& now as even more military style weapons fly off

[G_j]

the shelves in America, I really don't feel good about living in a country with so many arrogant, dangerous people who own and worship military style weapons (killing machines). What is the future of a country awash with anger, ignorance and weapons? The guns scare me but the people who think they need them really scare me!

[RKP5637]

1. Especially with all of the hatred and rudeness in today's America. And all of the crazy talk all of

the time, and the religious right ... and +++. If not in America, it's a country I would avoid. What keeps America afloat today is the good start after WWII ... and a country armed to the teeth with military.

[G_j]

4. when we have religious leaders saying liberals

are no different than the Nazis, and countless others depicting you and I as the enemy.

[RKP5637]

5. That's why I've come to avoid religion like the plague. I see it as nothing

but a corrosive diabolical influence today. (... and IMO as in the past too.)

[G_j]

6. it is a shame

because many groups are involved with efforts to feed the hungry etc. These are the people we rarely hear about.

[RKP5637]

10. It could be used as a very positive force whether or not one believes in the whole

thing or not, the humanitarian side is a very positive force. I agree so much. MSM seems to concentrate only on the headliner negative aspects of religion ... and nuts like the Phelps Family in Kansas, etc.

For whatever reason, often religions seem to attract authoritative persecutory nuts that rise to high levels of power within religious groups ... and their message often seems to be about bashing someone or another.

[G_j]

12. agreed

and sometimes I feel like the negatives outweigh the positives.

[madokie]

18. Its also possible to push hate with one hand and use the other to help

Its called hypocrisy
I see it in my neighbor who uses religion as a tool. He finds a way to justify anything he wants to do too.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Most of them are harmless goofballs

and the primary pleasure of more than a few is freaking out people like you. And, once their Facebook postings are out there, all they're left with is a pile of credit card debt. It sucks to be them, really.

[G_j]

3. I don't know what kind of pleasure comes from

feeling that you are prepared to defend yourself militarily against the government, or that it's just a good idea to stock up on assault weapons before "Obama comes for them".

[hack89]

7. If the past 20 years are any indication

you will see a steady decline in gun violence beyond the historically low levels we enjoy right now.

[G_j]

8. what kind of guns?

I was talking about military style weapons.

[hack89]

9. Rifles are the least likely murder weapon there are

rifles and shotguns of all kinds account for about 3% of all murders -"military style weapons" would account for some fraction of that 3% . Knives, baseball bats, hand and feet all kill significantly more than "military style weapons".

Handguns are the big killers.

[G_j]

11. how about mass murder w/ military style weapons

is that down?

[hack89]

13. Holding steady - still very rare.

Myth: Mass shootings are on the rise.

Reality: Over the past three decades, there has been an average of 20 mass shootings a year in the United States, each with at least four victims killed by gunfire. Occasionally, and mostly by sheer coincidence, several episodes have been clustered closely in time. Over all, however, there has not been an upward trajectory. To the contrary, the real growth has been in the style and pervasiveness of news-media coverage, thanks in large part to technological advances in reporting.

http://boston.com/community/blogs/crime_punishment/2012/12/top_10_myths_about_mass_shooti.html?camp=obinsite

And yet those who study mass shootings say they are not becoming more common.

"There is no pattern, there is no increase," says criminologist James Allen Fox of Boston's Northeastern University, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, spurred by a rash of mass shootings in post offices.

The random mass shootings that get the most media attention are the rarest, Fox says. Most people who die of bullet wounds knew the identity of their killer.

Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century.

http://www.waff.com/story/20353221/no-rise-in-mass-killings-but-their-impact-is-huge

[G_j]

14. the NRA has made sure we cannot find out

what weapons are used in crimes. Of course you neglected to mention that.

[hack89]

15. The NRA has no influence on DOJ and FBI crime reports

but you knew that. Unless of course you actually have a link that says otherwise.

[G_j]

16. and the ATF?

Can't post links now, but my statement is based on an interview I heard with a former head of the ATF.

[hack89]

23. The FBI annual Uniform Crime Reports

are the official US government statistics on crime. They are the gold standard. Now if you want to believe that AG Holder is cooking the books on behalf of the NRA, that is a different discussion. One that would require some credible evidence.

[G_j]

17. I assumed with your knowledge of the subject

you would know exactly what I am talking about.

wow, you right on every other post... crickets now??

[hack89]

25. I don't assume you know anything about guns

you certainly haven't demonstrated any in depth knowledge. Feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

[G_j]

27. you are right I don't, which is probably why you think

you can pretend to not know that the NRA has lobbied hard and consistantly to keep information about gun crimes unavailable.

[hack89]

28. So feel free to actually prove it

show me how the NRA influences the DOJ and FBI annual Uniform Crime Reports. That is all I am asking - some actual evidence.

[G_j]

29. show me how NRA lobbying has not limited

access to information

[hack89]

30. You made the claim. You prove it.

that's the way things work in a rational reality based world.

I know you don't like guns - got that message loud and clear. But that doesn't mean you get a pass on having to present some real facts. Emotional hyperbole only takes you so far.

[G_j]

31. I never mentioned the FBI report you refer to

I did however say that I heard the former head of the ATF state that NRA lobbying had successfully limited access to Information, as the article I posted also shows.

[hack89]

32. But the FBI reports show which weapons are used in crimes

they are the official government statistics on crime in America.

So you cannot say that the NRA is influencing the US government's official crime statistics. Which means you can tell what weapons are being used for violent crime.

The stuff you posted does not mean you do not have access to accurate information. Now that I have shown you where that accurate information is, you can study it and make informed decisions.

Btw - please don't bring up the head of the ATF again until you can find a link that supports your recollection of what he said.

[G_j]

20. to start, the NRA lobbied to have gun-trace data exempted from the Freedom of Information Act.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022053947

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-20/why-does-the-nra-fear-the-truth-about-gun-violence-.html

A week after the gun massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the National Rifle Association is speaking out. As well it should. If only the NRA believed in the right to free speech as fervently as it believes in the right to bear arms.

Faced with government-funded research that contradicts NRA claims on gun safety, the gun lobby moved to defund the research and silence the researchers. When news reporters tried to learn which gun shops repeatedly supply violent criminals with firearms, the NRA lobbied to have gun-trace data exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. When advocates of transparency in campaign finance proposed the Disclose Act in Congress to require disclosure of top donors to political advertising campaigns, the NRA once again marched to the beat of its own 100-round drum: The organization obtained an exemption to keep its information secret.

The list goes on. The NRA-backed Tiahrt Amendment requires the Justice Department to destroy records after gun-purchase background checks, making it harder to identify and catch straw buyers who work for criminals. As part of its war on information, the gun lobby has blocked efforts to put sales records into an integrated database, making the data more difficult for law enforcement officers to retrieve and organize, and complicating efforts to analyze gun trafficking patterns. After visiting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ National Tracing Center in West Virginia, which is the nation’s sole facility tracing guns used in crimes, Washington Post reporter James Grimaldi described the place as “something like out of the movie ‘Brazil,’ where you could literally see boxes and boxes of documents that pile up.”

You might think, as we do, that the gun lobby’s aversion to information, and its success in securing congressional support for secrecy, poses a threat to public health and law enforcement (not to mention democracy). There is surely a case to be made to that effect. Yet it’s harder to document that argument thanks to the successful suppression of information.
<snip>

[hack89]

21. None of which has any bearing on the DOJ and FBI crime reports.

if the police reports identify the weapon used in a crime, the DOJ and FBI puts them in their annual crime reports.

In case you are clueless as to what I am talking about:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-offense-data

[Paladin]

19. Still With The Quotation Marks?

Resident pro-gun activists like you pissed and moaned constantly about the use of the term "assault rifle" (even though that was the term originally used by the gun industry to market such firearms). "Military style weapon" was the phrase adopted in response to the non-stop griping by people like you. If your continued use of quotation marks indicates your ongoing disagreement---and I believe it does---how about enlightening us on the NRA-vetted description of the sort of gun that was used to mow down all those school kids in Connecticut? All in the interest of advancing the dialog, of course.....

[hack89]

22. I was merely quoting the poster.

Semi-automatic rifles would be the proper technical term but I understand that term is too morally neutral for you.

[Kaleva]

24. I wonder what percentage are first time buyers and...

what percentage are those who are adding to their collection?

[MicaelS]

33. Some people buy these guns as a gesture of defiance

Toward people just like you who don't like these types guns, and who want them either severely restricted or banned. They are not going to be told what to do. The easiest way to drive demand for something is to say you want to enact Prohibition for that thing. That's it in a nutshell.