Guns are back in the news.
The massacre in Roseburg, Oregon has once again raised the question of what the nation should do to prevent more mass shootings. President Obama said that politicizing these tragedies is the only way to create real change. Hillary Clinton has proposed executive actions she’d take if she becomes our next Commander-in-Chief.
The discussion has even reached the Keystone State. Yesterday, Katie McGinty called on Senator Pat Toomey to re-introduce his legislation to expand background checks.
Nevertheless, many believe gun control has no chance because of opposition from Congress. There also arguments that any effort would fail because the American people don’t really support more gun control.
We can’t survey the nation but we can survey you, our readers.
Would You Support Any Type of Gun Control Legislation?
- Never (49%)
- Definitely (39%)
- Possibly (12%)
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27 Responses
Enforce already existing laws, and I mean ENFORCE!! No more free passes!!
No new gun control, enforce the laws we have .
It is so sad that the Gun control folks , Dance on the graves of the people that have been shot , Just to push for new gun control.
Gary
Isaac L….
so i’m guessing your ok with gun registration because thats what goes with background checks.
why should I jump through hoops such as “training” to exercise a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT
how many “untrained” lawful gun owners have accidentally shot someone?
remember nobama enacted 23 new unlawful regulations last year with his pen and nobamaphone……how many of these shootings did that stop? answer: NONE
stop parroting leftist talking points
@Jared, Yes this might happen. Police also accidentally shoot bystanders. It’s pretty rare though. But still better than an unchallenged madmen.
What happens when someone that can shoot back kills or wounds a bystander? Just wrong place wrong time?
People talk about suing firearms manufactures when something happens. How about cars, if a drunk driver kills someone, do you sue the car maker? No!, Why? BECAUSE THE CAR DIDN’T KILL ANYONE, IT WAS THE FAULT OF THE DRUNK DRIVER. Cars an inanimate objects. They cannot do anything with a person controlling it. Same as firearms, they are inanimate objects, they cannot do anything without a person controlling it.
I agree with mandatory firearms safety training in schools. This is something that the NRA strongly advocates (The Eddie Eagle Program), but the liberal, brainwashing education system fights this common sense training of our children. Why? Because the want to control the minds of our children to become dependent on the government to provide everything from cradle to grave.
As for reporting stolen firearms, is there a law that you have to report if your car is stolen? No, but common sense tells you that if you want to get it back, or file an insurance claim, you need to report it. I know of no LEGAL firearm owner that wouldn’t report a lost or stolen firearm for the same reasons as reporting a lost or stolen car, boat, ATV, motorcycle, etc. Yet there is no law that says it is mandatory to report these thefts/losses, so why should there be a law to ONLY report firearms losses/thefts.
As for the “gun show loophole” please read the PA Uniform Firearms Act, the laws that govern the sale and purchase of firearms in this state. You can get a copy form any state representative or senator or even download it from the internet. There are no “gun show loopholes” in the UFA. In PA any legal firearm owner can sell a long arm (this means a rifle or shotgun NOT a handgun) to any other law abiding PA resident (and only to a PA resident) without using a firearms dealer. And only if the seller can be reasonably sure the buyer is not prohibited from owning a firearm. ALL HANDGUN SALES BETWEEN PRIVATE PARTIES MUST BE COMPLETED AT A FIREARMS DEALER AND THE BUYER MUST UNDERGO THE BACKGROUND CHECK. EVEN IF THE HANDGUN SALE STARTS AT A GUN SHOW. There is no “gun show loophole” in PA, this is a scare tactic used by the left and people (sheeple) take their word for it and never do their own homework to get the real story.
While many NRA members are older, the gun-culture 2.0 members are young and different. Many are carrying for self defense, not just keeping a hunting rifle in a closet. We’re interested in fast paced tactical competition not shooting at paper targets (not that there is anything wrong with that).
6% of the adult population in PA has a Licence to Carry a Firearm. Even 3% of Philadelphian adults have one.
Wow. Looks like we mostly need some ignorance control.
The NRA members are a pack of old nutty paranoids/
Obama is not coming for your guns tonight/
What you are not understanding is owning firearms is supposed to be an in-alienable right. You should not need a permit just like you don’t need a permit to vote, have privacy, or speak freely. Until you violate some law you shouldn’t have that right violated (just like the other rights). The government should not be deciding who can exercise that right just like they don’t decide who can exercise other rights. Operating from that perspective many of the restrictions proposed are not constitutional. Would you ban mega-phones because some people use them for hate speech? The liberal version of this would be “you only need your voice to exercise free speech”?
There is no solution to the problem of mass shooting as long as the media continues to play into the fear. People are doing this for notoriety.
Humans tend to not be able to accurately calculate risk. People are more more likely to fear a shark attack than drowning in a swimming pool, but the later is a lot more likely to kill you. Risk from mass-shootings and terrorism are the same way. So it’s reacting to emotions not facts to try to restrict the 99.9% of gun owners who don’t commit a crime to try to save lives.
None of the proposed reforms would have prevented any of the recent mass-shootings. Even if they could of prevented access to some weapons, people who are willing to kill themselves for notoriety are going to use other means. 29 people were killed in a mass-stabbing in china just recently.
We need more people carrying their own firearms in more places. Then at least someone can shoot back. Perpetrators of these crimes target un-armed areas.
Make firearm safety courses mandatory for starting in elementary through high school.Total firearm education is one of the ways to have gun control.
@Isaac L. – Couldn’t agree more. Lifetime gun owner and it blows my mind when others get in an uproar over proposals like required reporting of a stolen gun. Why wouldn’t you report that!? Would you just kick the dirt and walk away if someone stole your car? No, you’d report it!
I also don’t think it is unreasonable to require a competence test for concealed carry. Keeping with the car analogy, you had to take a test to get a drivers license, why not a test to ensure you know how to properly handle a firearm.
I guess that’s why I’m not a member of the NRA…
Well said Isaac.
I have one question if anyone would like to take a stab at it.
What can you do with 10+ rounds that cannot be done with one?
As a gun owner, I get really irritated with fellow gun owners who hear “gun control” and immediately start screaming “why are you trying to ban guns?!” It makes us look foolish and we can bear a slight inconvenience to ensure greater gun safety. I’ve never had a background check take more than 10 minutes anyway and I take full advantage of that time to browse the rest of the gun shop’s wares.
My personal wish list:
– End the gun show loophole – is it really that inconvenient to go to a dealer to handle private sales? What gun owner hates going to a gun shop?
– Get more aggressive with straw purchases; the Brad Fox Law is a good start.
– Mandate reporting if a firearm is lost or stolen – what kind of responsible gun owner doesn’t know where his guns are? If your gun is used in a crime, you got some ‘splaining to do.
– Require training for concealed carry – I don’t want someone to get nervous, buy a handgun, and start carrying it around in a bag without ever having demonstrated competence on the range or knowledge of basic gun safety. That’s absolutely insane.
– Repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act – I don’t understand how this law is constitutional, but it severely restricts individuals’ access to legal redress unless they are extremely wealthy and offers a protection to one industry not found in any other. It’s also been horrifically abused with deadly consequences.
We can remain skeptical and ask lots of probing questions of any legislation, but that doesn’t mean we need to have a kneejerk meltdown every time someone points out that we have way too much gun crime in this country and we have a moral imperative to do something about it.
Well sure…
First would be to eliminate “Gun Free Zones”, then expand constitutional carry, and at the same time actually prosecute using the laws we have now…
Sure…
Except it is not precisely “gun control”…
– Commit a crime with a gun, 20 years, no plea deals, no exceptions.
– Commit a crime with a gun, kill or injure someone, death penalty, no plea deals, no exceptions, limit of one appeal.
– Commit a crime with a gun, and simply fire the gun, death penalty, no plea deals, no exceptions, limit of one appeal – rational: no “gimmies” for simply being a bad shot.
Do that for a decade or so and you significantly reduce the problem… No infringement on the law abiding – but the lawless are removed (more or less permanently) from the gene pool).
No we have to many BS laws now and hidden Laws that steal firearms.
Require liability coverage for individual guns. Allow suits against manufacturers, sellers and individuals for improper use of weapons. The lawyers would cut down the carnage and make a fortune at the same time.
We need:
• Restaffing mental hospitals so there are nurses, beds, food, doctors, etc., available for 30-day or longer involuntary commitments that can start treatment rather than simply get a druggie off a high via a weekend in a community hospital psych unit.
• Recognition that many mass killers are quite sane, and much more basic research into what makes them tick.
• A law that holds harmless people who report their lost-stolen guns, but opens up civil liability for those who don’t if their weapons are used in criminal acts.
• Close the loopholes for background checks. Heck, if I give my car to my kid, I have to register that. Ditto for all gun transactions. Records kept at county level, searchable by state-feds only upon search warrant.
This question is sophomoric in that it asks readers to comment on laws from an emotional perspective and ‘not’ an informed one.
1. So how many gun laws do we have now? State? Federal? Local?
2. Are they enforced?
3. Would newly proposed laws actually affect criminals?
4. Is the main stream media deceiving Americans on the need for more laws?
5. Should we hold Prosecutors and Judges responsible for not using the laws we have now.
6. Do gun control laws even work?
7. What IF we enacted more gun laws and crime went UP?
The presumption in the debate is always that ‘gun control laws’ can ‘only’ lead to more safety. That is not, unfortunately, the case. To assume the moral high ground in asking for more laws without examining why ‘current’ laws have worked ‘or’ where they have failed reveals the true purpose of these laws in that it is NOT to make us safer but to make it more difficult to possess firearms.
If you want a further example of the weakness of this approach then ask yourself this question; when clarion calls go out for more gun control aren’t we saying the current laws have ‘failed’ at their purpose??
‘WHY’ are we not repealing the failing laws and replacing them instead of ‘adding’ more laws?
MORE gun laws is ‘not’ the answer! Holding criminals responsible IS and we are NOT doing that now and haven’t been for a long time!
Nope. From my cold dead hands is the only way.
@ MTG
Look who’s playing semantics. It’s not a clip but a magazine. It’s not an AK-47 but a politically correct AK now just because you gun nuts found a way to get around the stock.
Furthermore the Washington Times is a piece of crap moonie paper. No one reads it. I’m quite sure you get most of your material there and regurgitate it here. 🙂
gulag, first, it’s a magazine, not a clip. Second, it takes two seconds to drop out an empty magazine and insert a second one. Every mass shooter has planned ahead and brought as many magazines as they need. Plus, they don’t even shoot enough to empty magazines. Read this about the irrelevance of caps on magazine capacity: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/27/the-high-capacity-magazine-myth/
Not the most offensive gun control measure, but nowhere near as effective as you think it is.
MTG: Banning 30-shot clips would probably be a safety step that any rational person could support.
Not any need for that to hunt or target practice. If you don’t get your deer with the first shot, you pretty much just spray the woods with bullets that endanger other hunters. Too bad if you are too lazy to change the clip after the first 10-15 shots.
Yes, Wayne, that’s the favored trick of the Left: when you can’t make logical arguments, play with semantics. “Pro-choice,” “progressive,” etc. Please name a piece of gun legislation that would improve safety, as you put it, especially as it pertains to mass shootings.
Your question is poorly worded. Try this: ‘Would You Support Any Type of Gun Safety Legislation?’
Maybe you should specify the gun control legislation. None that has ever been proposed would have stopped the “massacre” from occurring. The Left is surprisingly unimaginative on this issue.