Debate: Gun Control

[Andy 60]

Rob a bank and we'll see.

You do that, I'll watch on the news. :p

[TheUnknown 39]

Reminds me of an episode of Family Guy where they have drive-by arguments in Britain.

[TheUnknown 39]

I'm temporarily resurrecting this topic because I just saw this at Yahoo News.

WASHINGTON - The House Wednesday passed what could become the first major federal gun control law in over a decade, spurred by the Virginia Tech campus killings and buttressed by National Rifle Association help.

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The bill, which was passed on a voice vote, would improve state reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to stop gun purchases by people, including criminals and those adjudicated as mentally defective, who are prohibited from possessing firearms.

Seung-Hui Cho, who in April killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech before taking his own life, had been ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment and should have been barred from buying two guns he used in the rampage. But the state of Virginia had never forwarded this information to the national background check system.

If it moves through the Senate and is signed into law by the president, the bill would be the most important gun control act since Congress banned some assault weapons in 1994, the last year Democrats controlled the House. In 1996, Congress added people convicted of domestic violence to the list of those banned from purchasing firearms.

The bill was the outcome of weeks of negotiations between Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., the most senior member of the House and a strong supporter of gun rights, and the NRA, and in turn, with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., a leading gun-control advocate.

"This is good policy that will save lives," McCarthy said.

The NRA insisted that it was not a "gun control" bill because it does not disqualify anyone currently able to legally purchase a firearm.

The NRA has always supported the NICS, said the organization's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre. "We've always been vigilant about protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens to purchase guns, and equally vigilant about keeping the guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally defective and people who shouldn't have them."

Under a gun control act that passed in 1968, the year Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed, people barred from buying guns include those convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, illegal drug users, those adjudicated as mentally disabled, and illegal aliens.

The legislation approved Wednesday would require states to automate and share disqualifying records with the FBI's NICS database. The bill also provides $250 million a year over the next three years to help states meet those goals and imposes penalties, including cuts in federal grants under an anti-crime law, to those states that fail to meet benchmarks for automating their systems and supplying information to the NICS.

The NRA did win some concessions in negotiating the final product.

It would automatically restore the purchasing rights of veterans who were diagnosed with mental problems as part of the process of obtaining disability benefits. LaPierre said the Clinton administration put about 80,000 such veterans into the background check system.

It also outlines an appeals process for those who feel they have been wrongfully included in the system and ensures that funds allocated to improve the NICS are not used for other gun control purposes.

"It was necessary to make some accommodations to address the concerns of gun owners," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., adding that he would be closely monitoring the provision on restoring gun rights to veterans judged to have mental disabilities.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said his group supported the legislation, noting that the Virginia Tech shootings "tragically demonstrated the gaps in the system that allowed a dangerous person to be armed."

He said he hoped Congress and the gun lobby would go a step further and extend background checks to all gun sales, not just those licenses dealers covered by current law.

The only dissenting vote in the short House debate on the bill was voiced by GOP presidential aspirant Ron Paul (news, bio, voting record) of Texas. He described the bill as "a flagrantly unconstitutional expansion of restriction on the exercise of the right to bear arms protected under the 2nd Amendment.

McCarthy, in an emotional speech, said that "this has been a long, long journey for me." She ran for Congress on a gun control agenda after her husband was gunned down on a Long Island commuter train in 1993.

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The bill is H.R. 2640

I've gone after the NRA hard in this thread and stand by those comments but kudos to them for supporting this. I also noticed than Ron Paul was the lone no vote.

[Ana 15]

This is something I think almost everyone will be happy with. It is a solid, sensible response,that actually addresses the issue at hand. I think we need this.

And I think that Ron Paul is a little crazy if he thinks that mentally unstable individuals should be allowed to buy guns.

[Mara 29]

Uh, yeah.

Sometimes even some sane, normal people shouldn't buy guns.

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

agreed

[Andy 60]

Sometimes even some sane, normal people shouldn't buy guns.

You mean, most of the time. :p

[Drake 53]

All of the time, B.

Well it's good to see that the American government is taking slow, baby steps to becoming an actual civilized country. Too bad it takes the mass murder of school children to push progress.

Edited June 18, 2007 by Drake

[Radioactive Isotope 29]

sadly, that's generally the way it works. of course the way some people look at it is until something happens, you don't know there's a problem. now that's true of some things, but i would have thought this one was obvious.

[Brumak 2]

Well....all I can really say is that maybe if we were a Utopian, perfect, maybe non-human race we wouldn't have gun control problems. We wouldn't have violence problems, for that matter.

The only thing that could really work would be a zero tolerance point of view. Unfortunately that's highly improbable.

[TheUnknown 39]

The problem with zero tolerance is it is also zero sense. Anyone remember the case about the girl who got into sithloads of trouble for carrying....wait for it...A TWEETY BIRD KEYCHAIN. I sith you not.

[Brumak 2]

How exactly was a Tweety keychain compared to a fire arm in any way shape or form O_o

[TheUnknown 39]

It was considered a weapon. So, the girl got into major trouble.

[Brumak 2]

My fingers are weapons by some standards of what a weapon is considered...but meh.

Let's just destroy all lethal weapons and focus on the non-lethal ones. They have some pretty good ones already out.

Or...we could work on becoming more peaceful. Haha....

[Chickenman 9]

Kid brings plastic butter knife to school to spread jelly on his bread. Suspended. Nevermind that most schools supply butter knives.

There's always a middle ground. Always.

[Drake 53]

My fingers are weapons by some standards of what a weapon is considered...but meh.

Now you're going to have to wear giant pillow gloves...which could be used to smother someone!

Looks like we're going to have to cut your hands off...but then your stubs could be sharpened into bone-shivs!

Yeah...we're just going to have to kill you. Safer that way.

Edited July 19, 2007 by Drake

[Brumak 2]

:( Well that would put a damper on all my plans...

But then I could come back as a blood thirsty undead creature :twisted:

:D

[Mara 29]

I better make sure I've had all my zombie inoculations.

[Drake 53]

Well that would put a damper on all my plans...

But then I could come back as a blood thirsty undead creature :twisted:

We'd have to fight you with shotguns! But...how can we if we have no guns!? sith...

[Brumak 2]

Bwahaha :twisted:

[Princess 35]

Flamethrowers. It's the only way to kill a zombie.

[Brumak 2]

Unless you're a zombie-hellspawn :p

[Drake 53]

Then it's holy water.