to find & download them. Easily done. And what may be "legal" to manufacture is irrelevant, since the bad guys we're worried about won't be doing what they're doing legally or for legal purposes in the first place. Lastly, metal detectors at airports, for example, pose no problem, since all you have to do is set up one of these 3D printing operations INSIDE the country; no need to transport the product through secured international checkpoints, just make it wherever you need it.

Your first post pondered whether it was possible to "create" a firearm with a 3D printer and I responded it is possible and has been done. I didn't know you were trying to make a point.

BTW, the type of 3D printer necessary is an Industrial type printer that currently sells for $100,000 or more.

With advancements in the process of 3D printing, this might change but currently it remains cost prohibitive.

Cheers

The gun made using the 3D printer was tested and worked...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22421185

The plans/CAD file for replicating this gun were published (free to use) on the internet and after much controversy many websites were instructed to remove them, but by that time they had been downloaded by many people so these file are very much in the public domain.

I am very sceptical that for one reason or another I suspect anyone building one has more chances of blowing their own hand off than hitting a barn door at fifty paces.

For what it is worth I am sure with the use of a simple lathe I could knock up something in an hour or so, OK it would not look like a conventional gun, it would be only single shot, have to be striped down to reload, and may well blow of the users hand.

[Ulysses G.]

Gangs have used zip guns, made from radio antennas, for many decades. It is not difficult to make improvised firearms.

[neverdie]

Yes, I understand I am being very unrealistic but as long as everyone has the power to kill at their fingertips the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns. Until you do that, there will be more innocent people killed including, tragically, children.

-snip-

"...the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns."

As the old saying goes, "You and who's army?" Do you want to see a whole lot of people die? Try to take away Americans' guns. You don't understand the culture and you never will.

Who would be stupid enough to try to take them? They'd have to go door to door. 100 million people in one army would be by far the largest fighting force the world has ever known.

.

NS,

Your suggestion here sure does make a statement about the mentality of some of these people holding weapons. Clearly matters are a lot more serious than I first suspected.

I have attended to these duties before, I ask for the weapons to be handed over, after that I take them. What you are suggesting just goes to prove that these people should never of had firearms in the first place.

just sayin

[neverdie]

Gangs have used zip guns, made from radio antennas, for many decades. It is not difficult to make improvised firearms.

Yep and I've come up against such improvised weapons before! they are highly inaccurate and unreliable. I would rather face a felon with a weapon like that, than a felon with a high powered and accurate professionally manufactured weapon.

[metisdead]

An off topic post about UK statistics has been removed.

[NeverSure]

There's a stat doing the rounds about 85% of the world's children who die by firearms are in America.

But apparently that only applies among the top 22 other developed countries.

Richardson and Hemenway: Total population for the United States for 2003 was 290.8 million; the combined population for the other 22 countries was 563.5 million. There were 29,771 firearm deaths in the United States and 7,653 firearms deaths in the 22 other countries. Thus, among these 23 countries, 80 percent of all firearm deaths occurred in the United States in 2003, and 86 percent of all women killed by firearms were US women, and 87 percent of all children aged 0 to 14 killed by firearms were U.S. children.

So really, you can understand why the pro-gun lobby denounce any facts that might possibly make their arguments seem vacuous.

Not fair. Spaztisics. The US has the world's 3rd largest population and the 3rd largest land mass behind Russia and Canada. The US has much more "habitable" land than either Russia or Canada.

India and China have the world's largest populations, and gun ownership is effectively denied in both.

So the US has by far the most people who are allowed to own guns, and on the largest land mass.

The US has a lot more of everything than most other countries, good and bad.

I really don't understand why you think land mass has anything to do with it. If 563.5 million people in 22 countries are the key numbers here.

I would have thought the majority of shootings occur in cities anyway, so if population density is an issue then its probably still a pointless statistic.

I was talking about trying to take peoples' guns, and the vast area that would have to be searched. Rural people are avid gun owners. The task is impossible.

There is a very remote area in NW Oregon. The town is called Joseph and the county is Wallowa County. The Sheriff's deputy assigned to the area lived there. He had an attitude and few people liked him, his strutting badge, or his squad car.

One day some guys lured him into the forest with a phone call, and when he left his car to go look for what was reported, they rolled his police car over onto its top. They were never caught although most people in that small town knew who did it.

Sometime later his home out in the country caught on fire. I believe that was an accident. But when he called the fire department, the trucks went to his home in low gear, engines revved and lights and sirens blazing. His house burned to the foundation before they got there.

That wasn't far from our ranch. I knew the guy and I know the stories are true.

[NeverSure]

Yes, I understand I am being very unrealistic but as long as everyone has the power to kill at their fingertips the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns. Until you do that, there will be more innocent people killed including, tragically, children.

-snip-

"...the only way to keep everyone safe would be to remove all the guns."

As the old saying goes, "You and who's army?" Do you want to see a whole lot of people die? Try to take away Americans' guns. You don't understand the culture and you never will.

Who would be stupid enough to try to take them? They'd have to go door to door. 100 million people in one army would be by far the largest fighting force the world has ever known.

.

NS,

Your suggestion here sure does make a statement about the mentality of some of these people holding weapons. Clearly matters are a lot more serious than I first suspected.

I have attended to these duties before, I ask for the weapons to be handed over, after that I take them. What you are suggesting just goes to prove that these people should never of had firearms in the first place.

just sayin

BS. If you are a cop in America I don't even have to stop and talk to you unless you arrest me. If you don't have probable cause to arrest me and stop me by force, you're going down for false arrest.

If you ask me if I have a gun I can ignore you and keep walking. I don't have to give you ID or the time of day.

If you think you see a bulge under my clothes that's probably a gun, go screw yourself. 1. You don't know it's a gun and 2. If you do know it's a gun, you don't know that I don't have a license for it so you still don't have probable cause to do anything.

If a cop walked up to me and needed information/help about something else I'd do my best to help him. Perhaps he looking for a suspect and he wants to know if I've seen something. Fine. Glad to help.

But if he's on my case without probable cause to believe I've committed a crime - good information that he can later articulate to a judge - he can take a long walk off a short pier and I'm going on my way.

[NeverSure]

You do have to show a driver's license and proof of insurance at a traffic stop. Speeding, etc. isn't a crime.

But.....

[ClutchClark]

You do have to show a driver's license and proof of insurance at a traffic stop. Speeding, etc. isn't a crime.

Funny thing is that all the kid did was remove any possibility on only getting off with a warning.

As for the video itself, it was not realistic. The two passengers would not have been allowed to walk casually around to the roadway and stand "behind" the officer. The entire video appears to be instructions on how to prevent Law Enforcement from keeping our roadways safe.

Additionally, the rear seat passenger had a brown paper bag in his hand and acted awkward prior to being stopped. The video appeared to suggest he was drinking. When the rearseat passenger exited the vehicle, he was no longer in session of the bag. If the bag was left in plain sight in the vehicle and an alcoholic container was visible then the officer had probable cause to search the vehicle since "open container" laws are a violation of the Motor Vehicle Codes in every State. If there was open container and if the passenger was intoxicated, as was suggestive in the opening clip, then the police officer would have most likely initiated further observation of the driver for any indication of impairment.

To bad the kid didn't have any outstanding warrants, it would have enjoyable to see this get hooked up.

My loved ones travel the public roadways and they are law-abiding citizens. I am very thankful for the members of the law enforcement communities across the country for risking their lives to keep our public roadways safe.

And specific to this OP, risking their lives to get criminals off the street and illegal weapons off the street.

Cheers

[hawker9000]

You do have to show a driver's license and proof of insurance at a traffic stop. Speeding, etc. isn't a crime.

But.....

Yes, it's an "infraction", not a crime, but it IS a violation of the law, and the stop itself was (as it must be) a lawful one. As a driver you're exercising a privilege, not a right, and one that carries with it certain lawful requirements, including licensing, operation of a legally registered vehicle, & proof of financial responsibility. Clearly the documents police ask for are required by law and necessary to its enforcement (he must know who to give the ticket to, and as a matter of ensuring that your exercise of the driving privilege is in fact legal, has the right to check for insurance and registration of the vehicle).

Most importantly however, you fail to mention that the stop for the infraction DOES NOT give the officer the right to search you OR the vehicle. (They can ASK, but you can very legally refuse. Course if he can see a gun or something reported stolen or a body lying on the seat, or smell alcohol on your breath, then he has his probable cause...) Some police in some places were taking cellphones & searching them during stops, but SCOTUS has just recently ruled that unconstitutional and cops can no longer do it.

Now I know some will make a fuss about cops who ask to search, and then somehow manage to finagle a warrant when you refuse, simply because you refused. You'd have to discuss that on a case-by-case basis, and I'm not saying some police and some jurisdictions don't simply abuse their authority some of the time. But the earlier comment about the need for probable cause was a valid one, and routine traffic stops and the request for drivers license, etc., are not inconsistent with it.