Austria is considered to have the most relaxed laws in the European Union.
From aged 18, Austrians can freely buy and own certain types of shotguns and semi-automatic rifles for sport and hunting. They only have to be registered with a licensed dealer within six weeks of purchase.
Non-repeating shotguns don't need a license.
Austria is one of the few EU countries where self-defense is a valid reason for gun ownership. Media reports say gun ownership in Austria has soared in the wake of the refugee crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of migrants from Syria and Iraq arrive in Europe.
Still, automatic weapons are banned, following the minimum standards which apply across the EU.
Seems that automatic weapons are all that's banned in the EU. For all intents and purposes, they're banned in the US as well; you can get a permit to own one but it must be made before 1986 and there aren't many of those left. You literally never hear of one being used in a crime.
Ugh, tell me about it... These people seem to think that guns won't still get into the country if they're suddenly illegal. My FIL is a customs agent, I hear periodically about the gun shipments they seize on a daily basis, along with an admission that they know they're not stopping even 10% of what's coming in. When the only way to obtain a gun is through illegal means, only people intent on using them for illegal purposes will obtain them -- and they will
I don't think that's what anybody wants, but these people seem to think that guns magically can't cross international borders. They must think our military lands in a country, goes into a gun shop, and buys its arsenal there, rather than bringing their own.
I wonder what people think will happen when criminals know you're not armed because your average law-abiding citizen isn't going to go buy a black-market gun.
Well now he's gonna listen to idiots on the internet because some idiot in the internet told him not to right after he learned not to. The logic is there, but I'm not sure I put it together correctly...;)
Wouldn't that be nice? But you're right, they've become a propaganda and, worse, marketing machine above all else. The more conflict they can drum up, the more they can make it look like we "need" them. When I joined, they were a respectable organization; today, I'm regretting my lifetime membership.
If they worked, why were they revoked? And how does that explain Oakland (which I mentioned in another thread in this discussion, in comparison with Chicago)?
The friends of politicians are other politicians; quite often, their families are comprised of other politicians, lawyers, and....you know what? Huh... I just don't think their friend and family are gonna shame them all that much.
I'd just like to point out that Slashdot would have Unicode support by now if written in PHP. Surely you're not suggesting the Perl is better. Oh and Java? That's not the way to go, either. You've already made it clear that you don't think Node is the way to go, given your disparaging remark about JavaScript. Lemme guess... C#?
European and Asian countries tend to have much tighter borders than we do, so this suddenly stops being a gun control conversation and starts being an immigration conversation. Are you sure you want to paint that particular target on your back?
The new gesture technology would take into account the proximity of a finger to the screen
You mean like the Air Gestures feature Samsung had at least as far back as 2013? They died with the S6 because nobody used them, I'm sure Apple's "innovative" solution will be different.
All the shame in the world won't take away their money; and what shame do you think they feel from being judged by us meaningless peons, anyway? Mind you, I'm not advocating for a violent uprising either; simply pointing out that if things are truly as bad as some people seem to think they are, that's the only solution. That's also the reason for the 2nd Amendment; remember, it was written right after we fought off our former overbearing and oppressive government.
That's what their members pay them for, if we're being honest. And, while we're being honest, can we define sensible gun control as laws that actually work and are enforceable and get rid of a lot of what we currently have because most of the current laws either don't work or aren't enforceable in the first place?
And not every NRA member is a gun nut. Some of us purchased lifetime memberships before they jumped the rails and are only members today for the fact that our memberships are lifetime.
Okay, so guns are made illegal in the US, then it's only the border states with gun problems. Only, the gun problems there are worse because criminals know their victims are unarmed and defenseless. Same amount of gun violence, just concentrated around the edges.
What you say is certainly true, but you need to follow it to its logical conclusion to see why it's not an argument for what you propose. Gun violence is more prevalent in Chicago than it is in the neighboring cities (where the guns are coming from) where people are allowed to be armed, because criminals know people in those cities might be armed and people in Chicago probably are not. Easier targets make for happier hunting.
My FIL is a customs agent, they find cars with trunks full of guns on a daily basis -- and they don't search everyone coming in, which means more are getting through than they're stopping. Getting rid of legal guns in the US won't stop that, because the illegal guns are coming from Mexico and (yes, really) Canada. Oh, and from overseas; they nab at least one shipping container a month full of them.
Don't bother, they never listen. You point out countries with high rates of gun ownership and low incidence of gun violence (or any violence, really) and they cry "exception that proves the rule." You point out countries with low gun ownership but higher-than-the-US rates of gun violence (or, again, violence in general) and they scream "third-world shithole!"
Any reasonable and logical person can look at deaths-per-gun-owned and see that they're not the same in every country; they're not even close enough to be statistical error. A third-world shithole has fewer guns but more factors making people want to kill each other, so more people kill each other there, and it matters not that the idiot who can't see this wants to call the place third-world or a shithole -- reality still applies in those places just the same as it does everywhere else.
As you point out, people who want to kill each other do and people who don't don't. And if we're being honest, guns are much more precise and targeted than the alternative methods of mass killing: cars, trucks, and bombs. If I had to choose which kind of attack I was going to be a victim of, I'd choose a mass shooting every time. Stay out of sight after you hear the first shot and you probably don't get shot yourself. A bomb doesn't need to see you and take aim to kill you, and any of the other options are so sudden and make no noise prior to the event, so you don't even know you should take cover until you're already dead. Plus, mass shootings have the benefit of the shooter typically ending up dead and unable to carry out another crime, while drivers can drive off and bombers can plant devices and be out of range when they go off, living to perform another act of mass killing. Guns are definitely the least scary of the options when you consider reality.
The term you are looking for is "straw purchase", it's a federal crime, and carries a penalty of up to $250,000 and 10 years in prison. Sentencing is usually on the higher side of that scale and the typical buyer only gets 10%; even on an expensive handgun, that's less than $200. It's not easy to find a buyer for a straw purchase; it's a whole lot easier to duck into a dark alley and buy one for $200 out of some dude's trunk, so that's what actually happens.
The majority of the guns used in crime there are from neighboring cities.
Chicago is a city, not a state, and we're talking about city ordinance, not state law. We see the same thing in Oakland, by the way, so Chicago isn't a one-off. Neighboring cities? Safe to walk around at night. Oakland, where criminals know people are less likely to be armed because the city has tougher gun laws? Really not safe to walk around during the day.
If it were a state law, you'd be correct, the guns would come in from neighboring states; however, if it were federal law, they'd come in from neighboring countries.
I know it's hard for people like you to remember that other countries exist, because then you have to admit that other countries with prevalent gun ownership don't have the same (not just gun violence) violence problem we have in the US, and that countries exist with much lower gun ownership but much worse violence problems than the US -- and both point hold true even if you restrict to gun violence. And when you admit either (or both) of those things, you point out that the guns aren't the problem, the violence is.
Are guns a contributing factor? Maybe, maybe not, and it's pointless to discuss because the cat is out of the bag already. People like you seem to think that getting guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens would somehow make things better, but you have more than a couple shining examples to look at of where that has been done and had very much the opposite effect and you simply choose to ignore them. Take away a criminal's deterrent and crime goes up, not down; and criminals don't care about getting caught with illegal guns, or they wouldn't have guns in the first place -- nobody (mass shooters intent on dying during the event excepted) uses a legally bought gun to commit a crime.
Slashdot Mirror
Austria is considered to have the most relaxed laws in the European Union.
From aged 18, Austrians can freely buy and own certain types of shotguns and semi-automatic rifles for sport and hunting. They only have to be registered with a licensed dealer within six weeks of purchase.
Non-repeating shotguns don't need a license.
Austria is one of the few EU countries where self-defense is a valid reason for gun ownership. Media reports say gun ownership in Austria has soared in the wake of the refugee crisis, which has seen hundreds of thousands of migrants from Syria and Iraq arrive in Europe.
Still, automatic weapons are banned, following the minimum standards which apply across the EU.
Seems that automatic weapons are all that's banned in the EU. For all intents and purposes, they're banned in the US as well; you can get a permit to own one but it must be made before 1986 and there aren't many of those left. You literally never hear of one being used in a crime.
Hah! I was hoping you'd see the humor in my post and it appears that you did.
ugh... flubbed the HTML... end of the first paragraph should read "and they will obtain them."
Ugh, tell me about it... These people seem to think that guns won't still get into the country if they're suddenly illegal. My FIL is a customs agent, I hear periodically about the gun shipments they seize on a daily basis, along with an admission that they know they're not stopping even 10% of what's coming in. When the only way to obtain a gun is through illegal means, only people intent on using them for illegal purposes will obtain them -- and they will
I don't think that's what anybody wants, but these people seem to think that guns magically can't cross international borders. They must think our military lands in a country, goes into a gun shop, and buys its arsenal there, rather than bringing their own.
I wonder what people think will happen when criminals know you're not armed because your average law-abiding citizen isn't going to go buy a black-market gun.
Well now he's gonna listen to idiots on the internet because some idiot in the internet told him not to right after he learned not to. The logic is there, but I'm not sure I put it together correctly... ;)
Wouldn't that be nice? But you're right, they've become a propaganda and, worse, marketing machine above all else. The more conflict they can drum up, the more they can make it look like we "need" them. When I joined, they were a respectable organization; today, I'm regretting my lifetime membership.
If they worked, why were they revoked? And how does that explain Oakland (which I mentioned in another thread in this discussion, in comparison with Chicago)?
Who do I join when GOA jumps the rails? And do I have to join two new organizations to offset two that've jumped the rails?
The friends of politicians are other politicians; quite often, their families are comprised of other politicians, lawyers, and... .you know what? Huh... I just don't think their friend and family are gonna shame them all that much.
I'd just like to point out that Slashdot would have Unicode support by now if written in PHP. Surely you're not suggesting the Perl is better. Oh and Java? That's not the way to go, either. You've already made it clear that you don't think Node is the way to go, given your disparaging remark about JavaScript. Lemme guess... C#?
Yes, because that makes perfect sense. Really? You're more afraid of a gun that gives you warning to take cover than you are of a bomb that doesn't?
It's got nothing to do with whether or not I like guns and everything to do with having giving it some actual critical thought.
You like flaunting your lack of logic and fuck critical thinking, it's less important than taking ineffective "feelgood" actions.
Very bigly of you.
European and Asian countries tend to have much tighter borders than we do, so this suddenly stops being a gun control conversation and starts being an immigration conversation. Are you sure you want to paint that particular target on your back?
PHP is largely a wrapper around C libraries. Are you saying C is a pile of poo?
Samsung users didn't see a huge advantage to it in the S4, either. The feature died with the S6.
And it certainly hasn't taken them 5 years to do so, either.
The new gesture technology would take into account the proximity of a finger to the screen
You mean like the Air Gestures feature Samsung had at least as far back as 2013? They died with the S6 because nobody used them, I'm sure Apple's "innovative" solution will be different.
Typos, gotta love 'em. It sure seems that you wish to see guns go away; if you do not, then I apologize for the accusation.
All the shame in the world won't take away their money; and what shame do you think they feel from being judged by us meaningless peons, anyway? Mind you, I'm not advocating for a violent uprising either; simply pointing out that if things are truly as bad as some people seem to think they are, that's the only solution. That's also the reason for the 2nd Amendment; remember, it was written right after we fought off our former overbearing and oppressive government.
That's what their members pay them for, if we're being honest. And, while we're being honest, can we define sensible gun control as laws that actually work and are enforceable and get rid of a lot of what we currently have because most of the current laws either don't work or aren't enforceable in the first place?
I'm at something of a loss as to what else we can be doing that we're not currently
If it's as bad as you seem to think it is, I'm afraid to inform you that the answer involves something you with to see banned.
And not every NRA member is a gun nut. Some of us purchased lifetime memberships before they jumped the rails and are only members today for the fact that our memberships are lifetime.
Okay, so guns are made illegal in the US, then it's only the border states with gun problems. Only, the gun problems there are worse because criminals know their victims are unarmed and defenseless. Same amount of gun violence, just concentrated around the edges.
What you say is certainly true, but you need to follow it to its logical conclusion to see why it's not an argument for what you propose. Gun violence is more prevalent in Chicago than it is in the neighboring cities (where the guns are coming from) where people are allowed to be armed, because criminals know people in those cities might be armed and people in Chicago probably are not. Easier targets make for happier hunting.
My FIL is a customs agent, they find cars with trunks full of guns on a daily basis -- and they don't search everyone coming in, which means more are getting through than they're stopping. Getting rid of legal guns in the US won't stop that, because the illegal guns are coming from Mexico and (yes, really) Canada. Oh, and from overseas; they nab at least one shipping container a month full of them.
Don't bother, they never listen. You point out countries with high rates of gun ownership and low incidence of gun violence (or any violence, really) and they cry "exception that proves the rule." You point out countries with low gun ownership but higher-than-the-US rates of gun violence (or, again, violence in general) and they scream "third-world shithole!"
Any reasonable and logical person can look at deaths-per-gun-owned and see that they're not the same in every country; they're not even close enough to be statistical error. A third-world shithole has fewer guns but more factors making people want to kill each other, so more people kill each other there, and it matters not that the idiot who can't see this wants to call the place third-world or a shithole -- reality still applies in those places just the same as it does everywhere else.
As you point out, people who want to kill each other do and people who don't don't. And if we're being honest, guns are much more precise and targeted than the alternative methods of mass killing: cars, trucks, and bombs. If I had to choose which kind of attack I was going to be a victim of, I'd choose a mass shooting every time. Stay out of sight after you hear the first shot and you probably don't get shot yourself. A bomb doesn't need to see you and take aim to kill you, and any of the other options are so sudden and make no noise prior to the event, so you don't even know you should take cover until you're already dead. Plus, mass shootings have the benefit of the shooter typically ending up dead and unable to carry out another crime, while drivers can drive off and bombers can plant devices and be out of range when they go off, living to perform another act of mass killing. Guns are definitely the least scary of the options when you consider reality.
The term you are looking for is "straw purchase", it's a federal crime, and carries a penalty of up to $250,000 and 10 years in prison. Sentencing is usually on the higher side of that scale and the typical buyer only gets 10%; even on an expensive handgun, that's less than $200. It's not easy to find a buyer for a straw purchase; it's a whole lot easier to duck into a dark alley and buy one for $200 out of some dude's trunk, so that's what actually happens.
The majority of the guns used in crime there are from neighboring cities.
Chicago is a city, not a state, and we're talking about city ordinance, not state law. We see the same thing in Oakland, by the way, so Chicago isn't a one-off. Neighboring cities? Safe to walk around at night. Oakland, where criminals know people are less likely to be armed because the city has tougher gun laws? Really not safe to walk around during the day.
If it were a state law, you'd be correct, the guns would come in from neighboring states; however, if it were federal law, they'd come in from neighboring countries.
I know it's hard for people like you to remember that other countries exist, because then you have to admit that other countries with prevalent gun ownership don't have the same (not just gun violence) violence problem we have in the US, and that countries exist with much lower gun ownership but much worse violence problems than the US -- and both point hold true even if you restrict to gun violence. And when you admit either (or both) of those things, you point out that the guns aren't the problem, the violence is.
Are guns a contributing factor? Maybe, maybe not, and it's pointless to discuss because the cat is out of the bag already. People like you seem to think that getting guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens would somehow make things better, but you have more than a couple shining examples to look at of where that has been done and had very much the opposite effect and you simply choose to ignore them. Take away a criminal's deterrent and crime goes up, not down; and criminals don't care about getting caught with illegal guns, or they wouldn't have guns in the first place -- nobody (mass shooters intent on dying during the event excepted) uses a legally bought gun to commit a crime.