Casing-code issues snag handgun law

Kalifornia is on the brink of bankruptcy at least in part because of thinking like yours. As an engineer, I can tell you that it matters quite a bit whether an idea is PRACTICAL or not.

Practicality is central. I already rejected the micro-stamping idea as impractical and ineffective. I'm NOT attempting to defend microstamping. I'm attempting to suggest that there may be another way. I'm not an engineer - I'm not very technologically literate (I've not even been online for a full year yet) - but I do trust american ingenuity and free enterprise, when working together, to come up with brilliant solutions. Solutions I wouldn't even consider.

Part of being PRACTICAL is that an idea must be implementable at a cost which justifies its development and use. Since development time is finite, one must prioritize which potential ideas get worked on.

My instinct is to say that there is a solution that can satisfy all these needs. I've no doubt it might be expensive and clunky at first but Americans EXCEL at finding new ways to make things cheaper and more efficient.

I'm also not saying that this should be top priority - but priorities of the sort you mention are STATE priorities and in the states realm of responsibility. Any solutions of the sort I imagine wouldn't come from the state - they would come from free enterprise and the 10 million (or however many) people we have tinkering in garages and making new things. Certainly people caqn work on these things in their private time using their private resources without it being a diversion from the other problems you mention.

The point I am trying to make is that the burden is on YOU to justify any attention whatever to "micro-stamping" versus just keeping the government out of my gun safe and saving the money the government would otherwise spend.

I'm not advocating the micro-stamping idea. I'm not talking about government intrusion. I've been very explicit from the beginning that something different is required and that this shouldn't be a state venture.

Er... I don't believe the story of Cain and Abel was a crime of passion. It was premeditated.

Not a crime of passion in the legal sense which precludes premeditation - not trying to restrict myself to legal terminology here - but the murder in the story Cain and Abel was a crime of hatred, jealousy, and family complications. It was motivated by inflamed human passions and so ...

a bunch of brainless sheep who believe that they actually need the government to solve violence committed by men against their fellow man.

I'm not talking about something which prevents gun violence here. I'm talking about somehting which facilitates prosecutions after the crimes have already happened. A way to help increase the number of people that can actually be held accountable for seemingly random violence like drive-bys.

"... Neighborhoods that suffer things like drive by shootings are always going to suffer things like drive by shootings. It's the nature of the people who inhabit those types of places, and I'm aware that it extends some distance around their epicenters. It will decrease and stop when enough people who live there chase down the bastards who do things like that and kill them..."

"... Almost all instances of violence like these are associated. Somebody in the car with the shooter (or the shooter), knows or has some association with somebody in their range of fire."

You are correct but after a certainl level of population density it can start to feel random. When I stayed in NYC I couldn't even become familiar with all the people in my apartment building - much less the block I lived on. (And it wasn't for lack of trying.) NYC isn't so much one big city as it is a lot of little towns stacked on top of one another. The people in my town may be behaving and keeping out the bad types that lead to this sort of thing but the next town over might not. The next town over might only be 75 yards away. I'm sure the murder that happened in front of the building was tied by association to somebody there - or the next building - or the building across the street. But none of us knew what that connection was - it just felt random. I wasn't even consciously aware that shots had been fired before it was over - that feeds the idea that it is random. I knew it wasn't but I'm not sure other people paused and were thoughtful about it.

The sense of randomness is what makes people willing to try restricting gun rights. (I'm not advocating those restrictions - merely commenting on part of the source.) Yes, politicians are leading the way but they are only able to do so because they have large numbers of citizens willings to go along with it. Anything that successfully reduces that sense of randomness will reduce the willingness of people to sign away gun rights. I don't believe thaqt micro-stamping will do that successfully but something else might. I believe that makes it a worthwhile long-term goal. An idea to keep floating around in the back of our mind. Who knows what might come up.

You've hit on an excellent point about the perceived randomness. I saw this first hand with people around me when Malvo and Muhammad were terrorizing northern VA and D.C.

I "think" it's the perception that people have that they are powerless and vulnerable. At a certain depth of that perception, they're willing to do something. Unfortunately, a lot of them contract temporary insanity at this point and believe that some politician can alleviate the problem...at a cost of course.

Trust in lawmakers and politicians is at an all time low. Only the most rabid leftists still believe that our leadership can be trusted. Perhaps this will shape a better reaction when people are pressed to act. One can only hope. :-)

You've hit on an excellent point about the perceived randomness. I saw this first hand with people around me when Malvo and Muhammad were terrorizing northern VA and D.C.

I understand what the neighborhood I was in was like after one death. I can only imagine what it was like for you and yours.

I "think" it's the perception that people have that they are powerless and vulnerable. At a certain depth of that perception, they're willing to do something. Unfortunately, a lot of them contract temporary insanity at this point and believe that some politician can alleviate the problem...at a cost of course.
Trust in lawmakers and politicians is at an all time low. Only the most rabid leftists still believe that our leadership can be trusted. Perhaps this will shape a better reaction when people are pressed to act. One can only hope. :-)

One does hope. Or at least I do. Even though some people in this thread are doing their best to teach me the folly of hope and dreams. ;>

All joking aside - I think you are right about people behaving that way. And the situation only has to get so bad before they are willing to pay that cost.

I noticed you took a beating here. Sorry about that, but thanks for keeping the high ground. It's a touchy subject with many here, myself included.

I also have a hope for people that they wouldn't so willingly give power to politicians who repeatedly abuse it for personal gain, and use it as a base for acquiring more power.

People do change, but usually it takes some very life altering experience to do it... such as a mugging... and even then they don't think "correctly" for quite some time.

I'll have to say though that I'm seeing some encouragement. I've looked at several very sheepish people that I know and asked them WHO they trust more right now... people like me, or our current leadership?! Their answers are unanimous. I've told them NOT to screw it up or people like myself will ABANDON them out of self preservation. They're too easily motivated by fear and this is not a good thing. As soon as they no longer perceive the current leadership with such fear, I'll lose any sway that people such as myself have over them and they'll just relegate us back to the category of nutcase and ignore us....and this entire process will repeat itself.

I'm not advocating the micro-stamping idea. I'm not talking about government intrusion. I've been very explicit from the beginning that something different is required and that this shouldn't be a state venture.

There are shot detectors, for example in DC they can usually find the dead guy within 10 minutes. In our neighborhood we sometimes have human shot detectors since firing is not permitted. One time that I had the godson over with his friend who had a very loud magnum they came by. Not right away, well after we were done. Also they didn't say anything, just checking out the situation. You might say my neighbors are not government, but they were in this case.

The answers to tracing gunfire and gun safety in general exist, they don't need to be invented (and then mandated by government). They just need to be understood and used by free and responsible people, starting with teaching the kids gun safety, etc.

There are shot detectors, for example in DC they can usually find the dead guy within 10 minutes.

See - that's brilliant. I didn't know they existed. I'm willing to bet a lot of other people don't know that something like this exists either. It's something for me to look in to and bring up when people start talking gun control.

You might say my neighbors are not government, but they were in this case.

I'm fine with that in cases like gunshots. I know some people like their neighbors nosing in even less than the state but I'm fine with them checking to make sure I wasn't gunned down by an intruder.

I noticed you took a beating here. Sorry about that, but thanks for keeping the high ground. It's a touchy subject with many here, myself included.

*grin* It's ok. I expected it. And people should be a little nervous - there are people out there that want to see all guns banned. Or over-regulated. But a lot of those people can be talked out of those positions - they are positions of fear from terrorism and random violence.

I also have a hope for people that they wouldn't so willingly give power to politicians who repeatedly abuse it for personal gain, and use it as a base for acquiring more power. People do change, but usually it takes some very life altering experience to do it... such as a mugging... and even then they don't think "correctly" for quite some time.

You got that right!!

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