Assault rifles and military-style semi-automatics have been banned in New Zealand

[dowie]

The bans on firearms haven't exactly made it harder, they've just changed tactic.

Yes they have.

What you want is to find evidence of how many potential crimes were foiled by the tighter regulations on firearms...

In what sense? Do you think the London Bridge attackers wouldn't have used semi auto firearms if they'd had easy access to them?

Yes, so hard to be a mass killer and kill lots of people. Beforehand you could KSI a dozen, maybe two, with a rifle. Now you can only KSI a few hundred at a time with a bomb. But of course, it's not about bombs or knives or laws or people, it's about guns, right?
More regulations, or outright bans on guns, that will make everything all right. I believe it is peace for our time. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds...

No one has claimed that banning guns will make everything all right or that we should only be concerned with guns. You're again just throwing in a straw man argument. That other deaths have occurred with stabbings etc.. doesn't make it a good idea to allow easier access to weapons like semi auto rifles too...

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[dowie]

Yes, instead of having to smuggle something in or go through the rigmarole of legally acquiring a weapon, they now hop in a car.

And they couldn't before? Again the fact that people can kill others with cars isn't an argument for not banning semi auto firearms.

Is that a potential crime, then? Was it foiled by people getting caught trying to acquire illegal weapons?

It was an actual crime, if they'd had access to weapons they'd have potentially killed even more. The simple tricks that some people used of running away and locking doors so they couldn't enter bars/restaurants wouldn't have been as effective if they could shoot from a distance and/or into venues.

No I'm being sarcastic over that part, actually, no straw men in sight. But well done for fallacy-dropping over a false premise.
The previous part that you glossed over was the actual argument in counter to your assertion. Feel free to tackle that, if you like.

What part? I'm more than happy to have a disucussion here but if people are going to chuck in stupid analogies about limiting cars to 30mph (in the case of another poster) or indeed pretend that people think banning guns will solve all crimes etc.. in your case then it just gets silly.

 

[ianh]

Not particularly as it wasn't a very good analogy, for a start what do you think was silly about my comment?

If you re-read my post you'll see that I never said your comment was "silly" - it really would help the discussion if everyone actually read what people posted instead of skim reading, getting it wrong and replying to something not said.

This thread seems particularly bad for it, maybe its the emotion of the subject which causes this, I don't know.

 

[Felon]

It can't be, else we'd not have so many laws.
I hate to quote Doctor WHo of all things, but he once said, "Good men don't need rules". Today, we even have to post Max Safe Speed signs on corners. The more rules you have, the less personal freedom people have, the less thinking they have to do, and the less responsibility they will take for themselves and society.

The problem with arguing like this, is that it seems ignorant of taking into consideration what humans are and how we behave.

It's almost as though you're saying something like "If only people would just behave and take responsibility, that way we wouldn't need laws because everyone would be sensible"

The problem is, people tend to experience episodes in their lives where they lose their tempers, get upset, excited, angry or frightened. In such circumstances their decision making becomes skewed and altered, to the point where they'll do something deeply damaging to other people or property, during that 30 second lapse of madness.

Whilst there's nothing any law can do, to ensure people don't lose their tempers or do silly things - laws can limit what's available to them to help prevent or at least limit the extent of the disaster when such a scenario occurs.

A good example of this would be the Newtown shooting, where the perpetrator had essentially lived an increasingly isolated and damaged life, to the point where he broke - with limited planning, took his Mother's rifle which directly enabled him to go on an insane killing spree, before committing suicide.

I'm not going to claim that an assault-weapons ban would have prevented the perpetrator from doing anything to anybody and fixed all the issues, however I'd argue strongly that it would have drastically limited the amount of damage he could cause.

Essentially this forms the central point of all of my arguments on this subject; you have to be willing to draw a line somewhere, because if you don't - if you allow practically unfettered access to such firepower, you pay for it - just like Connecticut ultimately did.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[dowie]

Isn't it?
Oh, that's good then, since it wasn't what I was arguing anyway.... But you knew that, of course.

Actually it seems to be what you've been arguing so far - namely you're repeatedly pointing out that people get killed by other things too. If you want to clarify what your argument is then please do go ahead...

Ah, right, so NOT one that was stopped by the enforcement of any particular (or general) laws or regulations, then...?

Did they have semi automatic weapons? Nope they didn't...

The part pointing out that restricting firearms has NOT made it harder to be a mass killer, as you assert.

It quite clearly does though. As already pointed out it would be far easier to kill people with a semi automatic rifle than chasing them with knives as per the London Bridge attack. They'd have likely been able to cause far more deaths. The same applies to anyone wanting to kill multiple people, they don't have easy access to the firearms option.

Also given the gang situation in London and the rise in knife crime I'm rather glad that we have restrictions on firearms in the UK, you'd likely see a much higher death rate among the urban youth (and innocent bystanders) if we didn't restrict firearms. Just look at the situation in the US.

 

[Felon]

So someone with diagnosed and increasingly deteriorating mental health issues, while receiving woefully inadequate attention for them, was also given access to firearms and taught to use them by an irresponsible owner... Wanna blame the parents for this one, or is it failings of The System?
Either way, crazy people doing crazy things is not a good argument for prohibiting law-abiding people from things.

Like I said, we never used to get all these mass shootings going on, so I'm more concerned with the root cause and what can be done to address that issue, rather than just lumping more laws on to further restrict other people, purely so I can be seen to do "something". Otherwise you might as well ban everyone from having cars because, as asserted before, that WILL stop incidents like London bridge from ever being possible again, no?

So if you're not willing to draw the line anywhere, because it's purely the fault of crazy people - and no attempt should be made to legislate common-sense laws to restrict these sorts of weapons, because it's the people who are doing the killing, not the weapons by themselves; presumably you'd be fine with going into a shop and buying an M249?

You have to be willing to say that, you have sit there with a straight face and say "I'm fine with fully automatic machine guns being available to the public"

Because if you're not willing to draw a line anywhere, and have any sensible laws at all, to prevent law abiding people from owning those sorts of weapons - then that's what it translates into; Grenades, artillery, attack helicopters, and so on. Presumably you'd be fine with all of these things being available on the basis that those things alone don't kill, it's the people using them that kill and the actions of crazy people shouldn't be affecting everyone else?

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Felon]

If I can prove I am responsible enough to handle one and not go on a killing rampage, yeah, sure. Why not?
I'd rather have an original Minimi or one of several others though, if you're offering me the choice... and I might have to borrow a few thousand pounds from you.

You first have to understand and acknowledge the application of proper responsibility. Then I'll say it all you like.

That essentially has your position laid bare - you're acknowledging that it would be reasonable, to allow members of the general public to own fully-automatic machineguns, simply on the basis that law abiding people shouldn't be subjected to any common sense laws at all.

I think it's only possible to get to such a position, if you don't really understand human behaviour.

Why the **** should I EVER have to worry about law-abiding people? It's the ones that don't abide that are the problem, regardless of what laws they break. Again, I quote - "good men don't need rules".
.

Because life is complicated, like the Las Vegas shooter - some people can live perfectly decent normal law abiding lives, without so much as raising the slightest suspicion - before descending into chaos without rhyme or reason.

It happens all the time, because people are unpredictable - we get upset, we get angry, hurt, jealous, excited, broken - those things can happen to anybody at any point in their lives, and trigger a total breakdown.

 

[dowie]

Why focus on banning and restricting things, only for people to just find something else with which to kill, when it's the people that need looking at in the first place?
THAT is my argument.

Yes so as before the fact that people can kill others with cars isn't an argument for not banning semi auto firearms.

Why semi auto rifles? To make it harder for mass shootings to occur.

You're absolutely right.
Did they need firearms, of any kind, though? Bearing in mind it's quite easy to legally obtain pretty devastating ones, still.... nope, no guns of any kind. They chose knives instead.
My question still remains - What evidence have you that there are gun crimes actively being prevented by all these regulations, and how many such crimes are attempted?

Well for a start you can look at firearms deaths in US cities. What evidence do you have that we'd be safer without firearms regulations?

But far harder to hit a small moving target with a projectile of a few millimetres diameter, even from 50 yards away, as most newbie target shooters will attest, compared to the absolute cakewalk of ploughing through them with a large car, or blowing them up with an explosive.

The van was crashed deliberately, they then got out and ran around with knives... someone 50 yards away has a chance of running away - if you have a semi auto rifle you've got a much easier way to kill them - ditto to the people cowering under tables in the various pubs/restaurants that simply locked their doors... you can shoot through windows etc... people barricading doors etc.. i

I have easy access to my car. Right now I could just go outside, turn right and hit the crossroads. There's a good run up, so as long as my own lights aren't green by the time I reach 80mph I'll KSI a good 4-8 people without even trying.[...]

And again, the fact that people can kill others with cars isn't an argument for not banning semi auto firearms.

After a couple more posts that is still your argument:

But people can still be killed by other means.

That again isn't an argument for allowing them yet more things to kill with. The point is to try and reduce the ability of people to conduct acts of terror (and or indeed gun violence in general).

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[dowie]

The fact that people can and do kill with anything is the matter to be dealt with, not

And instead drive them to less easily controlled but more effective methods. Yeah, good one. Well done.

The root cause is people and their behaviour. Tackle that and you have no need of such laws.
[...] etc...

Yes the fact people can kill with cars is a matter to be dealt with, note for example the barriers on London bridges etc.. defensive street furniture etc..etc..

Of course the root cause is people, if you've got some magic solution to make sure that no person breaks any laws then that would be great... currently people do break laws however. Letting people have easy access to semi automatic firearms isn't a very good idea. People can still buy firearms in the UK (and indeed in NZ) there are plenty of legitimate purposes to own one and we have the means to allow that and regulate it.

Though you seem to be hell bent on advocating some no regulation position and throwing out stupid statements about banning cars and chopping limbs off. You haven't really presented much of an argument against banning semi auto rifles other than throwing in arguments along the lines of "what about cars" etc... which again isn't an argument against not banning semi auto weapons but rather just a load of time wasting whataboutery.

 

[Felon]

Generally that is how we've always done things anyway, though. It's only comparatively recently that problems have started and we've had to dream up a plethora of new laws to outlaw such things, while doing comparatively little to actually prevent the problems in the first place.


So why has there only recently been a massive surge in incidents like these, then?
Life has been **** for thousands of years. What has changed in the past decade or two?

This isn't true at all.

There are many societies which have had serious problems both historically and in the present time, you have societies such as Somalia - which is essentially a hellhole of crime and murder, because it's totally lawless, not because the people there are born inferior - they simply have no rules or law and no way to create any.

Then you have the historic wild west, every man for himself - lawless, no rules, mass murder and crime.

When you just leave people alone together and expect them all to behave, guess what - they don't, society collapses, you need government, you need laws and you need to enforce them in order to maintain a society people want to live it.

Based on the evidence, it's far easier to just criminalise things and punish people for them, than do anything to dissuade them from doing it in the first place, especially if the government can make money from people breaking the law. If there can be applied a plausible pretense of it being safety-driven, all the better. So on that basis, I'd say human behaviour is to no longer give a **** and just look out for yourself.

But again, if you reduce down your argument - it's ridiculous, because you're arguing from a very extreme viewpoint.

Of course, we should encourage people to be 'safety-driven' and I think we do that to a degree, a good example would be the UK driving standards. Compared to the rest of the world, UK driving standards are quite high and as a result we have a low number of road deaths compared to other countries (per miles driven) we do have very effective areas where we do focus on safety.

To point your argument back at you; if you think fully-automatic machine guns should be legal to any law abiding citizen (as you did further up) presumably you'd be fine with no laws around driving tests or licenses, no laws around road safety, no laws for driving around with bald tyres, smashed windscreens - or even drunk behind the wheel, that would be fine right - because as a law abiding citizen, you wouldn't need law enforcement to tell you what you need to do?

I'm afraid society and people don't function like that.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[dowie]

So why haven't we actually stopped them from being able to get them, then?
It might be illegal, but it's not exactly impossible, any more than it's impossible to get illegal drugs.... In fact, I could probably get you half a kilo of cocaine by close of business today, from about a dozen different sources, long as you have the money... Half of them could probably source you one of those handguns that have been outlawed, too.

No one claimed we could completely stop all access to all firearms - though as with banning cars that isn't a very good argument for not bothering at all.

If you were to go and ask a bunch of random drug dealers if you could get a firearm then you don't know that one or more of them isn't a police informant, they've got no loyalty to you.

If you were criminal and friends with someone who could obtain one then you don't know that either of you are not under police surveillance - see for example the Mark Duggan shooting, he was intercepted on the way to allegedly use a firearm to kill someone.

Not exactly. I'm against regulating things that are already regulated, and restricting people that already abide by the restrictions, when the problem is with those people who aren't and don't.

Well the problem is that you don't know that they're not until after the fact in some cases - it isn't like this guy has committed a mass murder killing spree before.

You're against regulating things that are already regulated is a bit of an empty statement... so anything no matter whether the regulations are weak/flawed or no longer appropriate shouldn't be subject to further regulations because it is already regulated? This is just more silliness and still no real argument against the ban.

 

[The_Abyss]

Oh, like having 'safety cameras', then?
Pull the other one. People still speed, people still crash, people still die... and the government don't even bother pretending now, citing cameras as an important source of revenue.
There have been increases in education and vehicle safety, but the government doesn't really profit off that. It's the speeding fines and the questionable use of cameras that carry the pretense.

As long as you persist in making irrelevant comparisons between guns and other things that end up causing harm, look how the EU and UK governments are introducing changes to lower the risk of death from vehicles: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47715415

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM

 

[Felon]

Crazy talk

I think in the final analysis, all you're really doing - is performing one of the most insane feats of mental gymnastics, I've ever seen on here.

Suggesting as you do - that sensible laws and legislation only punish law abiding citizens and are unfair, as a means for justifying the legal circulation of things like fully-automatic machineguns to so-called law abiding citizens, is so fundamentally flawed when you apply it to how society functions.

Indeed, reading through your source on 'Havokjournal.com' gives me the impression that you've indoctrinated yourself with the mad ramblings of gun-toting, freedom preaching nutters.

The fact you get information from some places, tells me that no cogent argument of any form will make an impact in your thought process.

 

[ttaskmaster]

NVM