Atticus (6,164 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212462808
I am sure I have overlooked something, but it seems to me that most of the right wing's gnashing
of teeth and rending of garments about getting rid of AR-15's is occasioned by the word "confiscation", i.e., "they're a gonna STEAL our guns!" So, let's forget about "confiscation".
Let's just enact a law that offers to BUY listed assault weapons(AR-15s, AK-47s, etc) for a stated price---say, $500--- up until a specific date at least 90 days in the future. The law would further provide that after that date, POSSESSION of one of the listed weapons would be a felony with penalties of 1 to 3 years in prison and a $25,000 fine for a first offense. Any further offenses would trigger more serious penalties, including forfeiture of all firearms and loss of the offender's right to possess a firearm for 10 years.
Gun owners could accept the cash or destroy the weapon or---risk prison.
No "confiscation". I understand that Australia has done this and has seen a drastic reduction in gun deaths as a result.
Um.. a felony conviction today and you lose the right to own any firearm... I lnow you have no clue about the law, so I'll let that one slide. The fact you have to lie to people to get your way?
yeah.... I'm gonna have to say "Come and Take Them"
But the Australian 1996 National Agreement on Firearms was not a benign set of commonsense gun-control rules: It was a gun-confiscation program rushed through the Australian parliament just twelve days after a 28-year-old man killed 35 people with a semi-automatic rifle in the Tasmanian city of Port Arthur. The Council of Foreign relations summarizes the Aussie measure nicely:
The National Agreement on Firearms all but prohibited automatic and semiautomatic assault rifles, stiffened licensing and ownership rules, and instituted a temporary gun buyback program that took some 650,000 assault weapons (about one-sixth of the national stock) out of public circulation. Among other things, the law also required licensees to demonstrate a “genuine need” for a particular type of gun and take a firearm safety course.
The council’s laudatory section on Australian gun-control policy concludes that “many [read: gun-control activists] suggest the policy response in the wake of Port Arthur could serve as a model for the United States.”
Two questions should be asked and answered: (1) Did the post–Port Arthur laws lead to a clear reduction of gun violence, and (2) What would an American version of the “Australian model” look like?
Gun-control activists claim that the Australian model directly resulted in a pronounced fall in the gun-suicide rate and the gun-homicide rate. But these claims are disputable.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/10/australia-gun-control-obama-america/I noted at the time that:
While the chart does show a steady decline in gun-related suicides, the reduction occurred at the same time as an overall reduction in the Australian suicide rate. What’s more, firearm-related suicides had been declining in Australia for nearly ten years before the 1996 restrictions on gun ownership.
Vox’s own chart does not appear to show a causal link between gun control and a reduction in suicide rates in Australia.
Moreover, a look at other developed countries with very strict gun-control laws (such as Japan and South Korea) shows that the lack of guns does not lead to a reduced suicide rate. Unfortunately, people who want to kill themselves often find a way to do so — guns or no guns.
Did the Australian model at least reduce gun-related homicides?
That is hotly disputed.
University of Melbourne researchers Wang-Sheng Lee and Sandy Suardi concluded their 2008 report on the matter with the statement, “There is little evidence to suggest that [the Australian mandatory gun-buyback program] had any significant effects on firearm homicides.”
“Although gun buybacks appear to be a logical and sensible policy that helps to placate the public’s fears,” the reported continued, “the evidence so far suggests that in the Australian context, the high expenditure incurred to fund the 1996 gun buyback has not translated into any tangible reductions in terms of firearm deaths.”
A 2007 report, “Gun Laws and Sudden Death: Did the Australian Firearms Legislation of 1996 Make a Difference?” by Jeanine Baker and Samara McPhedran similarly concluded that the buyback program did not have a significant long-term effect on the Australian homicide rate.
Would an American version of the “Australian model” perform any better?
#related#In all likelihood it would fare worse. The Federalist’s Varad Mehta set down the facts in June:
Gun confiscation is not happening in the United States any time soon. But let’s suppose it did. How would it work? Australia’s program netted, at the low end, 650,000 guns, and at the high end, a million. That was approximately a fifth to a third of Australian firearms. There are about as many guns in America as there are people: 310 million of both in 2009. A fifth to a third would be between 60 and 105 million guns. To achieve in America what was done in Australia, in other words, the government would have to confiscate as many as 105 million firearms.
And an American mandatory gun-confiscation program — in addition to being unconstitutional — would be extraordinarily coercive, and perhaps even violent.
Newest Reality (4,565 posts)
1. When one negotiates...
You don't start with what you actually want.
So, float the idea of confiscation as the first point of order, (like Beto did). Let the right get all worked up about that, (they already are anyway and have been for a long time). Then fall back.
Concede to the buy back idea. That would sound more like a win-win and a positive outcome. "Whew! They didn' coman takur guns!"
Otherwise, your outline is what I would think would be about right. Of course, the types of weapons have to be very clearly indicated and described.
Just lie to the people. It's what the left is good at.
Star Member KT2000 (17,357 posts)
5. We need "in your face education"
about why these weapons are not for the public. We need doctors to show on TV why these weapons and their injuries are different than the injuries inflicted by handguns. Doctors have been interviewed many times in print but the public needs to see the pictures and the damage done.
The exit wound is the size of an orange or softball. Organs are pulverized and nothing can be done.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/
"The injury along the path of the bullet from an AR-15 is vastly different from a low-velocity handgun injury. The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat traveling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed. The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the size of an orange."
You would think that reading this BS everyone shot with a scary M16 or AK47 would die the second they were shot... but... SURPRISE!!!! That's not the case at all.
good thing too or I'd have not made it out of my first tour in Afghanistan.
Star Member JohnnyRingo (13,698 posts)
8. Makes sense to you.
But you can't control the GOP / NRA messaging. It's coming and it'll be impactive. You may not understand why the phrase "gun grabbing Democrats" strikes fear into at least a small majority of voters, because you dismiss the fact that a large percentage of Democrats also own guns.
Oh boy, the government wants to give me $500 for my $800 AK. By the way, I sold that at a gun show two years ago. Honest.
Collecting guns in this country would require manpower that would make the Federal Highway Act look like a scout project. Twenty five million people in Australia.
OTOH, Jobs!
Star Member aikoaiko (29,682 posts)
10. That's confiscation with a prettier name.
Forcing people to give up their guns under penalty of law is no better than house to house searches
Yup.
