Well, being that the President finally broke his silence on the matter, I figured it now deserves its own thread.

President Obama calls for more thorough background checks when purchasing firearms in wake of Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre

Obama says an AK-47 belongs in the hands of soldiers, not criminals. Republican rival Mitt Romney says America doesn't need new gun laws

ByTracy Connor / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

It won't satisfy Mayor Bloomberg, but President Obama called for some gun-control tweaks Wednesday, including more thorough background checks.

While he called hunting and shooting part of the nation's “cherished national heritage,” Obama added that “a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals.”

"I believe the majority of gun owners would agree we should do everything possible to prevent criminals and fugitives from purchasing weapons, and we should check someone's criminal record before they can check out a gun seller," he said during a speech to a supportive audience National Urban League. "That a mentally unbalanced individual should not be able to get his hands on a gun so easily."

"These steps shouldn't be controversial," Obama added. "They should be common sense."

Obama's speech marked his first public comments calling for new gun restrictions since last week's massacre in Aurora, Colo. The deadly mass shooting during a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" prompted Bloomberg and others to demand Obama and GOP rival Mitt Romney take a tougher stand on gun control.

Romney, however, insisted on Wednesday that new laws wouldn't prevent future violence.

"Political implications, legal implications are something which will be sorted out down the road," Romney told NBC News during an interview from London, where he is beginning a three-nation international tour. "But I don't happen to believe that America needs new gun laws."

But later, he appeared to suggest that accused Aurora killer James Holmes bought his guns illegally, when in fact he bought them through legal channels.

"A lot of what this young man did was clearly against the law. But the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening," Romney said. "This person shouldn't have had any kind of weapons and bombs and other devices and it was illegal for him to have many of those things already. But he had them."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election...8#ixzz21kjjJURB

How about this? Anyone who visits a psychologist or psychiatrist has their visit(s) fed into a national database that will be maintained by the federal government. Any seller of firearms must then receive approval from the federal government to sell the firearm to the potential purchaser.

I suppose the obvious point is, we could make all the gun-control laws in the world, but that won't necessarily stop criminals from obtaining a AK-47 if they have the inclination and means to do so. They're criminals, after all, and so would likely look to circumvent the regular processes.

It would do no harm making it more difficult for them to obtain those weapons. I think it could make a difference.

I'd be fine with that.

What will they ban next?

I don't know if it would make a difference to crime rates in the US, but guns are completely unnecessary unless your in the army or your a farmer. In Australia and the UK I have got by just fine without having a gun. its absolutely insane to me that some place in America you can buy high powered assault rifles etc.

Which could keep some people from seeing a therapist.

i dont think its even an issue as to whether restricting guns would have a positive effect on crime. most people who are able to look at it objectively believe it would not. its more of a liberty issue with most americans. kinda like a "dont punish all of us for the misdeads of a few" kinda thing which translates to much more than just guns.

not everybody "needs" a gun. i live in a nice area, but i feel better knowing i have one. again, education is they key here people. nicky, i can see how you feel that way growing up in a culture without guns, but if you dont have expierience with them then its harder to explain how certain people feel about them. like ive said before this whole "assault weapons" thing drives me fucking crazy. an assault rifle is a selective fire weapon, meaning it has the ability to fire burst or full automatic fire in addition to single shot with the flip of a switch. these weapons are not readiliy available to the public.

notice all these politicians (mayor bloomburg) who just want all guns banned have thier own private security so realisticly they dont give a shit about what happens to you as they have thier own guns. the fact that this piece of shit pretty much told the police that they should all go on strike until everyone give up thier guns should tell you all you need to know about him. a good quote i heard is" i carry a gun because a cop is too heavy". everyone has a right to protect themselves and nobody can tell me any different. lots of people always use the quote "those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it" but when this comes up in regards to guns its ignored time and time again.

i know im gonna catch alot of crap for this but here goes anyways. pre ww2 in germany, what did hitler do? first, all guns had to be registered. soon after guess what happened? since the state had a list of everyone with guns it was much easier to take them and thats what was done. all guns were taken and look at the results. nobody could resist that nutjob as he consolidated his power. millions died, fact. funny how all those events took place in a time when the worlds economy was doing horrible, kinda similar to today, huh?

are we headed in the same direction? hopefully not but the point is these things are always done incrementally. you always have to be mindful of the future as you can never be sure how a law or restriction put into place today will be used by politicians down the road. there has to be a line in the sand and many see gun rights as that line. again, the overwhelming majority of gun owners are law abiding so the idea that nobody needs or can be trusted with a gun is just utter bullshit. the only arguement that anti-gun people ever have is you dont need them, they are dangerous, only the government should have them as we always act fairly and in the best interests of the people

another good quote is "you have to reason with somebody with a gun" that is very true as without protection you are basically at the mercy of whoever has them, whoever they may be.

heres a link to an article about some new proposed regulations on magazine capacity, similar to the old "assault weapons" ban. http://thehill.com/video/senate/240657-cybersecurity-bill-includes-gun-control-measure for people living in america, did we see all out bloodshed when the old assault weapons ban expired in 2004 like some of theses scumbag politicians would lead you to believe? nope, same as its always been.

one of the main points that i got from the acticle is its a prime example of how sleazy theses politicians can be. they added this new proposed legislation as an ammendment to the new cybersecurity bill? what the fuck do these two things have in common other than they both serve to further erode peoples rights. it doesnt matter what side of the fence you are on(pretty obvious about my side) the fact that these people wanna be sneaky like this and we should trust them with an issue like this boggles my mind. ok now my rant for the day is over and boy do i feel better!

i'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic!

The following is a quote from Five Felonies above:

"i know im gonna catch alot of crap for this but here goes anyways. pre ww2 in germany, what did hitler do? first, all guns had to be registered. soon after guess what happened? since the state had a list of everyone with guns it was much easier to take them and thats what was done."

Yes, you are gonna catch crap from me. My God, it is so easy these days to research statements before they are posted. Why not do so? Gun ownership in Germany during the tenure of the Third Reich (get this) was actually less restrictive than during that of its predecessor, the Weimer Republic. The Weimer Republic through the Reichstag enacted laws that severely restricted gun ownership to comply with the Versailles Treaty. Under the Third Reich, the Weapons Act of 1938 (Hitler became Chancellor in 1933) applied rather anemic handgun registration requirements which were intended to deprive Jews and other non-persons of weapons, but it still did not apply to long-guns. Hunters were exempt from the restictions and the gun ownership age was lowered.

To reiterate, eschew urban myths in favor or research before you post.

^^^ was my point perfect, no. should i maybe have specified that it was directed towards jews more than the average citizen, yes but the point is still more than valid as bottom line it took weapons outta the hands of alot of ordinary people regardless. when you say the guns laws were less restictive they were compared to the treaty of versailles when germany basically wasn't even in control of thier own country. bottom line was that the majority of guns were left in the hands of the state, not the population but thanks for the correction as everyone who's ever posted anything has had it 100% accurate. this article expalins it better than i could...

http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id14.html

I just got back from England where I had an exptremely difficult time explainging how someone could amass the arsenal that animal in Colorado put together.

Here's an idea....instead of wringing our hands about the issue lets give real gun control and real ammo control, and clip limitations a try. All the pro gun people say it will not work, however it does work in most places where they have these controls, and it could work here.

If it doesn't, it doesn't, but lets give it a shot.

Poor choice of words .

a couple of points
#1 its always much harder to repeal new laws than it is to create new ones.
#2 when the assault weapons ban was in place, which lots of people thought was reasonable, there were no significant changes for the better or worse when it came to gun crime.

heres a type of story that rarly gets a fair amount of coverage these days, a gun being used to save people instead of destroy them. there are plenty of these incidents but most people never hear about them.


http://www.abc4.com/content/about_4/bios...sRhrWCM9dQ.cspx

Here's the problem with this issue: There's no middle ground. NEITHER side wants to concede anything.

Again you're wrong. The 1938 Weapons Law specifically deprived only Jews and other undesirables from owning any type of weapon. The "ordinary" Germans were those not so classified. Germany's population when the WWII commenced was about 90 million; the Wermacht maxed out at 15-20 million who ever served in it.

Off topic: How many Jews lived in Germany at the beginning of the war?

who had the say as to who was an "undersireable" or "non-person"? seems to me that those are very loose terms that could be applied to "anyone". maybe even people who didnt share the same views as the party, at least thats how i interpreted it. perhaps im wrong on the specifics but the main point i was trying to get across is when the state has unrealistic,unrestricted power to decide who can own weapons, it spells trouble. no hard feelings though as i'm always open to learn more.

about 565,000. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005687

also the population of germany pre ww2 was closer to 70,000,000 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

Actually PB, there were not that many compared to Germany's population. Some estimates are just a few hundred thousand. The oft cited 6 million who were exterminated represents the number throughout Europe and territories that the German army occupied.

That's what I thought. It makes it seem that much worse that the Third Reich was obsessed with getting rid of less than 1 percent of the population. Like they posed some kind of threat .

It was all incipient in with Hitler (although he had competitors who thought the same) and sustained by him. What is so alarming though is that there were so many Germans who supported him.

How did we go from gun control to Hitler?

I don't have a problem with sensible gun controls that are enacted to help assure public safety--as long as law-abiding citizens aren't arbitrarily banned from owning firearms. I also think it's a matter for states and localities to decide, as long as they're consistent with two recent Supreme Court rulings establishing the Second Amendment as applying to indivudual gun ownership. In those decisions, the High Court did not invalidate gun controls; it ruled that Washington DC and Chicago were out of line for making it impossible for law-abiding citizens to own guns.

I had to go through three months of hoops to get a permit to buy a handgun in NJ, vs. a 10-minute background here in AZ. But I got what I wanted--because I'm a law-abiding citizen. If I had problems with NJ's strict controls, I could have started a group to lobby to legislature to change the rules. But didn't have problems--I got what I wanted.

Well, whenever gun control is discussed, some people drag out the errant information about guns and the Third Reich which is considered by those draggers to be the ultimate and unavoidable outcome of any effort by government to control the proliferation of firearms. Of course, as has been accurately explained above, Hitler only sought to selectively control firearms as a component of his Final Solution.

Unless your the ones being selectively controled?





100,000,000 gun owners did not kill anyone today


In a country with 320 million plus citizens, every once in awhile a "Wacko" appears out of that HUGE population.....and HURTS people.

THAT is unpreventable.......and the OTHER 320 million citizens should not have to be penalized from owning a Gun OR being able to protect themselves................

and I do Hold/have a CC permit for New York State just for the record!

so that makes it somehow more justified? he disarmed a particular group that he saw as a threat to prevent them from being able to defend themselves and then systematically rounded them up and murdered them! my point when bringing all this up was not to imply that if certain additional restrictions were imposed tomorrow we would all be doomed, but instead to show what is possible on the extreme end of the gun control issue. i don"t think something like this is likely to happen again but its just something to consider. i think its important to look at all possible scenarios no matter how extreme when a debate on restricting anything comes up.

I'm not sure if this belongs here or not.

Thank God for that gun carrying man.
Gun carrying man ends stabbing spree

In the thirties, most of the first victims who were killed or sent to prison or concentration camps were political enemies: many social democrats and almost all communists. In 1933 the Communist Party had about 300,000 members and 6 million voters. Some of them had guns. It wouldn't help, just as it hadn't helped the Jewish community.
In terms of politics: The Nazi party took over step by step all crucial posts - the criminal police, the army, the courts of law. And if there ever had been a chance for a mass riot (armed or unarmed) it would have been immediately after January 1933 or maybe March 1933. But the political parties (conservative, leftists, communists) wouldn't co-operate. And the ordinary German wanted to be left alone.