"Assault weapon" ban 2.0

Published January 27, 2013 - Associated Press

CHICAGO – At least five people were gunned down Saturday in Chicago, including a 34-year-old man whose mother had already lost her three other children to shootings.

Ronnie Chambers, who was his mother Shirley's youngest child, was shot in the head while sitting in a parked car on the city's West Side. A 21-year-old man who was also in the car was wounded, police said.

Shirley Chambers, whose two other sons and daughter were shot in separate attacks more than a decade ago, was left grieving again on Saturday, WLS-TV reported.

"Right now, I'm totally lost because Ronnie was my only surviving son," Chambers said.

Shirley Chambers' first child, Carlos, was shot and killed by a high school classmate in 1995 after an argument. He was 18. Her daughter Latoya, then 15, and her other son Jerome were shot and killed within months of one another in 2000.

"What did I do wrong? I was there for them. We didn't have everything we wanted but we had what we needed," she asked Saturday.

Chambers said despite this latest tragic chapter in her life, she's not bitter or angry.

"They took my only child. I have nobody right now. That's my only baby," she said.

A few hours after Ronnie Chambers was killed, a gunman opened fire on three men near a South Side eatery, killing two of them and wounding the third, police said.

On Saturday afternoon, detectives were called to the scene of another shooting in which a man in his 30s and a teenager were shot to death. There had been no arrests.

Chicago's homicide count eclipsed 500 last year for the first time since 2008. As grim as it is, Chicago's homicide rate was almost double in the early 1990s — averaging around 900 — before violent crime began dropping in cities across America.

Last year's increase, though, stood in sharp contrast to New York, where homicides fell 21 percent from 2011, as of early December.

we need to hold a fundraiser.

Apparently the Chambers family isn't safe because they can't afford MOAR GUNZZZZZ

No, an alternative is to control who does and does not get to have guns with a test of abilities and a license system, end the gun show loophole in existing gun laws, and ban automatic weapons, weapons that can be easily converted to rapid fire, and strictly regulate the ownership of pistols. Abolishing concealed carry is probably pretty important too…

1. Have legally possessed NFA items (such as the "automatic weapons" you are describing fall under) ever been an issue? I have never heard of a legally possessed NFA item ever being used in the commission of a crime. That would make headlines rather quickly if that was to ever happen.

Illegally possessed automatic weapons are used in crimes, but these are purchased on the black market, or come across the border from Mexico with the drug trade. All that is already illegal. Not much else you can do there besides more enforcement.

In the Columbine shooting, one of the shooters modified his weapon to shoot like a full-automatic. Thankfully this isn't easy to do, and he essentially rendered his gun useless. He ended up turning his gun into a "jam-o-matic", the thing jammed more than it fired.

2. Describe how a weapon can be easily converted to "rapid fire"? (It takes a RCMP firearms lab up to a year to be able to do that with semi-auto firearms, if they even can, not exactly what I would call easy).

3. Since when has concealed carry ever been a problem? Have you ever seen stats on concealed carry laws and crime committed by licensed CCW holders? A lot of the States that allow concealed carry publish all the stats on their gov websites, you should look them up sometime. What you see might surprise you.

4. The places which have the strictest gun laws in the U.S. (Chicago, D.C district, etc.), see some of the highest gun violence.

The Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) of 1994 had no measurable effect on gun violence. And the new ban won't either. The problem does not stem from guns - the problem stems from the major social, cultural and economic problems of the U.S.

All these bans do is to give people a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Make it look like you are doing something without actually putting in the work to solve the actual problem - politicians love this, it makes their jobs easy.

The U.S. needs to focus on the real elephant in the room - all the different cultural, social and economic problems that cause crime. The mental health issues that plague our nations need to be addressed as well, obviously the U.S. is a nation that is hurting right now.

Focusing our attention on all these gun bans is only worsening the situation. It takes focus and energy away from the real problems that are plaguing the U.S. right now.

how many people on this site a mtnbike site based in canada with mostly canuckians posting own a gun or guns let alone a handgun or assault rifle, probably not that many maybe a fe long guns BUT ask that same question on a paddling site or a ski site based in america with mostly americans posting and they will post up enough guns to take over a small latin american country because its the culture

ok guns don't kill people, people kill people, so does that means there are more Amercians who turned out to be natural born killers or does shit happen while there are just too many guns around?

I support a gun bans…makes life easier for everyone.

But the US should feel good knowing that their rate is lower than El Salvador, Jamaica, Honduras, Guatemala, Swaziland, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Panama.

If increased regulation works so well then why, in Mexico, where it is illegal to posses even ammunition, do they have a higher gun related homicide rate than the USA?

If we are to assume that regulation is truly the answer to gun crimes we should not be seeing a correlation like the one described above.

There is far more to the issue of gun crime than just the tool used to commit the crime, its foolish to believe that we don't need a balanced approach that focuses on better background checks and increased focus on mental health.

If increased regulation works so well then why, in Mexico, where it is illegal to posses even ammunition, do they have a higher gun related homicide rate than the USA?

It could have something to do with the cartels running the country…not the government.

culture,
you got detroit, where literacy rate is ridiculously low, you're not comparing a fair sample body. there are wayyy more variables to pin point it to one variable.(gun control laws.)

so you're saying the usa is partly a failed state?

4. The places which have the strictest gun laws in the U.S. (Chicago, D.C district, etc.), see some of the highest gun violence.

The Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) of 1994 had no measurable effect on gun violence. And the new ban won't either. The problem does not stem from guns - the problem stems from the major social, cultural and economic problems of the U.S.

All these bans do is to give people a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Make it look like you are doing something without actually putting in the work to solve the actual problem - politicians love this, it makes their jobs easy.

The U.S. needs to focus on the real elephant in the room - all the different cultural, social and economic problems that cause crime. The mental health issues that plague our nations need to be addressed as well, obviously the U.S. is a nation that is hurting right now.

Focusing our attention on all these gun bans is only worsening the situation. It takes focus and energy away from the real problems that are plaguing the U.S. right now.

I guess what frustrates me, from the outside, is that all other countries that are in the peer group of the U.S. have good gun control laws of varying degrees and far less gun violence. Why is it so hard to consider that properly implemented gun control, with the general population being restricted in their ownership of some weapons by national law, might be the precursor to a safer society? It has worked in most other countries around the world - why compare states to states when the country can compare itself to other nations?

Maybe what's really needed is for the United States to change the political make up of the country and consolidate some power in D.C. so that national decisions can actually have a national effect.

How is it that American's are so patriotic and so afraid of the state at the same time?

If increased regulation works so well then why, in Mexico, where it is illegal to posses even ammunition, do they have a higher gun related homicide rate than the USA?

If we are to assume that regulation is truly the answer to gun crimes we should not be seeing a correlation like the one described above.

There is far more to the issue of gun crime than just the tool used to commit the crime, its foolish to believe that we don't need a balanced approach that focuses on better background checks and increased focus on mental health.

Enforced gun control is the key - cartels run Mexico, not the Mexican government.

How is it that American's are so patriotic and so afraid of the state at the same time?

They are afraid of 'merica becoming a socialist state like the U.S.S.R., Cuba, or Canada.

1. Have legally possessed NFA items (such as the "automatic weapons" you are describing fall under) ever been an issue? I have never heard of a legally possessed NFA item ever being used in the commission of a crime. That would make headlines rather quickly if that was to ever happen.

Illegally possessed automatic weapons are used in crimes, but these are purchased on the black market, or come across the border from Mexico with the drug trade. All that is already illegal. Not much else you can do there besides more enforcement.

In the Columbine shooting, one of the shooters modified his weapon to shoot like a full-automatic. Thankfully this isn't easy to do, and he essentially rendered his gun useless. He ended up turning his gun into a "jam-o-matic", the thing jammed more than it fired.

2. Describe how a weapon can be easily converted to "rapid fire"? (It takes a RCMP firearms lab up to a year to be able to do that with semi-auto firearms, if they even can, not exactly what I would call easy).

3. Since when has concealed carry ever been a problem? Have you ever seen stats on concealed carry laws and crime committed by licensed CCW holders? A lot of the States that allow concealed carry publish all the stats on their gov websites, you should look them up sometime. What you see might surprise you.

4. The places which have the strictest gun laws in the U.S. (Chicago, D.C district, etc.), see some of the highest gun violence.

The Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) of 1994 had no measurable effect on gun violence. And the new ban won't either. The problem does not stem from guns - the problem stems from the major social, cultural and economic problems of the U.S.

All these bans do is to give people a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Make it look like you are doing something without actually putting in the work to solve the actual problem - politicians love this, it makes their jobs easy.

The U.S. needs to focus on the real elephant in the room - all the different cultural, social and economic problems that cause crime. The mental health issues that plague our nations need to be addressed as well, obviously the U.S. is a nation that is hurting right now.

Focusing our attention on all these gun bans is only worsening the situation. It takes focus and energy away from the real problems that are plaguing the U.S. right now.

X2

[…]

The U.S. needs to focus on the real elephant in the room - all the different cultural, social and economic problems that cause crime. The mental health issues that plague our nations need to be addressed as well, obviously the U.S. is a nation that is hurting right now.

Focusing our attention on all these gun bans is only worsening the situation. It takes focus and energy away from the real problems that are plaguing the U.S. right now.

So what is your answer to the issue? How can the USA get a hold of it? If it has nothing to do with weapons, but a lot with education, economic and social issues - what does the USA have to do?

So what is your answer to the issue? How can the USA get a hold of it? If it has nothing to do with weapons, but a lot with education, economic and social issues - what does the USA have to do?

I honestly don't know. It's not such a problem with a clear cut and dry answer that everyone is trying to make it out to be. Kind of like the whole world peace thing.

Obviously they need better care and diagnostics for people with mental health issues. They also need to lessen the gap between the rich and the poor. The widening gap is only making things worse.

That's a tough question to answer, and there's probably only a handful of people that can give a proper solution. And I would bet a years salary that none of them are on this board.

I don't believe Americans are natural born killers but have the tools lying around all over the place so when shit happen its easy to reach for the gun

No, you're wrong. It's ingrained in the national psyche.

Only the ongoing feast of blood, can, literally or metaphorically, sate their imagination.

Read Chris Hedges.