Bay 12 Games Forum

When did trump say this?

Looks like it was back in 2011, actually. May 1st, given to the New York Times. Can't seem to find a direct transcript or video/soundclip, though, so eh. One of you lot can give lookin' a try if you really want it.

From what I've heard there are home-made bullets around but they're pretty likely to make your gun jam or worse. A jammed gun isn't very useful even at short range

T'expand on this a little... for anything even remotely resembling a modern firearm, yeah. You... can home make bullets (I actually helped with a few shotgun shells when I was a lot younger, heh), and you can certainly refill casings without too much trouble (though some sorts are much easier than others on that front, for all I've forgotten most of the specifics), but making them from scratch... well, it runs into the same problems most of that sort of backyard gunsmithing has. Modern firearms rely a hell of a lot on fairly precise machining to do what they do, both for the gun itself and for the bullets, and that's something that's not particularly easy to manage. 

It's not impossible to do it with tools you'd just kinda' have around, or to make them outside of a factory or whathaveyou, but it's generally going to be significantly lower (and often even worse so far as malfunctions go, inconsistent -- 'bout the only thing worse than shoddy bullets are a series of differently shoddy bulets) quality. Can still kill someone with 'em, but the chances of the gun exploding in your hand (or more mundane things like jamming, being terribly inaccurate, etc.) is much, much higher. There's kinda' a reason you don't really see much in the way of home made guns and gun accessories in areas where control is really strict. Is 'cause they're probably going to be a lot more shit than a stolen or smuggled one, yeah. S'also often less effort involved in filching one, t'boot. Can be kinda' fun to make shells or do some gunwork, though, if usually incredibly stupid to actually use once you've done what you could.

... also, this is probably the sixth or seventh time someone on B12 has brought up th'fact that the guy wasn't using an actual AR-15. Those initial reports are really screwing with people, heh.

Most gun laws are state level, IIRC.  That's part of the problem with current gun laws, really. Some state police and FBI engage in turf wars over this, not least because federal agencies often pretend that everywhere in the US is the same and try to apply blanket policies that simply don't work in local conditions.

Yeah, they're more state than anything. The federal firearm laws aren't really that... anything, honestly. They're often even lower level, too; the laws regarding firearm ownership can change between cities, nevermind states.

And erk, maybe read the rest of the paragraph. If had been a weapon with a lower mag size (like, again, the limitations on legal ones in cali, as mentioned. Assuming they haven't changed again, anyway.), it's fairly likely the casualties or injuries would have been less. More reloading is less firing, et al. Not a guarantee, because basically nothing is, but it'd up the chances less people got hurt.

But the problem in case Orlando I really dont think is the AR-15. Its just one of the many products fairly easily available to Americans that are both highly powerful, controllable and have high capacity. He might as well have gotten a semi auto .308 or a semi auto shotgun. Would the death toll be any different? He should have been stopped by FBI prior to the night.

The last bit is fairly true -- FBI or ATF or something, at least. It's not entirely difficult to understand some of the reasons why they didn't (ATF, in particular, is basically crippled in regards to anything related to tracking firearms or firearm users, if nothing's changed when I was looking), but yeah, ideally something like that would have happened.

... that said, as far as we know it wasn't an ar-15, but a sig sauer mcx. It's actually not particularly unlikely that if it had even been your average AR-15, the death toll would have been lower to some degree or another. Nevermind something with an even smaller consecutive shot limit. There's a hell of a difference in what you're able to do with a 10 round (which is, say, the legal limit for AR-15s in cali) and 30 round magazine (which is what the gun he used had).

And it's state, SL. I'm not even sure if there are legal restrictions on storage inside your home in florida.

Hitting this first because it's probably the most egregious thing I've seen since I went to sleep last night, but... will continue a lil'bit afterwards. Also this kept getting longer as y'all kept posting *fist shake*

Please don't look at firearm related deaths but firearm related homicides. Gun suicide isn't the same thing as gun violence.

Okay, no. Firearm suicides in the US account for about as many deaths as our total murder rate, around half of the total successful suicide numbers, while accounting for around a twentieth of the attempts; the immediate data I had on hand was from about a decade back, but so far as I'm aware those numbers haven't shifted to any particularly large degree. If it has, I'd love to hear about it, but to the best of my knowledge of the related trends those numbers are probably even worse today than back then. You... don't get to waive the issue of firearm access and suicide when it's one the major reasons better handling of gun control is being sought.

If you want less gun suicides, you ban guns. If you want less suicides overall (and particularly less successful ones), you still ban guns. Firearm access and saturation is not a 100% predictor of suicide rates (successful ones, in particular) or anything bloody stupid like that, but it's a damn good one. Not that many people are actually calling for a flat out ban, but saying that folks will just find a way at anything close to the current rate is just... very, very wrong. Suicide doesn't work like that. The ease of attempt has a massive influence on the likelihood of attempt, and how likely the method is to actually kill, somewhat unsurprisingly, is a very, very strong indicator both of the whether the person will die and whether they attempt it again if they don't (hint: Most survivors of a suicide attempt don't try a second time.). It's a subject complicated enough that cutting back on firearm access isn't necessarily a guaranteer that suicide deaths will substantially drop, but it's pretty close to one.

Data shows in Australia there was NO impact on violence, only on means. Sure there's less gun violence, but homicide rate remained constant.

This is incorrect. Data shows that overall homicide rates in australia have dropped notably compared to 1990, when their ban was introduced. You can see more recent numbers here. The homicide rate's been dropping, and has dropped by something like a bloody third. Violence in general has decreased in australia since the early 90s on almost all fronts -- the only things that haven't really budged are manslaughter and sexual assault, the latter of which is still coming down from a peak in the 2000s. Near as I can tell hunting even more recent numbers, there's been some increases in some areas/some fronts in the last few years, but you're still looking at things very much notably lower than in 1990. How much of that is due to the gun control implementation is questionable, as always, but saying that that things haven't changed much since it was implemented is in quite strong disagreement with the data available.

Incidentally, if any of y'all are interested in australia's data, this is pretty useful. Not perfect (it particularly lacks some of the more recent data, though it's not terribly difficult to cross check that), but useful.

UK I'm having a hell of a lot more trouble finding decent data on, and kinda' looks like they're not doing particularly good regardless so far as changes relative to itself goes. They should probably take a page from the aussie playbook of statistics reporting This looks like a pretty nice summary of the last decade and a half or so of homicide numbers, though. No bloody clue about the nature of the site itself, but they're claiming to use official statistics and those actual official statistics are something of a pain in the ass to navigate, so *shrugs* Does look like there's some weird shit going on related to the UK and statistics gathering/reporting, though.

I really don't see why gun control is playing such a big role in this case.

It's playing a big role because it's considered a representative example of what's being done wrong for both ends of the argument. 'Bout the only reason it gets as much involved discussion is just that it's also about the only thing that was involved in this shit that's particularly feasible to start doing anything about any time soon on any substantial level. Not entirely sure it's an actually major focus (the religious extremist angle seems to be being played a lot harder, ferex), but yeah.

As to some of the rest... guy could have ended up using bombs or whathaveyou, sure, but that is generally significantly harder to do, particularly in conditions that aren't exactly similar to those where most terrorist bombings are occurring. If we had to choose between people being forced to use guns to commit domestic atrocities, and being forced to use bombs... we'd almost certainly be a hell of a lot better off going with the latter. Much easier to see warning signs for, much more difficult to actually use, etc., etc., etc. At least in situations where there's not, y'know, organized groups and whatnot providing material and experience in sizable numbers.

Because gun control laws in Europe totally stopped both Hebdo and 2015 attacks in Paris last time around.

Seriously though, gun control laws have never been about totally stopping anything, save to the most bugnuts of proponents. That's not the point, it's never been the point, and it will never be the point. It's always about mitigation; reducing the number of attempts, reducing the number of fatalities, reducing the number of non-criminal incidents, so on, so forth. Usually in tandem with all the other stuff we're pretty bloody sure reduces such things (such as actual enforcement, sure). The extent it actually works varies by situation and particular metric, but generally the sentiment is that bloody anything is better than nothing at all. Add that generally the response to gun control that isn't pants-on-head (and is actually enforced) has been either positive or at least neutral on some or many of the issues involved with it, and you get a lot of the motivation for a lot of the people calling for it.

Well, we probably are insofar as our immigration forms are concerned. Anyone that's ever paid taxes (any of them, including sales) in this country has supported an organisation that previously engaged in terrorist acts (and/or other, closely related, activities), at least, which is basically close enough for the paperwork. Bloody paperwork and its comprehensive evaluation of historical acts.

Gurren Lagann actually has some decent characterization, if you look. You can see this most notably in the dynamic between Kamina and Simon; Kamina is this big larger-than-life figure that enraptures everyone and is super charismatic, and Simon is the socially awkward kid who looks up to him as a role model.

Ah, yeah, don't mistake me, the characterization and plot and whatnot in GL isn't even remotely bad, or anything. Would even be pretty comfortable calling it fairly good. It's just not a terribly notable departure from other works in the... well, genres that GL ends up romping around in. KlK definitely goes a bit further out there on that front, which is the statement I was trying to make, probably clumsily.