Politics UK

[Benington]

8 hours ago, robert k said:

The thing is, if there is a will there is a way. You can't ban fertilizer and petrol, pool chlorine, brake fluid and a host of other things that could be made to be dangerous and could be far more damaging than any mere shooter. If the shooter in Orlando had used a car bomb it would probably be 400 dead instead of 49.

Robert: Although the materials and methods you list are all capable of inflicting mass casualties I would suggest that they are more difficult to prepare and more inconvenient to use at the scene than an automatic firearm. And with a car bomb outside some people at the rear of the target building might be able to escape the blast, though I don't know if that applies to the club in Orlando. But a gunman could advance through a building and have a good chance to kill everyone inside.

And don't some of these people like to pick their targets off one by one? Timothy McVeigh just left his bomb outside in Oklahoma, but Mateen and the Paris Terrorists went into the venues..

Automatic firearms are so convenient to use with minimal preparation. And they are apparently easy to get hold of in the US. Rather than improving background checks etc banning them would be the best move there - of course it would take a long time to have an effect on incidents and killings due to the numbers of weapons already in circulation. There will be a black market - but the price will go up.

The guy in England used his knife first on a senior citizen who wrestled with him. Possibly saving his ammunition for the MP. If he had had an automatic weapon he would have probably killed, rather than injured him. His homemade gun maybe wasn't up to the job for more than one target, that's why he also had a knife. The guy would probably have had a go at anyone else at the scene and the police if he had brought along an automatic firearm.

[robert k]

8 hours ago, Benington said:

Robert: Although the materials and methods you list are all capable of inflicting mass casualties I would suggest that they are more difficult to prepare and more inconvenient to use at the scene than an automatic firearm. And with a car bomb outside some people at the rear of the target building might be able to escape the blast, though I don't know if that applies to the club in Orlando. But a gunman could advance through a building and have a good chance to kill everyone inside.

And don't some of these people like to pick their targets off one by one? Timothy McVeigh just left his bomb outside in Oklahoma, but Mateen and the Paris Terrorists went into the venues..

Automatic firearms are so convenient to use with minimal preparation. And they are apparently easy to get hold of in the US. Rather than improving background checks etc banning them would be the best move there - of course it would take a long time to have an effect on incidents and killings due to the numbers of weapons already in circulation. There will be a black market - but the price will go up.

The guy in England used his knife first on a senior citizen who wrestled with him. Possibly saving his ammunition for the MP. If he had had an automatic weapon he would have probably killed, rather than injured him. His homemade gun maybe wasn't up to the job for more than one target, that's why he also had a knife. The guy would probably have had a go at anyone else at the scene and the police if he had brought along an automatic firearm.

I'm going to disagree with you. I'm not going to go into details why I disagree with you on an open forum because I don't want to provide a blueprint for anyone but if you really want to know you can PM me. The reality is a village idiot could probably level a block in under an hour from deciding to do so.

[mogo51]

I just realised that I used the wrong word in my post = did not mean 'allay' meant to use 'confirm', apologies.

[Benington]

5 hours ago, robert k said:

I'm going to disagree with you. I'm not going to go into details why I disagree with you on an open forum because I don't want to provide a blueprint for anyone but if you really want to know you can PM me. The reality is a village idiot could probably level a block in under an hour from deciding to do so.

That's okay Robert, I am sure you are right in saying that it isn't difficult to make all sorts of bombs, although they do have to be planted and awareness of suspicious objects and vehicles can be heightened, as it was in the UK during the IRA's campaign. Generally, bombs are not so easy to reliably target and do not give the perpetrator the ability to go around in a confined area and get his or her warped satisfaction from individually picking off hate objects. A suicide bomber can target a certain number of, sometimes many, people at one go. But how many people are up for that role?

Ask yourself why, except for Oklahoma, bombs have not featured much in mass killings in the US. Automatic weapons such as the type used by Mateen are preferred for good reasons. I heard that, apart from hard line members of the gun lobbies in the US who view any restrictions on gun ownership as an assault on their rights as Americans, it is mainly the hunting fraternity who are against restrictions on assault weapons. They are dwindling in numbers and so maybe could be given special licences to use these weapons in the event of a general ban.

The US is a world leader in mass shootings. Britain has one now and again. It's difficult to get hold of any sort of gun in the UK. It's not in the US. The most efficient weapons to kill people at will with are assault weapons. Therefore lives will be saved in the US in the long run by restrictions on those weapons. I would argue that a ban, maybe with minor exceptions, would save the most - even allowing for those who are intent on mass killing to find other ways to kill.

[robert k]

33 minutes ago, Benington said:

That's okay Robert, I am sure you are right in saying that it isn't difficult to make all sorts of bombs, although they do have to be planted and awareness of suspicious objects and vehicles can be heightened, as it was in the UK during the IRA's campaign. Generally, bombs are not so easy to reliably target and do not give the perpetrator the ability to go around in a confined area and get his or her warped satisfaction from individually picking off hate objects. A suicide bomber can target a certain number of, sometimes many, people at one go. But how many people are up for that role?

Ask yourself why, except for Oklahoma, bombs have not featured much in mass killings in the US. Automatic weapons such as the type used by Mateen are preferred for good reasons. I heard that, apart from hard line members of the gun lobbies in the US who view any restrictions on gun ownership as an assault on their rights as Americans, it is mainly the hunting fraternity who are against restrictions on assault weapons. They are dwindling in numbers and so maybe could be given special licences to use these weapons in the event of a general ban.

The US is a world leader in mass shootings. Britain has one now and again. It's difficult to get hold of any sort of gun in the UK. It's not in the US. The most efficient weapons to kill people at will with are assault weapons. Therefore lives will be saved in the US in the long run by restrictions on those weapons. I would argue that a ban, maybe with minor exceptions, would save the most - even allowing for those who are intent on mass killing to find other ways to kill.

Charlie Hobson would have got everyone in that nightclub and not use an "assault weapon" which are actually weapons that fire more than one shot with each pull of the trigger. The thing is that semiautomatic rifles generally operate on reasonably close to the same principle so if you outlaw by class, you throw the baby out with the bath water. That is why people who are against bans can't really hold a conversation with people who favor bans because the people who favor bans don't know enough to even use the correct terminology. People who favor bans don't even bother to learn what they propose to ban. Or maybe they do and just pretend they don't, in which case it would be stupid to even try and have a discussion with them.

I mean, are we just going to ban direct impingement gas operated rifles like the evil AR 15? Or are piston rifles which could include the AK-47/74, SKS, M-14 and the M-1 Garand, Ruger Mini-14, M-1 Carbine to be banned also? Are we just talking about gas operated rifles or are you going to come after recoil operated rifles also like the venerable turn of the century Remington Model 8? The roller locked rifles from H&K? How about direct blowback? Are they Ok or do they have to go too? If direct blowback have to go? How about pistols? Many of them operate on the same principle, and equally many operate on the principle of delayed blowback. The thing is, the Orlando shooter also had a Glock pistol. In a nightclub with 400 people in it, where it would be harder to not hit...someone. So even if you banned all of the rifles, the first time someone demonstrated that you don't actually need a rifle, that full metal jacket 9mm round will easily penetrate 2 people, you are going to come after the pistols too, aren't you? Of course you are. I would expect no less from you because it's what you believe in. Then too you aren't an American citizen and have not sworn an oath to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If the government wants to make laws to ban weapons, they need to do it properly, convene a constitutional convention and we will vote on whether to ban them or not. The orders do not come down from on high. The last thing I expect the federal government to want to do is convene a constitutional convention, because not only the second amendment would be on the table.

In any case, more Americans than not would not turn in their guns. Criminals and terrorists certainly wouldn't turn in their guns. The US government themselves sold guns to the Mexican drug cartels and the guns were used to kill US Border Patrol officers. Fast and Furious anyone?

The US government has historically been the greatest provider of what you call "assault rifles" to the American people. The US government sold a huge amount of M-1 Carbines to the general public. M-1 carbine will accept 30 round magazines. They have been in the hands of the American people since the 1960's. The M-1 carbine is deadly to about 200-300 meters depending on who is holding it. Why weren't people shooting up the country with them for the last 50 years or so? You see, it's not a matter of availability, that hasn't changed, capability hasn't really changed. There are more liberals than there used to be, that has changed.

Of course I sense a change, that the pendulum may be gathering momentum back in the other direction. Even my brother who was about as liberal as you could possibly get has told me, this has got to stop, we can't fund the welfare state anymore, we can't make every 3 people a protected special interest group. And he's right. We never really could, we did it by borrowing our workers pension that they paid in to and by mortgaging our children's future.

 When cities stage gun buybacks, only the crap guns are destroyed, police officers will claim anything of value before it's destroyed and they will sell it to private individuals if they want to trade up or make some money. In some states it's mandated by law that these gun buybacks have to sell the guns to private dealers and the dealers can sell them to the general public, whoever can legally buy them. It's a shell game.

If you could explain exactly what you want to ban and show me that you realize exactly how little would be left afterward and then explain to me how it wouldn't interfere with the purpose of the Second Amendment which is to facilitate the violent overthrow of the US government should it become what is generally considered tyrannical, we could talk. The Second Amendment is not about general self protection, nor is it about hunting. The right to self defense comes from God and even animals have it. We actually don't have enough hunters. In Maryland they have to machinegun deer off the runways of airports and deer take lives every year in traffic accidents. Wild hogs are terribly destructive in the south and there is a bounty on them and it is legal for average everyday citizens to hunt them from helicopters with machineguns in some places.

I'm sure you didn't know these things.

[Jack Peterson]

18 minutes ago, robert k said:

I'm sure you didn't know these things.

I mean, are we just going to ban direct impingement gas operated rifles like the evil AR 15? Or are piston rifles which could include the AK-47/74, SKS, M-14 and the M-1 Garand, Ruger Mini-14, M-1 Carbine to be banned also? Are we just talking about gas operated rifles or are you going to come after recoil operated rifles also like the venerable turn of the century Remington Model 8? The roller locked rifles from H&K? How about direct blowback? Are they Ok or do they have to go too? If direct blowback have to go? How about pistols? Many of them operate on the same principle, and equally many operate on the principle of delayed blowback. The thing is, the Orlando shooter also had a Glock pistol. In a nightclub with 400 people in it, where it would be harder to not hit...someone. So even if you banned all of the rifles, the first time someone demonstrated that you don't actually need a rifle, that full metal jacket 9mm round will easily penetrate 2 people, you are going to come after the pistols too, aren't you? Of course you are. I would expect no less from you because it's what you believe in. Then too you aren't an American citizen and have not sworn an oath to uphold and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If the government wants to make laws to ban weapons, they need to do it properly, convene a constitutional convention and we will vote on whether to ban them or not. The orders do not come down from on high. The last thing I expect the federal government to want to do is convene a constitutional convention, because not only the second amendment would be on the table.

In any case, more Americans than not would not turn in their guns. Criminals and terrorists certainly wouldn't turn in their guns. The US government themselves sold guns to the Mexican drug cartels and the guns were used to kill US Border Patrol officers. Fast and Furious anyone?

The US government has historically been the greatest provider of what you call "assault rifles" to the American people. The US government sold a huge amount of M-1 Carbines to the general public. M-1 carbine will accept 30 round magazines. They have been in the hands of the American people since the 1960's. The M-1 carbine is deadly to about 200-300 meters depending on who is holding it. Why weren't people shooting up the country with them for the last 50 years or so? You see, it's not a matter of availability, that hasn't changed, capability hasn't really changed. There are more liberals than there used to be, that has changed.

Of course I sense a change, that the pendulum may be gathering momentum back in the other direction. Even my brother who was about as liberal as you could possibly get has told me, this has got to stop, we can't fund the welfare state anymore, we can't make every 3 people a protected special interest group. And he's right. We never really could, we did it by borrowing our workers pension that they paid in to and by mortgaging our children's future.

 When cities stage gun buybacks, only the crap guns are destroyed, police officers will claim anything of value before it's destroyed and they will sell it to private individuals if they want to trade up or make some money. In some states it's mandated by law that these gun buybacks have to sell the guns to private dealers and the dealers can sell them to the general public, whoever can legally buy them. It's a shell game.

If you could explain exactly what you want to ban and show me that you realize exactly how little would be left afterward and then explain to me how it wouldn't interfere with the purpose of the Second Amendment which is to facilitate the violent overthrow of the US government should it become what is generally considered tyrannical, we could talk. The Second Amendment is not about general self protection, nor is it about hunting. The right to self defense comes from God and even animals have it. We actually don't have enough hunters. In Maryland they have to machinegun deer off the runways of airports and deer take lives every year in traffic accidents. Wild hogs are terribly destructive in the south and there is a bounty on them and it is legal for average everyday citizens to hunt them from helicopters with machineguns in some places.

I'm sure you didn't know these things

 

 Politics UK ?

Edited June 21, 2016 by Jack Peterson

[robert k]

Well Jack, I think I made a pretty scholarly treatise in reply to Bennington's post but if you want to delete both of them it's ok with me.

[Jack Peterson]

3 minutes ago, robert k said:

 

Well Jack, I think I made a pretty scholarly treatise in reply to Bennington's post but if you want to delete both of them it's ok with me.

 

 Not for  me to Decide Robert, I was merely Pointing out that JB's Topic has gone way off to the US Gun thing again.

[Jollygoodfellow]

Silly part about all of this is that political topics are against the rules on this forum except for Philippines politics. Now we have entered the great gun debate which just isn't worth the hassle so I'm closing this topic. Use the PM system if anyone wants to discuss it further.