Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

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NatazhaT

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

I agree they are not "commonly" used but heavy guns and explosives are used. For example it is common for howitzers to be used in avalanche control. Google avalanche control howitzer
 
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Upnorthgal40

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

(1) The test is common use, not merely "it can be used in this way." This is why it's legal to basically ban fully-automatic weapons. It's possible for individuals to use them for lawful purposes, but they're not in common use by individuals for lawful purposes.

(2) Common use by individuals. Growing up in Colorado, I've never heard of individuals using artillery to control avalanches; it was always organized Ski Patrols who did so.

(3) The type of artillery Ski Patrols commonly use in my experience (a specially-designed mortar with percussive rounds) is not at all the same thing as military mortars and certainly not howitzers. While they may have been used occasionally for that purpose, and you can bet your butt that anyone crazy enough to use a military howitzer to start an avalanche would be crazy enough to post it to YouTube, that's not what is commonly used to trigger controlled avalanches.
 
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tinlal

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

What do people think of the NY bill which is about to be passed - seems to have a lot of the sensible stuff people are in favour of, plus the assault weapons ban, which some people are not in favour of.

And can I just say, the Clinton/Cuomo primary is going to be crazy
 
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angelK

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

I wish gun control legislation would be presented piecemeal issue-by-issue instead of as a "all-or-nothing, take-it-or-leave-it" package. There's very little opposition in America to improving background checks or closing the gun show loophole, and not much opposition to banning magazines over 10-20 rounds. Regardless of whether the large-capacity-magazine ban would make a big difference (I don't think it would), most people say "it really wouldn't hurt." We could get that stuff passed TOMORROW if it wasn't bundled in an all-or-nothing package with nonsensical legislation criminalizing pistol grips on rifles.
 
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Tamiam

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

On top of which... NY has had some of the earliest and most stringent gun control laws of any state in the nation. Their first gun control laws date all the way back to the turn of the century and like anything with NY politics... are incredibly murky. (Sullivan act)

What works in NY I don't think will work in many states for a myriad of reasons. I also wonder how effective any of it will be given that a good many guns used in the commission of violent crimes aren't bought legally... so not sure how much these new laws will cut into that type of crime.

Of big interest though are the gun-show loophole closure and the apparent reporting by mental health workers and on down the road to the state. I wonder how that will pan out with the larger issue of mental health care and if it'd even put a dent in the problem of not being able to forcibly commit people who are a threat to themselves and others.
 
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Caffiend

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

and in other news.... one person in this story isn't so happy that people have the right to bear arms in self defense. Well... I guess if you're going to break into a house with a woman and her children home alone and then go through several locked interior doors and a crawl space to get at them... you're going to be upset when she unloads her gun into your face and neck. glad to hear she had a gun and she knew how to use it. Anything else would have been a tragedy.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/01/06/georgia-mom-home-alone-with-kids-shoots-ex-con-intruder/

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/georgia-mother-shoots-home-intruder-911-tapes-18168262

This is another of the stories that's made the national news as of late. I'm sure there are quite a few more that only make local news... and many that probably don't even make that.
 
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RamonU

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

another recent incident where a 15 year old boy who defended himself and a his 12 year old sister by using his fathers assault rifle.

Boy Uses Dad's AR-15 to Shoot Invader - YouTube

and the other one that popped up this year if I recall... I think I posted this a few months back here at MAP (the breezy style of the reporting in this one is just beyond cringe factor 10,000. Ugh.) :

Okla. Woman Shoots, Kills Intruder 911 Operators Say It's OK to Shoot - ABC News.mp4 - YouTube
 
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TALOS

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Note how these stories are always local news until they go viral on the internet...apparently it's not national news when a tragedy is averted because of personal firearms ownership.
 
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PlTrain

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Out of curiousity, I looked into something. The UK is very, very often cited as an example of how restrictive gun laws prevent gun crime. They passed restrictive gun laws in 1996 and they have only a few hundred firearms deaths each year, whereas the US has about 15,000 gun homicides per year (over 30,000 gun deaths per year, the majority of which are suicides), so people say restrictive gun laws create low gun homicide rates.

But if the UK's restrictive gun laws were responsible for their low gun deaths, you'd expect the UK to have a much higher rate of gun crime before the laws were passed, right? However, they didn't. In the two years before the restrictive gun laws were passed, the UK had 341 gun deaths and 358 gun deaths, respectively (including suicides and accidents as well as homicides). http://www.gun-control-network.org/GF07.htm Even the modest drop of ~100 deaths per year is likely due to a change in suicide methodology (the UK has about 4,000 suicides per year), not a significant change in homicide rates.

It doesn't appear that we can make ourselves like the UK crime-wise by emulating their gun laws, because we weren't like the UK before they implemented those laws. Whatever reason there is that murder is so much lower in the UK than the US, it isn't because of the UK's 1996 legislation.
 
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Kurt

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

We had very strict gun laws before 1996.

From what I've read, Russia might be a better country to look at, as supposedly murder rates overtook the US after a gun ban. I've not looked at the stats though.
 
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Leo2k5

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Aren't we (the UK) down to much less than 100 gun deaths a year? Like 50 or 60/year.

So we're down to 1/6 of the number of gun related deaths before the ban. Not taking into account the population increase (maybe 15% since 96).

And yeah, the US can't do it because there are so many guns and so many crazy people threatening to kill LEOs if they come for their weapons, but if you could reduce the number of gun crimes by just 5% by enacting sensible reform, that would be a huge number of lives saved.
 
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Nibby

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

You don't think there might be other, more pertinent factors in Russia affecting the murder rate?
 
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BerryBerry

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Russia has 70% more firearms homicides per capita than the United States does.

In Russia, private ownership of handguns (both pistols and revolvers) is out-and-out illegal. Private ownership of shotguns and rifles (including semi-automatic) are permitted, but you need a license and need to establish a lawful purpose, and must go through both criminal and mental health evaluations before getting the license. You must re-apply for the license every five years.

http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/russia
 
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hellohellot

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

The 350ish/year before the 1996 legislation and the 250ish per year after the legislation includes suicides and accidents, not just homicides. You're at about 60 homicides per year, not 60 deaths per year. To get a 85% drop, you're comparing ALL DEATHS before the legislation with ONLY HOMICIDES after the legislation--an incorrect comparison.

Comparing apples to apples, the UK has experienced a drop of about 30% from 1996. Coincidentally, if you look up US firearms death rates, we've also had a 30% drop since 1996, despite no change in our laws. The current decade is simply less violent than the 1990s were.
 
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KcMrow

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

So Mitlov...why do Americans shoot each other so much?
You don't think it's down to easy access to guns or at the very least don't think guns are the issue that needs tackling in order to stop it.
So what is it?
American's more violent than other people?
 
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itchianna

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Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

As I understand it access to a firearm has a massive impact on suicide and domestic violence (guns being used to terrorise).
As Mitlov will no doubt point out doing away with guns doesn't stop those happening but I think guns in the home really badly add to quickly "ramping up" the lethality of both things where some thinking time between the emotion and action would allow some cool down.
 
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curiousvbpb

New member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Other people? You make it sound like we're the worst in the world. We're worse than western Europe, which is the best in the world. We've got plenty of room for improvement but let's not make this a comparison with "other people" period like we're the worst in the world.

Comparing our crime rates with western Europe's, I'm guessing the principal issues are higher rates of poverty and substance abuse (particularly substance abuse involving crack and meth, two particularly nasty drugs). We also have significantly higher rates of child abuse and rape than western Europe, which suggests that our high murder rate is related to larger demographic issues, not gun laws specifically. If our homicide rate was because of gun laws or gun ownership, you would expect non-gun crimes like child abuse and rape to be comparable to the UK, but they're not.
 
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RebelMan

Member
Man arrested for 2x4 labeled "High Powered Rifle"

Yeah, I've known a few people who've survived ODs or slashing their wrists, and gone on to lead productive lives. I'm glad they didn't have a gun in the house during that period in their lives.
 
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