Vegas Massacre: 59 Good Reasons to Outlaw Automatic Weapons

So if automatic weapons were outlawed, you would have no problem with regular handguns and rifles? (Please answer the question, yes or no, before you editorialize)

Outlawing weapons because of a massacre?

That’s outrageous.

That’s like outlawing the use of kitchen knives because of stabbing attacks.
That’s like banning matches because of arsonists.
That’s like banning unfiltered internet because some people can’t control themselves.

#CRDSYAG

Obviously, there will always be “weapons” (Trucks, improvised explosives, etc.) available to a deranged murderer or terrorist that can kill multiple persons but automatic and semi/automatic weapons provide a more lethal and efficient path. Of course, the Trumpkopf in chief will pandor to his NRA constituents and accuse anyone calling for any limits on gun control as “politicizing” this tragedy. Note, that his statement carefully avoided calling this a “terror event” since that might offend some of his followers.

GH: If this was a lone person with no ideology or agenda..I also wouldn’t refer to it as terrorism.

If a few people in the targeted crowd had been armed with automatic rifles, the shooter might have been stopped much more quickly.

Yidd 23 – See bk613’s post!

The ban on automatic weapons is not curbing their use. One reason is because there is an easily obtainable “kit” that can turn many semi-automatics (which are legal) into automatics.
The question of “feeling safe” etc. can be taken to absurd lengths nowadays. What if someone claims not to “feel safe” unless he has a tank in his driveway, or a rocket launcher mounted on his front porch, or an attack helicopter parked on his roof? Granted these are most likely not considered “arms” (“right to bear arms”), But that is subject to interpretation. (OK, maybe not a tank or a chopper.) In any case, you can be sure plenty of the militia crazies have some of those weapons at their compounds “just in case.”
As long as the NRA and other gun-promoters keep on getting their way, this sort of thing is r”l likely to continue. If they’re even opposed tp more rigorous background checks to weed out people with mental problems, there’s not much chance of getting any significant changes in this situation. If the supposed right to bear arms — any kind that they want — outweighs society’s right be be free and secure from loonies with automatics, it’s hard to hope for change. Hashem yishmor.

Sam2: No, it’s a perfect example. Every round the shooter fired would have created a bright flash of light visible for a long distance. Apparently, he fired hundreds of rounds in a short period of time. A person in the crowd with a rifle, who is competant at using the weapon, should easily been able to fire back at the shooter. A few such people firing at him would have stopped him.

It’s funny how last week we were arguing about the first amendment and now we’re arguing about the second amendment and the people who were “defending “ the first are “attacking” the second and vice versa

DovidBT
I’m a gun owner who believes in control (just to establish my leanings)
Your statement is ludicrous
if 100 people in the audience had shot back, their chance of hitting him would be close to 0% and there would have been tremendous collateral damage. The hotel would have been pockmarked with bullets and numerous civilian casualties would have occurred. And he wouldn’t have cared nor stopped, he was planning on dying.

DovidBT. Have you seen the videos? No flash. And have you ever fired a rifle at a target 500 yards away? Have you ever fired an automatic weapon at night at a target 500 yards away without hitting anything around it that shouldn’t be hit? To say this is “easy” shows your only experience in the matter comes from video games. Shooting back towards the hotel would just create more collateral losses. I hope you’re just making a bad joke.

Since automatic weapons are already outlawed, perhaps a better alternative would be to require highrise buildings to have cheap sensors installed to detect broken windows, so that their security teams can more quickly locate a shooter or jumper. Also, maybe a better job can be done for organizing the evacuations of mass gatherings. This could be requested by municipalities when someone tries to pull a permit to hold a large gathering. The gun is simply the tool. The same or more carnage could have been accomplished much more simply with a pickup truck and a few bags of fertilizer turned into a big IED. The sad truth is that there was no good way to stop this attack. The perp had no criminal or psychiatric history. He wasn’t even on the radar screen. Those turning this into a gun issue are just standing on the graves of the victims to try and push their agenda down other Americans’ throats.

I’m sure if you’re bought up with the Second Amendment as part of you national culture this all makes a lot more sense. Because to a Brit, this is just confusing. A country without guns is far safer than a country with widespread gun ownership. I accept that the USA has almost certainly reached the point of no return with regard to firearms, as there are now more guns than people, and guns don’t have an expiry date. So any effort to impose retroactive gun control would be so difficult as to be impossible. Fair enough. And once you’ve reached the point where guns are freely available, there is an argument to be made for increasing legitimate gun ownership. If this is an issue of practicality, then there’s a lot of grey areas. As an American friend of mine pointed out, there is very little the US government can do to police the smuggling of weapons over the Mexican/USA border. None of us know how feasible gun control would hypothetically be, but we can agree that it would be very problematic.

But what confuses me is the ideological component. There are plenty of Americans, including yidden, who, if they were offered to press a button that would rid their countries of guns, would refuse to press it. Or to put it another way, even if it were possible to turn the USA’s situation into one similar to that of the UK, where guns are very rare and highly regulated, they wouldn’t want it. And I find it hard to fathom how somebody would reach that point of view.

I fully expect the regular deluge of strawmen, ‘Good people with guns’,’Impossible to enforce’, etc, etc. But I’m not talking about practicality. I’m talking about ideology. In the UK, guns are very difficult to get hold of. Very few police carry them, and very few criminals have them either. Even when criminals do manage to get hold of them, the difficulties in getting them into the country are so extensive, and the penalties so extreme, that they’re just too expensive and too risky for most criminals to bother with. Obviously, as an island, the UK has a geographical advantage in policing this. But the end result is, we haven’t had a mass shooting since the ban on hand guns, which was enacted in response to the Dunblaine massacre. If, purely hypothetically, it were possible to change the USA’s situation to one similar to the way it is in England, specifically with regard to guns, would you?

Awaiting your responses with genuine curiosity.

N Erro
No strawman
simply a question
You do realize its the second amendment of our constitution right?
Now if we are talking fantasy then sure, I agree, I would love to press a button and give up my guns to live in a utopian society. But there are no utopian societies and there is a constitutional right of gun ownership. So unless we change the founding constitution of our country, the question is fantasy. And as I said before, why stop at the second amendment when the first also causes tremendous harm?

Mencth1
” “lets ban automatic weapons” they mean “lets start with this and then we will ban this next and then this next” If liberals would come out and say “we recognize the civilians right of protection in the second amendment , we will stipulate that we need to guarantee those rights, lets compromise…”Then a lot more people would be willing to have this conversation with them . but we recognize the deceit implicit in their words.”

that is the silliest thing in the world. so you are arguing that there are p[eople who agree that peopel are needlesly dieing but it is worth it, to stick it to the liberals who arent being forthcoming about their agenda?
Perhaops you think this way, but it is haerd to imagine many that do.

”
why is the second amendment the only one we need to compromise on? why not the first also? Is all speech really good? shouldn’t we ban some speech also?”

We do ! Look up Schenck v. United States whcih was a unynous decision limiting free speech whn it would cause detah such as shouting Fire in a movie theater
Secondly. The second Amendment EXplicitly says “A well regulated Militia,” nobody intended a wild west free for all with mass shootings being a normal part of life.

Metsch

Just becasue it is in the constitution doesnt make it real

you do know the constitution counts Slaves as 3/5th of a person. that isnt real. Yes it was ammeded as it should be. So even if th constititon did grant gun wonership even in a non-regulated way (it doesnt) that still doesnt make it halacha leMoshe Misinai. If you think it is a good you think private unrestricted gun ownership is a good idea expalin why. but this idea that becasue it is in the cosntitution doesnt at all answer NE’s question

Ubiq and NE
Lets also point out the obvious hashkafah here
Since Liberal narrative on this subject somehow always revolves around the point that conservatives are evil.
After all, Ubiq wants to compare slavery (an obviously immoral law) to gun ownership
On a halachic level
My owning guns does not make me responsible for Paddocks rampage, It’s not even a grama of a grama
on a philosophical level, Ani Mamin bemuna shelema in the hashgocho of a RBSO
which means that all those people would have died at that exact same time, no matter the circumstances. The gun was the vehicle of their death, but if there was no gun then there would have been a car bomb etc. which brings us to the liberal point, If you are a liberal , and also a jew, how do you square this hashkofic viewpoint of yours. A gun is an obviously inert object, there is nothing inherently immoral about it, yet you somehow think that it, and not people or G-d, are responsible for death (I know NE, its a strawman)

mentsch1_your last comment defies logic. So, according to you, all six million kedoshim who were murdered in the Holocaust were just victims who would have died anyway. Happy to see how you rehabilitated Hitler yemach shemo vezichro.

“40,200 reasons to outlaw motor vehicles.”

If guns were nearly as regulated as cars I’d be fine with that.

License t o operate one
all of them are registered
All come equipped with various safety devices
Insurance required
Limits to where/ when can be used
cant be used while under influence of drugs/alchol
Doctors can have license revoked

etc etc

We dont even need all these regulations.

“If guns were nearly as regulated as cars I’d be fine with that.”

The gun used in vegas is already illegal to own. What regulation would you like added to”illegal to own”.

Since Mensch made an effort to reply, I’ll respond. But since my question has not actually been answered in anything approaching a satisfactory manner, I’m not going to get into yet another discussion where only one side is interested in dialogue and the other one is going to write the same mostly incomprehensible stuff no matter what the actual point of contention is. I’m sorry, I know that comes over as more than a bit passive-aggressive, and it’s not directed at anyone in particular, I’ve been burnt before.

So, in very simple terms, I’d like to know why people would think a country with widespread gun ownership is better off than one with very few guns and strict gun control. This isn’t a matter of practicality as, I initially acknowledged.

If that question is simple to understand, please, as a favour to me, please answer it as best as you can. If you want further clarification, here it is:

Is it purely an ideology, that dictates that everyone should be allowed to possess any item, no matter of its purpose? Fair enough, I’m a libertarian too. But if you take that argument to it’s logical conclusion, there should be no limits whatsoever. Drugs, Apache helicopters, tanks, nuclear waste, the whole bang lot. I accept this as a worldview, I just want it to be expressed clearly and lucidly.

In my initial post, I immediately mentioned the Second Amendment, to which the response was if I was aware of the Second Amendment. Which sort of reinforces my sneaking suspicion that I’m not actually being conversed with, merely preached at. Anyway, the mere fact that it’s in the Constitution, which I happened to have studied in depth, doesn’t make it an ideology. I mean, it itself was an Amendment, so it’s not as if it’s beyond being, y’know, amended.

I never really have any time for the view that this is some kind of barrier against government intrusion, as in the rather unlikely event that the US Army attempts to subjugate its citizens, even semi-automatic rifles aren’t going to be much use against B-52s. Which brings us back to the above libertarian question, as to whether citizens should be allowed a full, nuclear-armed private army. In which, case, umm, fair enough.

So, bearing in mind that this isn’t about practicalities, but purely about ideologies, why should a government allow people to freely own what are purely implements of death? Cars serve other useful function, to address the most common and ridiculous strawman head-on. Eagerly awaiting the responses.

Mentch:
Do you think we should do away with prisons, and let all the murderers and abusers roam the streets with impunity? After all, no one can do anything against the Will of Hashem; what have we to lose?

yekke and others
There are obviously inyanim of hishtadlus here
The obvious question on my philosophy that I was expecting someone to ask is why not leave my gun or knife out so my 3 year old can play with it. The answer is hishtadlus. There is also a concept that engaging in risky behavior nullifies protection from Hashem (second perek chagiga)
yekke, also you run into the obvious problem of 1 of those seven nohadite laws, so clearly Hashem wants hishtadlus
Ubiq
I own guns and use them strictly for fun (have you ever tried shooting, it’s better and cheaper then therapy). I happen to not keep them at home bc I feel that having a gun takes a person to a place of saying koach vetzem yudi, and therefore not relying on Hashem. However if my neighborhood was dangerous , then I believe it would become an issue of hishtadlus to own one.
NE
I actually apologize, bc I posted after only reading half your post, then regretted my answer. Don’t have time now, but one point. I read an article in the 90’s by a liberal democrat who was anti-gun. Then he lived through the rodney king riots and came to the conclusion that anti-gun is a nice philosophy until law and order breaks down, then we are on our own. Gun ownership is entrenched bc we started as an unregulated country (indians, outlaws etc) and every one was on their own. Sure I agree, Utopian society would be better(and I would give up my guns in a heartbeat for that society) but the other side would argue but what happens when the cops aren’t there for me . And this happens quite often. Stories (not in the main stream press) of using weapons to save yourself happen quite often. I know 2 people personally with such stories.
Which gets us back to main question
stripping away the emotion, this is a health policy decision (my field) and I will compare halachically and hashkaficaaly to the anti vax crowd if i have time

Ubiq
To clarify
all guns are technically registered, forms are filled out and filed with the authorities. Yes there are loopholes in certain states and reselling, and I agree we should require registration, and mental health checks etc.
But the NYS safe law registration was actually instituted to facilitate confiscation. By requiring a new database for cool military weapons and ALSO requiring re-registration every 5 years and no transfer even within a family you have confiscation. If a father registers it and dies, it can not be passed to a son. Govt checks death records and then comes and confiscates the weapon.
You can argue who needs these military style weapons on the street?!
I can argue, all semi auto weapons are just as lethal. Google NYS compliant ar 15 and you will see how the cosmetic issues of the law are easily circumvented.
Bottom line, an attempt to ban these military weapons is either (a) an attempt to ban all semi auto weapons (b) just uninformed, since the cosmetic issues are easily dealt with or both