Americans and Guns: A Look at Ownership Rights, Laws, Arguments and Numbers

[SecularMotion]

Gunshots rang out once again on a campus in the United States on Wednesday.

Students and faculty raced out of harm's way, ducked under furniture, barricaded doors and hid in interior rooms, bathrooms and labs. The short-lived nightmare on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles came one day before Wear Orange: National Gun Violence Awareness Day.

Wear Orange was inspired by friends of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old Chicago high school student killed by gunfire in 2013. The group decided to honor her life by wearing orange — the color worn by hunters in the woods to protect themselves and others.

While the idea has been embraced by civic organizations, politicians and celebrities, it has been rejected by gun rights advocates. The National Rifle Association has attacked the campaign as "pointless," and said "participating is an easy way of scoring points for being 'socially conscious.'"

http://www.voanews.com/content/americans-gun-ownership-rights-laws-debate/3357768.html

[ileus]

1. My rights aren't up for debate.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. My rebuttal --

However, background checks are not currently required for private sales, including those conducted at gun shows.

Wrong. Private sales are not tracked but sales at a gun show still require a background check if the gun is sold by a licensed dealer. This fact is so well-established it takes a Katie Couric-level of dishonesty to continue to repeat it.

Certain people are banned from owning weapons, including convicted criminals, people with mental health illnesses or non-U.S. citizens. But the system has major holes in it.

Primarily due to lack of enforcement which compels us to ask: What good would yet more laws do?

The wording of the Second Amendment is the primary defense cited by gun rights advocates.

And the 13th Amendment is the primary defense cited by opponents of slavery. What was the point of this sentence except to have people scoff at the notion of constitutional rights.

Those advocating stricter laws cite statistics to bolster their case.

This is definitely straight out of the Katie Couric Handbook of Dishonesty. Self-defense advocates also cite statistics but these authors would have you believe -- like Couric's deceitful editing -- that 2A advocates have no answers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports...

Who is doing what? On VOA's on website they are peddling the myth that there is a ban on gun-related research imposed on the CDC --

http://www.voanews.com/content/democrats-seek-link-gun-violence-measure-funding-bill/3098447.html

-- and yet, here they are contradicting their own stories.

...there were more than 33,000 firearms deaths in the U.S.

Over half of which are suicides and of the remaining crime oriented deaths the vast majority are perpetrated by those with criminal records. Again, facts so well-established that the deception can only be deliberate.

They point to countries like Japan where gun control laws are strict and shooting deaths are almost nonexistent.

Another threadbare trope. No mention of nations with strict gun control and higher violent crime rates or nations with comparably lax laws and lower crime rates. They just want to cherry pick data to give the ignorant the impression they control all the data.

They argue that better records on gun ownership and more stringent laws dictating the sale, possession and storage of guns would allow law-abiding people to have firearms, while resulting in far fewer accidental deaths, suicides and homicides.

So they say but the data -- which they pretend does not exist -- shows their assumptions to be unfounded and their willingness to engage in such widespread deceptions leaves their motives in doubt.

[gejohnston]

3. non-U.S. citizens.

not entirely true. Resident aliens can legally buy guns. What ATF calls non immigrant aliens can under certain circumstances.

[DonP]

4. Still desperately looking for that magic study, huh?

One of these days you hope to find "THE STUDY", that will finally change the minds and hearts of gun owners and they'll all suddenly see that gun control has been right all along?

Or is it the actually total volume and weight of phony baloney gun control "research studies"? Reach 50,000 gun control studies and win a cookie and a Bloomberg/Shannon Watts T-shirt?

Heck, you're so busy trying to convince us here that you don't even bother trying to post in the group you used to host.

But ... somebody else is running it now anyway and they are far more entertaining and active than you were as host.

[SecularMotion]

5. No, some gun owners are just a lost cause.

They'll never see the light of day.

[DonP]

6. Cheer up, there are only 100 million or so of us ...

... that vote and that aren't interested in the fables your side is trying to sell.

And you do have at least 2 people, claiming to be gun owners, that agree with you in your old group.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

7. You post articles full of errors and deception but then complain about others not seeing the light.

[ManiacJoe]

8. You probably were not supposed to say that out loud.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

9. I've never been the kind of girl to just sit quietly with my hands politely folded in my lap.

In fact, I'm told I'm pretty loud.