Talk:Gun politics

Talk:Gun politics/archive 1

Contents

1 international gun politics 2 Weapons vs. firearms 3 Not NPOV 4 Automatic Rifles in USA

international gun politics

All the gun politics and gun laws I see discussed here are from western countries. I'd find it truely fascinating to see these approaches contrasted with hmm middle eastern nations like iraq (though that's currently under US administration), Saudi Arabia, and I've heard interesting stories about parts of pakistan. Has anyone looked at these? Kim Bruning 20:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You make a very good point, the article focuses on the USA to the neglect of the earth ;). Lets try and bring in some internationalism, the wiki is not ment to be anglocentric. Sam Spade 21:34, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If you want to see the civilian firearm situation in the Middle East the best place to check, oddly enough, is Soldier of Fortune magazine http://www.sofmag.com/home.do They often have I-Was-There articles on various countries like Pakistan. In their semi-recent Pakistan article the author toured some of the wilder parts up north, and discovered whole villages churning out all manner of firearms from AK-74 knockoffs to their own origional designs. All 100% illegal of course, guns are prohibited in Pakistan. You will find that the Middle East very much follows the totalitarian model, in which guns are prohibited to all except government agents like the police and Army. Terrorists of all stripes seem to have no problems getting whatever they want, however.

As far as Anglocentrism goes, one reason is that the USA is one of the only countries in which the question of civilian ownership has not been settled yet. Most countries have long since gone with prohibition, as Britain did recently.

With the very notable exception of Switzerland, eh? Krupo 19:46, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

Lots of places that allow 'more or less' free access to firearms, outside Europe; whether you talk about Columbia, or Israel, or even Canada, you end up with a pretty wide spectrum to choose from, as far as the guns per capita bottom line comes out. I'd guess that the majority of humanity doesn't own a gun because they can't afford it more than because it's illegal for them. Gzuckier 21:20, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can anyone site the source for the recent edit regarding swiss ammunition?

    Conversely, Switzerland has very tight control on ammunition, all rounds are sealed and inspected even though in people's homes.

I've found nothing supporting this stance, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true, I suppose. Matt 05:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The sealed ammunition in question is the government-issued GP90 for use in national defense. It's sealed so that the militiamen will be guaranteed to keep it in reserve for official use, not because ammunition is particularly highly regulated. 208.40.64.2 21:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I did a quick and dirty regression a couple of years ago on the various sets of 'murders vs. guns' stats that float around the internet, and (surprising me) there was a pretty decent correlation, as far as social sciences go, between number of guns per capita and murder rate internationally, with the big exception that the Western European nations all seem to have a similar, relatively low, murder rate regardless of number of guns. Even more interestingly, this correlation held whether or not you included the US, which was of course a big outlier and therefore had a big leverage on the results. However, coming back to the question here, those sets of stats that go around in fact don't include info on Arabic countries, Africa, etc.; I'd be surprised if there were a lot of accurate stats available on those places. Gzuckier 21:20, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A problem with such studies is that they treat the US as one homogenous set of laws, which it isn't. Most gun laws are state laws, and vary considerably. If you separated the US states and their particular crime stats between, for example, "shall-issue" CCW license states and "may-issue"/"no issue" CCW states, as well as separating big cities that have their own local anti-gun laws (Chicago, for example, bans gun ownership but Illinois does not, while Chicago accounts for most crime in state), you will find that the US is actually two or more countries when it comes to crime statistics and which contradict very sharply claims about gun control reducing crime. In the US, states with the freest gun laws have the lowest crime rates. - Mike Lorrey 14:37, Jan 24, 2005 EST

It might also be because this is the English wiki, try the Arabic one if you want Arabic articles eh? --The Phantom 15:36, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

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Moving comment by anonymous User:68.66.17.236 out of the article space. Rossami

• edit* sorry bout the earlier remark, was getting annoyed by some of the morons on a forum

Weapons vs. firearms

There's some awkward wording in the article: several references to guns as weapons. They're firearms unless used to hurt, at which point they can be called weapons. An extremely important distinction, especially when dealing with this topic. I'll update the article to take care of that issue. Krupo 19:46, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

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I just wrote Concealed carry (gun laws), and if anyone wants to add info, ...

dino 04:08, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Not NPOV

This article is not NPOV. It is biased in favour of the pro-gun perspective.Simon d 15:52, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps it'd help if you were a bit more specific. --Khendon 16:03, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This might be because the scientific and legal consensus today is pro-gun, with even liberal legal scholar Lawrence Tribe admitting gun ownership is an individual right, and leaders of major anti-gun groups admitting that gun laws do not prevent criminals from obtaining firearms. Britain and Australia are seeing skyrocketing crime since their gun bans went into effect, yet they prefer to prosecute people who try to defend themselves and allow criminals to sue property owners who do so. Gun control is victim disarmament. Mike Lorrey 14:45 24 Jan 3005 EST

'The scientific and legal consensus'? Apparently you're not familiar with the recent report of the National Academy of Sciences, 328 pages reviewing 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and a survey of 80 different gun-control measures, which found:

"The committee found that answers to some of the most pressing questions cannot be addressed with existing data and research methods, however well designed; for example, despite a large body of research, the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime, and there is almost no empirical evidence that the more than 80 prevention programs focused on gun-related violence have had any effect on children's behavior, knowledge, attitudes, or beliefs about firearms. The committee found that the data available on these questions are too weak to support unambiguous conclusions or strong policy statements. ... Nevertheless, many of the shortcomings described in this report stem from the lack of reliable data itself rather than the weakness of methods."

Or is it that you are one of those who hew to the faith-based Received Wisdom that firearms ownership is All Good and cannot have any deleterious effects whatsoever, and that any study which does not find that to be the case (let alone suggests that there might be some problems attendant on widespread firearm ownership which might need attention) is the Work of the Devil and his Evil cabal the Medical Establishment, let alone NPOV? (Lest you think that I'm overstating the case, take John Lott, for instance, whose response is

"While more research is always helpful, the notion that we have learned nothing flies in the face of common sense"

Gzuckier 18:54, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if opinions were posted here or not. I'm not trying to smash anyone elses opinion on this subject. I just have to say one thing....

   If guns were outlawed, only outlaws would have guns.

(and then, criminals wouldn't have to think twice about going into someone's home, they would know that they wouldn't have any guns.)---

Automatic Rifles in USA

"For example, automatic rifles are legal to own in America after acquiring a single $200 permit..." I changed this to semi-automatic rifles. I'm pretty sure you can't have full-auto in America, or at least it's next to impossible to do legally. You can own an AK-47 or M-16, but only a semi-automatic one.-LtNOWIS 02:45, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, you can legally own fully-automatic weapons in the US. It requires a Class 3 Federal Firearms License (FFL). The license is not terribly hard to get but does require some background checks. It is primarily offered to dealers and certified collectors. On the other hand, semi-automatic weapons require no license in many jurisdictions. The background checks are point-of-purchase checks, not technically "licenses". Rossami (talk) 15:08, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Federal law is that you need the Class III to sell/transfer automatic weapons, purchasing involves lenghty notification process/background check, but no "license" per se. Individual states may require a license, but there is no federally mandated license to own an automatic rifle.--Dusty78 02:10, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, a new Class 3 FFL is not so easy to get, at least not in most states. You have to have a permanent store front that you work out of and sell firearms as a business. For most people, that is not so simple, and really, impossible to do as something on the side. However, it is not true that you need an FFL to purchase automatic (Title II) firearms. In US states that allow it, all you have to do is get approval from your local sherrif or chief of police, send in a Form 4 to the ATF, and if everybody approves and local laws allow it, after about a 6 month wait you get approval to purchase your automatic firearm. However, if you ever want to take it out of the state, you have to get prior written approval from the ATF, which takes a long time. Needless to say, the biggest deterrant is that automatic rifles have been illegal to manufacture since 1986. Therefore, the number of legal guns is static (actually always decreasing), and it is their cost which is the most prohibitive. Most automatic rifles cost over $6,000, and some as much as $20,000 or more. I would say this is the real limiting factor for law abiding citizens to purchase automatic firearms. Of course criminals can buy them cheaply. Wodan 02:55, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

I removed some parts of the class-III discussion from this article. I think that the point of this article was to provide some context for the overall question of gun politics - specific details to the individual conuntries should be pushed to those articles. The short passage on class-III requirements wasn't quite accurate, and writing about it in detail would just add a few more narrow US-specific facts to the article. Am I wrong, or can we indeed try to make this a more general article? - CrucifiedChrist

I really disagree. If you're going to talk about the requirements for automatic weapons, it is biased and misleading to only talk about parts of the requirements. It is misleading to think you just fill out some forms and that's it. That's why it's important that if you're going to bring up the subject at all, you have to present all the facts. In reality, it's slightly more complicated. As per the ATF, approval is required (among other things) from the chief law enforcement officer, who is defined as:

...the Chief of Police for the transferee's city or town of residence; the Sheriff for the transferee's county of residence; the Head of the State Police for the transferee's State of residence; a State or local district attorney or prosecutor having jurisdiction in the transferee's area of residence; or another person whose certification is acceptable to the Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

I summarized it as chief of police or sheriff, along with the ATF. Leaving this out would be very misleading. Another biased view you expressed is using the word "weapon." A firearm is no more of a weapon than a baseball bat is, until it's used as such. Your bias shows by using this term. Gun control is about guns, not weapon control. On the issue of USA-centric view point, that can be clarified by expanding the section, not by removing facts. If you would like to build this into an international article, I suggest improving its organization and doing some detailed research on other countries. But don't put misleading statements on US policy please. Thank you. Wodan 01:31, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I reformated the section to separate USA and international policies. The USA paragraph contains the necessary detail for requirements. Somebody should expand on non-USA gun control policies, instead of removing information on USA laws. Wodan 01:44, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Another possible compromise I can suggest if you want to keep the details out of it and to keep it general, is to say something to the effect of "while automatic firearms are federally legal, they are banned in many states, and are out of reach of nearly all citizens due to their cost, ban on their production since 1986, and police approval requirements; making them technically legal to possess, but practically near impossible to legally purchase." This is indeed the reality in the US. However, such a statement is prone to sound more biased than simply listing the facts outright, which is why I did the latter. Wodan 02:39, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)