The last optimization are usually the most expensive, yes. But that’s only to address the first room problem. Off the cuff, it seems relatively inexpensive (in a distributed way) to prevent any school kids from getting killed after the first room, other than rare cases of course.
You’re kidding, right? Room control is a massive expensive which will require structural rebuilding in many school buildings, and because of other basic safety issues (fire) requires expensive systems…
(You also need to rebuild ventilation and heating systems, etc.)
Hehe, almost got you man! Totally kidding.
Nothing more for you to see here, I suppose. Talk to you again in a few weeks. Bye!
ahem
The assumption seems to be that the despotic government in question would control the entirety of the military and police, but that’s almost certain not to be the case. Revolutions, though they might have to face off against the main structure of the nation’s military, inevitably draw off some of its members, and many more from the local branches (in other words, reservists and police are more likely to join an insurgency than soldiers who live on a base). In addition, there were statistics quoted somewhere upthread about successful revolutions that have occurred in countries with far lower gun ownership ratios than US. So the idea that our current level of gun ownership, or even any level of private gun ownership, is necessary to protect us from tyranny is silly.
The reality is that if protection is the reason to allow gun ownership, then ownership should come with a responsibility to protect not only yourself and your loved ones, but others and the community as well, either in the form of military service, law enforcement service, or some other codified set of responsibilities, with appropriate training required before and during gun ownership. And it should be revocable - if a gun licensed to you is used in a way that violates that trust, all your gun licenses are invalidated.
On a more serious (read: possibly achievable) note, I still think we should run with the idea of a gun license “accreditation” program, where organizations are chartered to train and monitor gun licensees, and the organization itself is responsible for actions taken with guns it has licensed.
gp1628
1931
THIS IS NUTS! I CANT BELIEVE I AM EVEN SEEING ARGUMENTS!
Of COURSE they dont kill people, people kill people. And of COURSE criminals will ignore laws but that doesnt mean dump all the laws. THEY ARE DANGEROUS. There should be age limits. There should be tests required. Written AND in use. They should have to carry a card saying they have passed those tests. And maybe some sort of money thing to show real seriousness like requiring insurance. And that is just for the small recreational ones. The Semi’s are far more dangerous. The payloads on those things create an ability for MASS deaths! There should be MORE tests and background checks and more insurance. And controls on dangerous payloads. How can anyone seriously be arguing…
Oh. Wait. Guns? I thought we were talking about cars. And semi-trucks. Never mind. Im all for owning guns. Altho… when I think about it I guess all the same pros and cons do apply. If its true of one, maybe then it should be true for the other.
1900 posts in, and someone finally summarized. :)
WarrenM
1933
Unfortunately, we don’t have some stupid provision in the constitution for owning cars.
We only have a right to “keep and bear” arms, not to “manufacture, trade, and sell” them…
Oh yeah??? Define “assault rifle,” go ahead!!! If you CAN!!!
We have a right to a free press, not to printing presses or television satellites.
It’s a 1900-post thread. Pretty much every point has already been made. :P
Sarkus
1938
On a purely anecdotal note, it is getting very hard to find a lot of semi-auto rifles at this point because the demand is so high. I’ve been considering for some time buying an inexpensive 9mm carbine (they run in the $300-400 range) and nobody now has any of them. I was told today at a gun shop that even if they special order for me they expect it would take six months for one brand and a year or more for the other to come in. Used versions of both are going for twice or more new MSRP in online auctions.
It’s crazy because neither of these guns is likely going to be illegal under any of the proposed federal legislation unless Congress decides to simply ban anything that looks like an assault rifle. One of them, in fact, was designed and legally sold under the previous assault weapons ban and only offers a 10 round magazine.
I went into a Cabela’s today and had over an hour wait just to talk to a gun associate, even though they had six people working in the area. By the time I was helped the wait was more then two hours. On a Thursday!
Crazy.
Houngan
1939
I can’t even buy revolvers right now, that’s how bad it is.
Sarkus
1940
The places I’ve been in have all had plenty of semi-auto pistols and regular hunting rifles and shotguns. It’s just the military style rifles that people seem to think will be hard to get in the future.
Of course it doesn’t help that guns seem to be one of those things that the internet isn’t very good at helping you find. Pawn shops and independent gun stores, if they have a website at all, rarely have an online inventory. What’s less understandable is that even bigger sporting goods chains can’t tell you what their stores have - Cabela’s and Walmart, for example, have no online gun availability system. Which means if you are looking for something in particular you have to actually go to stores to see what they have.
Since multiple gun ownership is so highly concentrated, I do wonder who the hell these people are who are buying even more AR-15s in case they get banned. The dozen you already had wasn’t enough?
Sarkus
1942
There are different guns for different uses, so anyone who gets into them beyond the simple “self defense” argument is going to buy more then one if they can afford to. Prepper videos I’ve seen suggest owning multiple guns, for example, so there is that crowd. Then you have the freaked out gun rights people who are worried this may be their last chance to get certain types of guns. Finally, I’m sure at least some of the demand at the retail level (where stuff is basically going for MSRP) is from resellers who see the opportunity to make a big profit right now.
The number of people who own multiple AR’s or AK’s that fire actual military caliber rounds is probably very limited.
If only we had data on this…
Enidigm
1944
There are guns for sale in town, but no bullets. There’s literally not a single box of ammo available in town.
Scarcity is an incredible driver of behavior. I am not a big Mac person but if they were potentially going to ban them, I might find myself in line at the Apple store.
Houngan
1946
Anecdotally, I tend to buy two guns for every purpose when it’s competition, and one gun for any non-competition use. Thus I have two 5" .45 revolvers, two 4", two 8-shot .38/.357, two ARs, two Glock 17s, and two Glock 35s. I also have a handful of other bits and pieces, but I can honestly say that in the last 15 years I’ve bought only one non-competition gun that I still own.
