Well, you can use an oil filter as a suppressor. Are you banning those, too?
If someone is attempting to modify a weapon to suppress the sound it makes, I think that should be illegal. So i would support that.
Gangs poisoning children with drugs, doing drive-by shootings, and robbing stores/people does sound like actual policing tasks.
Those are absolutely police tasks. But those make up a relatively small percent of what police spend their time doing. Stats can be hard to come by because lots of police forces don't report on this. But
here is an article discussing how police in these specific locations that actually report on this, spend about 4% of their time dealing with violent crime. A large percent of what they spend their time doing could be better handled by other agencies.
Assuming the intent is to cause bodily harm, she would be better off than if none of them had guns. At least she would have a chance if she had a gun.
so you turn a situation where she may get hurt into a situation where she is very likely to be killed. I don't see that as an improvement.
Because guns are an "equilizer". No matter how small you are, you can adequately defend yourself against any attacker if you have a gun. That isn't the case with a golf club, bat,etc as those depend on your dexterity, size, and strength.
so you admit that guns are much more deadly than a knife?
Police do have to have a reason to stop you. If they don't, they can't legally arrest you. They should be punished for arresting people without reason.
agreed. But that is a core part of the problem. Police do this all the time. Many police see being black as a reasonable reason to stop, question or arrest people. They need a reason to do this, but since there is little to no enforcement of this, they can make up any flimsy pretext they want to question or arrest someone.
But first off, do you really think these teenagers know they didn't break any of the thousands of laws in their state when they are resisting arrest? Tell me, what good comes from telling people that they shouldn't have to submit if they think they didn't do anything wrong? That is when people get violent with cops and get shot or beaten.
I agree that resisting arrest rarely ends well for anyone and that they shouldn't do it. But the core problem is that they shouldn't be in a situation where they need to. The police harassing them, questioning them or arresting them when they have done nothing wrong is causing the problem.
He stopped the truck. If he tried to murder someone, he would have kept going and even swerved to try to hit people. He wouldn't have blared his horn to warn them to get out of the way. Stop being silly.
he drove directly into a crowd of people. That is reckless endangerment. That driver was arrested for this.
A cost of freedom worth the risks.
ok. so we should have the freedom to own nuclear weapons? I mean it will be the end of the human race, but hey, at least we will be free as we die.
Just make examples out of straw purchasers and gun runners. If those guns are used to kill somebody, give them both the death penalty.
Strict penalties on their own are completely worthless. They don't work. People don't think they will get caught, or they wouldn't have committed the crime in the 1st place. Just slapping harsher punishments on them will do nothing. You need to actually get the guns out of circulation.
As I pointed out in an above post, white people own way more guns and have a homicide rate of less than 1.5 per 100,000. Black people own less guns and have an 11.4 per 100,000 rate. Obviously, guns aren't the issue. They are a tool.
They aren't the only issue, but i have never argued that they are. The underlying causes of crime also need to be fought. But the guns themselves are a problem too. Nuclear weapons and grenade launchers are also "tools". But they also would cause way more problems than they solve if we were allowed to own them.
Fixing the issue of killing somebody because they wear a different colored bandana would be a good start.
agreed. And that is why we need progressive public policy to address those issues (although Republicans will fight tooth and nail to prevent that happening). But that sort of thing will never eliminate crime altogether. If we want to stop people being killed by guns, we need to do something about the guns.
