The Tulsa Forum by TulsaNow

I love Public Broadcasting.  If you don't, you are an idiot.  Not a fool, not a Republican, just an idiot.

Tonight I was, am, watching a show on 11.1.  "independent Lens: Trapped..."  Abortion

This is a struggle I think that is amoung the most fundimental of our culture.  What strikes me tonight includes: how can a Rightest person feel an unborn child is worth saving and yet denie the immergant that has suffered so much?

That is just one question.  To be human and live in a free society... These are personal decissions.

>don't get me started<

My problem with it is a little more basic.  How can Republicans be pro-life and also complain about government over-reach?  Do I believe or like abortion?  No.  However, that's not my decision to make.  It's between the woman and her physician and it's also the law of the land.

Also, it seems to be that they are all for the child while in the womb, but as soon as the baby takes a breath, they stop giving a hoot.

That's the part that is confusing at best.

"Giving (not) a hoot after the first breath...."  Never thought of that attitude in those words.

PBS showed the first hour of three they are showing on Greece as the beginning history in so many good ways.  Todays radio started with a story of how the shipping industry is suffering.  You can ship three containers across the Pacific for the price of one iPhone.  Shipping is what began the Greek rise.  Greece would not have risen or thrived today.

Side note:  if I married again, a Greek born, Jewish, Eastern genetics (Woman), graduating from A East Coast university, wearing a short skirt & a long jacket, now working in Tulsa, for Tulsa, well, i degress.

Good history is what should rule.  Profit by corporations over individuals is as bad.... No, see above: worse than than killing the unborn.  The living breath.  Who gives a smile?

I find there’s a distinct irony in a political ideology that is pro fetus but also pro death for criminals.  I’m with Hoss on the abortion issue, I am personally against it but I do believe this is a decision best left to a woman, her partner, her doctor, and her higher power if she believes in one. I feel fortunate I was never in a position to have to help make that decision with someone.

I’ve not always been anti death penalty, reading John Grisham’s non-fiction account of a couple of men who were railroaded by the Pontotoc County DA and Ada PD changed my mind on it for good.  Aside from us putting down the wrongly convicted, there is nothing even remotely fiscally conservative about the death penalty.  That’s a long rant I’ve placed in many other threads here and no need to repeat.

The war on marijuana is another conservative movement which is incredibly fiscally wrong-headed.  Instead of taxing something and making it a revenue generator, we’ve been spending billions of dollars every year incarcerating people on charges related to the use or trafficking of MJ. 

It would be interesting to see how much of our $1.3 billion budget gap this last year could be attributed to death row prisoners and people locked up in Oklahoma prisons for MJ-related sentences.

Now, as to your comment about immigrants:  Without totally opening the borders and creating absolute chaos, where do we draw the demarcation line on “suffering” immigrants?  The U.S. has a long history of accepting every other country’s refuse.  We also do not have unlimited resources to feed, clothe, and provide beds for every person who wants to emigrate here.

Other than the Native Americans amongst us, we are all either immigrants or descendants of them.  Orderly immigration has always been a part of what the United States is.  I simply do not have much pity for people who do not respect our immigration policy and laws who just want to exploit our social welfare system.

The abortion topic among Republicans springs from a mind numbing hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.  They are flat out lying when talk about liberty, govt intrusion, and personal responsibility.  Exactly the same with marijuana.  And the Democrats are just as bad on the whole personal liberty thing as they are trying to take away one of the very few sports that I enjoy - the shooting sports.   

I really believe in the concept of the death penalty, but am also totally against it as practiced in the US.  There are just way too many cases where an innocent person (of the capital crime) was wrongly executed even when it was absolutely known that the person was not guilty of the capital crime.


And when looking at history of Native Americans - well, they are immigrants, too.  Just at a much longer time frame than European invaders... er, uh....immigrants!  At that time, the only indigenous lifeforms were very large fauna that they proceeded to kill off.  Can't say I blame them - I would kill a saber tooth cat, too.

I don't see where anyone is trying to take away shooting sports.  You keep beating this same thing over and over.  To me, shooting sports is trap/skeet or even the pistol sports.  Last time I remembered, trap and skeet were shot with either single or two shot shotguns.  I know; my ex-wife was a regional skeet champ and the ex mother in law owned a range when they lived in Wyoming.  Both were exceptional shooters.

There has been an ongoing, concerted effort to outlaw firearms of all types in this country since the 60's.  All types.  The Brady Bunch Clown Show and others of the same ilk use Australia, UK, and Canada, as their 'guiding lights'.


Edit...
Quick question - did either your ex or ex mother feel that the sport was being threatened by people trying to take away the weapons?   Or limit the availability enough to render the sport extinct?

First - HELL YES. OETA is an amazing resource. Cutting funding is another example of poor leadership in OKC.

+1 on Conans take.  I will take exception to the term "refuse" when dealing with immigrants. I prefer other descriptors: tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Homeless. Tempest tossed. And yes, refuse, but only when coupled with "wretched refuse."

We are a national of immigrants. I don't want to encourage people to come simply to enjoy benefits. But I do want to give people who come  the best chance to succeed. That includes education for their kids, due process, etc.

NPR and PBS are not just amazing resources - they are the ONLY reasonable/rational thinking persons resource.

Cutting funding is another example of the massive Fail in Failin' and the Clown Circus.

Nope, never did.  However, they also never were interested in having firearms that were made for military use (AR style) regardless of whether or not they were semi-auto or fully auto.  My point is I think we should stop selling guns with the ability to do these mass murders.

And please, no straw man arguments.  I'm pretty sure you're going to side with gun manufacturers and the NRA on this one, as your previous posts have meted out.  I'm not here to convert you.  I will say, however, that until something is done, this will never end.  We will continue having this same argument once or twice a year.

EDIT:  And yes, I AM a firearm owner.  Two handguns and a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun.  I also have my carry license.

I will agree that conservatives (generally not always) would seem to have a hard time reconciling being pro life and pro death penalty at the same time. I imagine at some point the threat of death was thought to be a deterrent, but that obviously doesn't seem to be the case. If only people that were truly guilty (which is impossible to determine) were put to death I would have little qualms considering that it is a penalty for a crime that involved a person depriving another of their right to life.

That being said, if you look at the pro-life movement through a different lens it is far easier to justify their stance. They view the fetus as a completely separate human (which it is). Science even says so. It's residence is immaterial.

Perspective is everything. There are so many facets of life where two different opinions are both equally justified, neither right or wrong. Just different. How we reconcile & live with those differences is what historically has made America unique in the world.

It's not a straw man argument. Reality has bore out that most of these types of crimes that are committed with a firearm (no bombs and such) are done so with a handgun, 3/4 or so I believe. This is a class of weapon that is rarely mentioned in these reactionary conversations. But it is equally lethal I guarantee it. Only recently (in the last 12 months or so) have a larger proportion of these crimes been committed with semi-auto rifles.

I have no illusions of converting you either.  I don’t share my thoughts because I think it will change the minds of people who think differently.  I share my thoughts to show the people who already think like me that they are not alone.  I certainly wouldn't mind if you step away from the 'dark side' on this, though...lol !!



    A police officer sees a drunken man intently searching the ground near a lamppost and asks him the goal of his quest. The inebriate replies that he is looking for his car keys, and the officer helps for a few minutes without success then he asks whether the man is certain that he dropped the keys near the lamppost.

    “No,” is the reply, “I lost the keys somewhere across the street.” “Why look here?” asks the surprised and irritated officer. “The light is much better here,” the intoxicated man responds with aplomb.



That captures the whole and complete topic of our approach to "gun control" in this country.  Even though there are some huge problems - from mental health to radical whichever to the biggest one of all, the war on drugs - we refuse to seriously address them in their proper light, and insist on looking for the simple solution, "under the light" - gun control - because it is easier...the light is "better".  No straw man arguments - I don't need them at all when dealing with this topic - the reality is plenty good an argument.  Will try to keep this short though so we don't lose too many.

erfalf has it right....mostly handgun deaths.  And 60% or so are suicides.  And then when you look at the demographic of gun violence...well, we can't do that now, can we?  The vast majority is in large cities with large gang problems.  Take all of those activities out of it and then you get to the point where we tend to blend in much better with what the anti-gunners call "civilized" countries.  If we really wanted to look at ways to reduce gun violence, we would decriminalize drugs.  It is the single biggest cause of violence of all kinds in this country!   Worked perfectly with alcohol to reduce the violence associated with it's prohibition, giving us the blueprint needed to effectively address a huge part of the problem - the biggest part!!  But that doesn't fit the agenda, does it?

FBI defines a mass shooting as involving 4 or more victims murdered.  (Not sure what it would be if 20 were just wounded...?)  From 2009 to 2015 (missing this years Orlando) there were 199 killed, so about 250 through now.  This is horrendous - most especially when kids are involved....   This type of killing is a drop in the bucket - it just gets such huge publicity because of special agendas.  Who is concerned about all the Chicago victims - thousands more over the same timeframe?  And why don't we hear the same drumbeat about them?

IF ALL we had were these mass shootings with "assault weapons", we would have the lowest gun violence rate on the planet.  And it still would need attention, as far as I am concerned - even 1 violent gun death...or accidental or suicide or whatever...is too much!!   And guess who has the highest mass shooting death rate per million population from 2009 - 2015?  Norway at 1.88.  We are at 0.089 for the same time period.  Belgium was at 0.128...just for comparison.

Death rate per million people from mass shootings, 2009 thru 2015.

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2016-04-05-at-Tuesday-April-5-1.05-AM.png


Here are a bunch of charts showing a lot of stuff about guns, violence, murder rates, etc.  I bet most people's eyes glaze over before they get through them.

http://www.ijreview.com/2016/01/510415-10-charts-that-put-obamas-gun-violence-town-hall-in-perspective/



As for Chicago - the land of some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.  They say one has no right to self defense - you should depend on the police.  The police - only minutes away, when seconds count!

So, Chicago - with just about the toughest gun laws in the nation....Starting on 16 Jun;

1,689 shootings.

1,709 - by late afternoon, 16 Jun.
1,725 - as of 19 Jun.
1,803 - as of today, 22 Jun.

Totals and listings;

http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/shootings/



And this country has over 150 million law abiding gun owners - millions with AR's - with about 17 gazillion rounds of ammunition, who shot no one this year! It's not a gun problem, it's a people problem!    Small hyperbole alert on the ammo...

I really don’t see the issue with the high capacity weapons.  Where we see many of these shootings happen are places where it is expected the people inside will be un-armed like schools, public buildings, theaters, night clubs, etc.  Places where it is either illegal to carry on premises (I’m assuming it was illegal to carry in a bar in Florida like it is in Oklahoma) or are posted as no weapon areas.  We would have better luck creating deterrents in public places with an armed guard or loosening restrictions on where people can conceal carry.

If there is no armed resistance inside it matters very little what gun the killer is using.  With no armed resistance he/she is free to reload and shoot all they want unless the gun jams.  Granted, a single shot Derringer would be very impractical, but you could get away with using a wheel gun or single stack semi auto like a 1911.

The other issue is, gun restrictions have not proven to prevent mass killings.  Sawed-off shotguns are illegal, yet they were used at Columbine along with a TEK 9 and another long gun.  I’m not sure if the TEK 9 was even legal at the time under the Clinton gun ban.  The semi-auto rifle used in Sandy Hook was illegal to own or possess there. 

What I’m getting at is you can pass all the bans you want, that doesn’t clean out all the gun safes and closets where these weapons already exist.

This is true..however I despise the mentality of 'well, it won't work so let's not even try'.  Why?  The majority of Americans favor some sort of restrictions.  It's not a huge majority, but one nonetheless.  I just don't see the need for civilians to own weapons made for the military.  Almost all my military friends (retired and current) tell me the same thing.

That becomes a sticky wicket since the revolver was used by the military so were five shot bolt action carbines.

That said, an AR-15 or AK-47 isn’t really a practical home defense tool and could be downright dangerous firing through walls if you have a house full of kids or guests.  It would not affect my life one way or the other if they were no longer available to civilians or were limited to 10 round magazines.  A shotgun or pistol is far more practical for home defense.  Personally, I think a double stack semi-auto pistol is the ideal self defense weapon, that is something which could be legislated out of reach of people who would use it for sport shooting or self-defense if we applied it as no military type weapons in the hands of civilians.

The biggest problem you have with the term “gun control” is the image it invokes.  There are people who have a natural negative reaction to its connotation like hard-line 2nd Amendment types.  Others who have never owned a firearm have the mistaken impression that laws like that would suddenly render them free from gun crime and nothing could be further from the truth.

The issue I have with gun restrictions is this: they don’t affect the people we want them to affect.  They only end up affecting honest people who want to defend themselves.  

I just find it funny that most people don't realize that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and its Amendments were meant to be a 'living' and dynamic set of documents.  Why do you think we have the ability to add amendments and to repeal them?  I'm absolutely not saying repeal the 2A as some sort of apocalypse might come forth (that's sarcasm by the way), but we need to do something.  Imagine if that were your sons or daughters that happened to.  I'm sick of seeing it happen and then all the political theater that happens for about 2.65 weeks after and then nobody gives a smile anymore.

Something needs to be done.  Nothing isn't it.

Sorry to break your balls Conan, but you brought up all the most common arguments. So...


Lets start with the fact that weapons like the AR-15, and variants thereof, were developed with a single purpose in mind: the ability to shoot at people rapidly, accurately, with little recoil and minimal need to stop and reload. If you had to pick a weapon to hand to someone to shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible you would pick an AR or an AK. That's why all the militaries of the world and many most armed police forces use them.

These weapons were developed, and are the pinnacle of design for the purpose of having one person shoot others.


So the solution is to encourage drunk people to carry weapons? To encourage people to carry weapons at schools? To encourage people to bring firearms to stadiums, political rallies, and hospitals? Because the US military over a couple hundred years of experience has determined that the average solider cannot be trusted with a weapon on base, but we are going to trust Joe Citizen with a weapon in a stadium after a few beers?


In several of the mass shooting incidents there were armed guards present or quickly on the scene. They were not effective. (Ft. Hood, Gabby Giffords. At Columbine police where there in 2-3 minutes. Etc.). If I can fire 100 rounds in 1 minutes, certainly I can spare one to shoot the guard first. Also - you can't deter a suicide mission by threat of return violence.  So not only is requiring armed guards likely to be ineffective, but it is also economically disastrous. An extra employee for every business, whose job doesn't involve contributing economically to the business. Ouch.

Here's the cold hard facts: the United States of America has more firearms anywhere else. We have more people carrying firearms than anywhere else. The number of firearms being sold & carried has been increasing. Yet all of these facts are strongly correlated with mass shootings... if more firearms made us safer, wouldn't we be the safest country in the world?

Rather we are an outlier for gun violence. If guns made us safer...


First, I need to point out that the gun lobby is so afraid that data doesn't support their position that they have very effectively lobbied for a ban on anyone studying the topic. So while "there is no evidence..." may be a somewhat true statement, its also rigged. When you ban funding for anyone to look for evidence or a solution to a problem, it makes sense that you are not going to find evidence or a solution to a problem.

Second, at Columbine, 2 murders with careful planning and an arsenal of weapons killed 12 people before police got there 2 or 3 minutes later. Most of the damages was done with a TEC-9 with clips of various sizes, all about 25 rounds (including a 52 round clip). The murders used an 18 year old girlfriend to buy the weapons for them,  but it appears they would have all been legal gun-show purchases in Colorado anyway. While they had other weapons, the spray and pray shooting in the cafeteria with the Tech 9 high capacity magazine was the most deadly. Second to that was the Highpoint 9mm "carbine" with 10 round clips.  

Finally, we can keep saying "there is nothing we can do, there's too many guns!" Then we go back to encouraging everyone to buy more guns. We've done that for decades and decades. We've made carrying firearms easier. We've made assault weapons easier to get. And it certainly has not had the desired effect. Everywhere else that has enacted gun control has seen the desired result... but we pretend it just won't work.

I mean, other than the fact it HAS worked when we've done it in the USA. In the 1920s we had a problem with mass shootings in the USA. The mafia and bandits would buy a Thompson from Sears Roebuck and do as they please. The Federal Government saw fit to require citizens to take extra steps if they wanted a machine gun. Now, even though there were plenty  of them around at the time - eventually the number of shootings involving machine guns started to drop. Within a generation they became rare. Now, they are unheard of in the United States. (1934 put the first restrictions in place, a 1986 law stopped new sales to citizens).

Now you're thinking I've gone off the rocker and need to turn in my weapons.  But wait, there's more! I don't want to take your gun away any more than I want the government to take my firearms away. But lets start with two acknowledgments from both sides:

1. There IS a problem with firearm violence.
2. We DO have an individual right to have firearms.

Then I have one proposal:

3. Lets start with removing funding restrictions on trying to find solutions to the problem.

Then we can try to balance my right to own a firearm with my friend's right to not be shot at school/church/nightclub/work. We did a really good job with machine guns. We do a pretty good job with conceal carry holders right now (few murders are accomplished by license carry holders).

Will we solve the problem in a month, or even a presidential term? Nope. Will we stop all gun violence? Hell no. But within a generation I'm sure we can come up with solutions that allow law abiding, competent, and sane citizens to own assault rifles, but do a better job of preventing people with a desire to connect with terrorists, mental instability, or who want to murder people from owning a weapon that makes mass shootings into something just about any moron can do.

But in the current climate, we can't even have that conversation. This isn't a call for gun control. While I can respect the commitment of the Democrats sitting on the floor right now, legislating in a climate of "crisis" is almost always a bad idea. Both sides need to calm down, have a conversation without regard for the NRA or for the parents of victims, and realize that we can do better.

Resources would be better spent looking for something that would work.

Nice try.

Anything (and I do mean anything) that has been put out there has been flat out rejected.  There are things that have been proven to work using data.  Problem is that the NRA and their beholden legislators ignore it.

As it has been carefully pointed out, the total number of victims of high capacity “assault” weapons is relatively small.  The statistics do bear this out.

One reason security guards have failed is a lack of training or not being posted in a conspicuous enough place to be an obvious deterrent.  The era of mass shootings in schools, malls, clubs, etc. is a relatively new issue in our history.  If memory serves me correctly the first notable school yard shooting happened in California in the late 1980’s.  When was the last time a courthouse or airport- places where armed guards are very present were shot up other than someone trying to commit suicide by cop?  Why is that?  There is known resistance.

No one advocates for people drinking in a public place to carry a gun.  However, if news stories are to be believed, there’s a much heavier police patrol as well as armed guards around gay bars all over the country right now.  Why?  Because it is seen as a deterrent.  Obvious police or security presence sends shooters and general criminal activity elsewhere.

Let’s assume the killer in Orlando could not have gotten his hands on an AR-15, if he would have showed up with a bomb belt and blown up 49 other people and wounded 50 more, what conversation would we be having right now?  Banning certain types of weapons does not keep a sicko from carrying out their plan.  They can still use a car, a bus, a dirty bomb.  You can make bombs out of many perfectly legal components to purchase (Murrah Building anyone?).  The Murrah bombing killed 169 victims and maimed many more, yet there’s never been a crackdown on racing fuel, 55 gallon drums, Ryder trucks, or ammonium nitrate.

I’ll expand a bit on what I said about it wouldn’t really bother me if I could no longer own an AR, SKS, Mini 14, or AK.  Gun owners survived the automatic weapon crackdown, they would survive a crackdown or very limited ownership of the rifles mentioned above.  However...when gun violence does not die down, what happens when the government says: “No more repeatable shot firearms...period.”?  Who is to say they would not with all the handgun violence.

Our handgun violence issue is killing far more innocent and not-so-innocent Americans than semi-auto long guns by a huge margin.  The handgun is a citizen’s best possible method of self defense...period.  Odd dichotomy, what do we do there?  Worry about self defense or continue to allow the manufacture and sale of easily concealed deadly weapons which can still hold up to 14 rounds.

We are chasing rabbits getting worked up about “assault weapon” bans. Some politicians deem it expedient to either get on board as some sort of solution to a relatively small percentage of all gun deaths or to fiercely claim they are against such government overreach into the God given right to carry any weapon a man so chooses.  It’s total BS.  More people are dying from hand guns, that is an immutable fact which appears quite well researched.

Sorry,  drift here...  One of my favorite songs from back in the day...

 "I Don't Like Mondays" - Boomtown Rats,  1979

"According to Geldof, he wrote the song after reading a telex report at Georgia State University's campus radio station, WRAS, on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children in a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California, US on 29 January 1979, killing two adults and injuring eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime and her full explanation for her actions was "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day".[3] The song was first performed less than a month later."


Small quibble.  Don't know if they still do, but immediately after the bombing for while after they actually did checks on who was buying all Ammonia based fertilizers.  I remember farmers in our area griping that they had made it hard to get.

I agree.  The NRA & other lobbies have too much say, thanks to money & the fearmongering from the Right.  My newsfeed on Facebook is filled with Right attitude attacks on Obama, gun control, & other fears/blames/steriotypes.  My family!  Thank god I traveled & grew.

So, the Republicans shut-down CSPAN cameras & refuse to have a conversation.  No ban for gun ownership if you are on a terror watch list?  That is crazy.

Nothing is going to change or make much difference.  If I was a terrorist I could drive from across the West with a box of matches and do a heck of a lot of damage.  Bombs are so easy too.  i just hate that so many people are afraid and hateful.

You do realize the Dem's voted down a measure that would have done just that. Perspective is everything.

Again at what point are we willing to just forget the 5th Amendment exists? At least Cornyn's bill played lip service to it.

Again, I am not necessarily for doing nothing. However I am DEFINITELY not for trouncing all over the very bill of rights that in my opinion has been the platform to make this country the greatest the earth has ever seen. The Bill of Rights has been "used" to do some terrible things, but it has done far FAR more good and is worth preserving at least the last vestiges of it.

The current kerfluffle over “assault weapons” is political attention whoring at its very worst.  If you aren’t on board you are for the slaughter of our children and brothers and sisters or you just hate teh gheys. 

The NRA types hype it as being a broad over-reach and the gubmint is coming for all your guns.  For the more paranoid who believe in things like chem-trails, this is tyranny at it’s worst.

I’m not an NRA member and never will be.  I really don’t like the amount of hyperbole the NRA uses to whip the less educated amongst us into a frenzy that 2A is going to be overturned.   With all the hysteria they created about semi-auto rifles and the government supposedly buying up all the ammo, they drove up the prices on certain types of guns and virtually all ammo the first few years of Obama’s presidency.

I rather liked CF’s comment about legislating in a climate of crisis being a bad idea.  Spot on actually.

While I agree with that in principle, usually the only time legislation like this will work is when the incident is still fresh.  In our self-absorbed society, incidents like this happen, and then, as is typical, in 2.65 weeks the American public conveniently forgets it and moves on.

Other firearms kill far more people, but assault weapons are the firearm of choice for terrorists and mass shooters. Other than going to the range and throwing lead down range while yelling YEEEHAW, the only other use for such weapons is to kill people. So the focus is on those weapons.

Below is a list of weapons used in mass shootings, it cuts out in 2013, but the most reliable source I could find. We could update it by saying Sandy Hook elementary used an AR style rifle, Colorado movie theater used an AR style weapon, San Bernadino used AR style weapons, Orlando used an AR style weapon... so while the numbers are small. That's the nature of terror attack, they don't pose an existential threat, but the impact is huge.

https://www.cga.ct.gov/2013/rpt/2013-R-0057.htm  

More importantly, the Supreme Court has ruled individuals have a personal right to firearms. That is not an unlimited right, and the more utilitarian the weapon the stronger the right is. Shotguns and hunting rifles are sacrosanct. Pistols for home protection have been repeatedly upheld by the Courts. So while semi auto handguns certainly kill more people, that's a tougher problem to solve while protecting the rights of law abiding citizens.

And yes, if we try to solve the problem by looking at assault rifles, terrorists and murderers will use something else. But it will likely be something LESS EFFECTIVE. The reason they are using the assault rifles is because it is the most effective readily available tool for the job. When we banned automatic weapons, criminals went to assault weapons. So should we un-ban automatic weapons? Of course not.

I stand by the fact that we need to actually examine the problem and have a dialogue. Sitting on the floor chanting isn't helping. Then again, neither is refusing to discuss the issue.  Maybe we need grown-ups in Washington.

No one has an answer or no one wants to examine a little closer why mass killings happen in the first place other than a piecemeal group grope by the news talk shows when this happens.  JMO, it is lazy logic to try and legislate a cap on mass killings by taking away the most commonly chosen method in the US.  The root of the reason people want to do a mass killing don’t exist because of AR type rifles.  It’s due to mental illness or abject hatred of others based on a flawed religious or idealogical belief.

People stay elected in high paying positions in government by pandering to their constituents greatest fears.  Dims are pandering to their follower’s fear of guns.  Rethugs are pandering to their follower’s fear of having their guns taken away.  I really believe it is that simple.  Few of them really care about the problem, they just want to stay on the gravy train as long as possible by acting as if they really do care about the well-being of their constituents.

Here’s our options as I see it:

1) Do an outright ban and citizen hand-over or buy-back on AR style rifles and hope you get back maybe 1/2 of the guns.  Even after a few decades, that doesn’t take away the danger one falls into the wrong hands.  There have been careless gun owners who don’t lock their guns in safes since there have been guns.  It also doesn’t keep people from smuggling in AR or AK type weapons from other countries, now does it?

A truck load of fertilizer and racing fuel was pretty damn effective in Oklahoma City.  If the perpetrator of the Orlando killings had chosen to detonate multiple explosive devices, he may have ended up killing more people.  Poisoning water supplies, gas attacks, etc. can be quite effective at killing many people at once.  The AR isn’t the only efficient way to kill many people, CF.


2) Get over the fear of profiling and detaining or deporting likely terrorist suspects and do a better job of containing the most mentally ill amongst us who have yet to commit a crime.  What do we know about most of these shooters after the fact?  They were known to someone in their family or circle of friends as deeply disturbed and had exhibited troubling behavior but no one is allowed to do anything about it.  Naturally, we don’t do this because we are concerned about impinging upon an individual’s rights.

Regardless of how we go about it, there will be a perceived erosion of liberty and basic rights granted in the Constitution.  Our musket-carrying Founding Fathers could never have imagined a weapon which could fire 30 rounds in 15 to 20 seconds and they also probably could not have imagined a society which has fomented a complete lack of concern for the well-being of others in some of our citizens and immigrants.

That is the most difficult part:  How do you change the mindset of someone so full of hatred or who feels so disaffected by society that they want to go out and kill as many people as possible?  Whomever can come up with a solution for that wins the internet for a day.  Your turn  ;)

The terrorist watch list may include more than 1.5 million people by now. The no fly list  - a subset of the larger one - has about 50,000. Many of those on the lists have not committed a crime yet this proposed legislation treats them the same as criminals. The have no recourse, no due process, and no easy way to challenge their inclusion.

And if we want to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people, we will have to give government access to our medical records. The possibilities for abuse are frightening.

That’s where we have to balance whose rights are more sacrosanct- those of the potential criminal or those of the innocent bystander.  That’s a really, really tough issue no one wants to tackle.

Agreed, and this is what I have been saying from the start. Is the 5th Amendment not important? Minority Report?

That being said, a little fun with statistics with Canon's list. Only looking at the list here are a few observations.

Weapon Mix Used in Crimes, Num of Events, Num of Deaths, Average Deaths
Handgun, 28, 189, 6.75
Assault Rifle, 6, 52, 8.67
Handgun/Shotgun, 5, 34, 6.80
Uncertain, 5, 21, 4.20
Everything, 2, 20, 10.0
Handgun/Assault Rifle, 1, 12, 12.0
Handgun/Flamethrower, 1, 9, 9.0
Assault Rifle, Shotgun, 1, 7, 7.0

So instances where ONLY handguns were used accounted for 58% of the events & 55% of the total deaths. It would seem that Assault Rifles may be more "deadly" in the sense that more people appeared to die per event when an assault rifle is used.

Looked at in another way:

Event where ____ weapon was used:
Handgun, 37, 264, 7.14
Assault Rifle, 10, 91, 9.10
Shotgun, 8, 61, 7.63
Flamethrower, 1, 9, 9.00

Not sure if the average is really useful in this case since it is not determined which weapons were used for each murder when there are more than one weapon. However, it shows (as I have been saying) that handguns are used in an overwhelming portion of these crimes.

But as has been said, generally speaking it is not the type of weapon that is a problem as there is nothing specifically unique about these weapons, and curbing any more would basically just be banning them out right.

The discussion has to be focused on due process & immigration in my opinion. I know that makes me a racist (eye roll). But no one will convince me that the US as a country has any obligation what so ever to people of other countries. Agreed that the US has benefited greatly from immigration, but not the way it works today.

That's part of the big lie we are being fed - it WAS tried for 10 years.  No difference.  At all.  It's not a gun problem or a magazine problem.  It's a people problem.


How about the need for a car that will accelerate 0 - 60 in 3.2 seconds?  Or any of them with a top speed over 90 mph?  Or a car without the means for a police officer to turn the car off during a police chase?  Or any Japanese motorcycle?

Not the only use - the AR 10 family (7.62) are very good hunting guns for just about everything from small varmint to moderately large North American game - loaded properly, good for bear if that is what one shoots.  I don't, 'cause I don't shoot anything I don't intend to eat, or is trying to eat me or otherwise do me physical harm.

Except feral hogs...those I will shoot any time, any place, every chance I get.  And if intentionally out looking for them, the AR's with large capacity magazines ARE the best tool for the job.  Ya never wanna get around a group of wild hogs without the most firepower you can carry.  Granted, that is not the most mainstream type of hunting done today, but with the problem growing as fast as it is in this country, it will be much more mainstream soon.  I am also trying trap corrals to see if I can catch them in one place to make it easier to dispatch them.  And while I will butcher as many as will fit in my freezer - and may even buy another freezer if necessary - there may be extra that I can't use.  Anyone want an extra hog if I get them?

Good discussion people!


1) The reason the focus is on the AR style weapons is because it is the best weapon for mass killings. If most mass killings were being done with home-made chlorine gas, we would certainly put restrictions on precursors and materials needed to weaponize chlorine in to a deadly gas. Yet with assault weapons we just throw our hands up over and over.

2) An outright ban might not be the solution. There are middle grounds - like regulating assault weapons the same way we regulate class-3 weapons (minus the whole "no new ones in the market" which drives prices up crazy). We've done it before! How often do you hear of a machine gun attack in the United States? That didn't happen in 10 years, but over a length of time we have arrived at a place where Al Capones goons or Bonnie and Clyde are no longer shooting places up with machine guns. Yet, if I really wanted to get a machine gun I certainly could (again, I'm not advocating for AS stringent of a method on assault rifles).

It will take time. Which is why...

2) The previous assault weapons ban was an utter joke. It basically boiled down to this: 10 years they couldn't sell new high capacity magazines. Everything else was largely irrelevant (no bayonet lugs...). With millions and millions of high capacity magazines already on the market, 10 years did absolutely nothing and it wasn't expected to.

3) Conan mentioned terrorists using fertilizer. Others have mentioned using box cutters. But after a mass killing with a truck full of fertilizer we put restrictions in place to stop people who have no reason to buy lots of ammonium nitrate from doing so. When terrorists used box cutters to hijack plans we put measures in places to prevent people from bringing box cutters onto plans and getting them into the cockpit. So excellent examples!

4) And I have used my AK for culling wild hogs (an AR would generally be a horrible choice, the 5.56 load is just too light to penetrate, and shooting a bear with a .223 probably isn't legal in any state), but I can't say it is more effective than a larger caliber with a 5 round internal magazine. Same with a varmint gun, a Mini-14 Ranch with a 5 shot internal has done a great job killing rodents since it took over from the 30-30. No one should need 30 rounds to hunt, if you do... you probably shouldn't be hunting.

and 5) The choice is NOT between the rights of the potential criminal and the potential bystander/victim. From the government's perspective, they are both the same until and unless one does something wrong.  That's what makes it difficult. We don't want to "pre-punish" someone by taking away their rights because we think they *might* commit a crime. I'm not comfortable with the Democrats idea on the no-fly list... frankly, I don't really like the list itself. These are people we suspect might be bad, so we limit their freedom of travel without even confronting them about what we think they did wrong? And now we want to do the same thing with another Constitutional right (2nd Amendment)?

I'd like to see some sort of due process in there. Otherwise, the government is taking away your constitutional rights and leaving it up to you to figure out why, and prove you are innocent before getting your rights back. While I bet they are correct most of the time, it still makes me uncomfortable.

I'm gonna quit trying to cover more than one point at a time in a post - too much gets lost....


Ok, so when one steps back and looks at the entire topic of gun related deaths, ya just gotta wonder why all the hysteria and histrionics about assault rifles??  I personally believe it is an easy point for the anti-gun people to hit on repeatedly and make progress.  Pistols have been a "pressure point" too in the past, but they saw they got little or no traction with that one, so looked for an easier target - "assault weapons".

In my post - next to last on page one - I show some actual facts, and made comments specifically related to mass shootings with assault weapons.  IF one looks at all the causes of death in this country - mass shootings gets more play time on the various media outlets and has by far the least actual impact on the population even compared to things like bathtub drownings.  (2011 - 97 children 17 and under die by drowning in bathtubs.  One year.)  How much time has been spent discussing the prohibition of bathtubs?  It would have a bigger impact on people dying.  Repeating what I said before, as tragic as it is - ALL violent deaths for kids, adults, everyone are tragic - but also a drop in the bucket.  In the 2009 - 2015 time-frame, Norway is a statistically more dangerous place - 1.88 deaths per million population from mass shootings, than the US - 0.089 deaths per million population from mass shootings.  Still looking under the streetlight....

From before;
FBI defines a mass shooting as involving 4 or more victims murdered.  (Not sure what it would be if 20 were just wounded...?)  From 2009 to 2015 (missing this years Orlando) there were 199 killed, so about 250 through now.  This is horrendous - most especially when kids are involved....   This type of killing is a drop in the bucket - it just gets such huge publicity because of special agendas.  Who is concerned about all the Chicago victims - thousands more over the same timeframe?  And why don't we hear the same drumbeat about them?

IF ALL we had were these mass shootings with "assault weapons", we would have the lowest gun violence rate on the planet.  And it still would need attention, as far as I am concerned - even 1 violent gun death...or accidental or suicide or whatever...is too much!!   And guess who has the highest mass shooting death rate per million population from 2009 - 2015?  Norway at 1.88.  We are at 0.089 for the same time period.  Belgium was at 0.128...just for comparison.

Death rate per million people from mass shootings, 2009 thru 2015.

http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2016-04-05-at-Tuesday-April-5-1.05-AM.png



Summary;

IF we were truly concerned about reducing pain, suffering, death , mental anguish, of victims - assault weapons would be WAY down on the list of things needing attention!  Below bathtubs!   But we obviously aren't concerned about those things - there are 'bigger fish to fry'....

I will try to answer your question again:

The reasons the focus is on assault rifles is because 1) they are designed to kill people, 2) they are the best weapon choice for mass shootings, 3) they aren't the best weapon for much else, 4) they aren't very good for home defense, 5) the Supreme Court has made it difficult to restrict handguns and 6) assault weapons are the most commonly used weapon in mass shootings.

Bathtubs are irrelevant, bathtubs are not used by one person to murder another person. They are not an instrument of terror. Total red herring.

Also, as I said previously, while assault weapons are not responsible for most killings. They are responsible for most mass killings. They are used as terrorist weapons. The true effect is not the deaths they inflict, its the terror. As horrible as it sounds, the 49 victims in Orlando wasn't the point of that shooting. It was to terrorize that community and the country. That's how terror works... 911 wasn't devastating to the USA because of the 6K people who were murdered. Israel isn't crippled by a few dozen murdered citizens each year (fewer Israelis were killed by terrorist attacks in the last 2 years than people killed in the Orlando shooting). The number of people killed by assault rifles in the Paris attack was irrelevant to the life of the City of Paris.

But mass shootings have an impact far greater than their casualty toll.

Regulating assault weapons will have a minimal impact on the overall murder rate. But it will reduce casualties from mass shootings, and thereby reduce the effect of the terrorism. If that can be done at the cost of a little red tape to own an assault rifle as a "toy" (which I do), then so be it.

Wasn't really so much a question as commentary on our priorities as a society....we are more worried about a couple hundred deaths because of a psychological reaction (terror) - the "possibility" that one particular bad thing might happen - than we are of orders of magnitude worse things that do happen.  That is the goal of terrorism in general, and we are falling, and have fallen, into 'sheep' mode of a reactionary response time after time.

We are easily lead by people, from many directions/sides, with power and money who feed us a spoon-fed diet of 'stuff' that isn't always the best thing, or the thing where we should really focus our attention.




Side trip on your Israel note - if you look at the record of how many Jews have been killed since 1947, there have been somewhere near 8 - 10 times that of Palestinians killed by Israel.  So the idea that Israeli's live in terror is kinda about 1/8 as much as the Palestinians live in terror.  I bet both feel that way.   I don't really have a bias one way or the other in that discussion - the Jews were the terrorists in the area for 50+ years before they became a country, and the Palestinians have been the terrorists since then.  It is just the way it has always been there and will probably remain.  Not my monkeys, not my circus....

Actually, there is no empirical evidence this will be the case if high cap semi-auto weapons are better regulated but it is the meme that politicians keep repeating.  As if the existing guns out there aren't already in the hands of the criminally insane or in the possession of careless owners who leave them under their bed to be stolen and end up in the wrong hands.

Since we value personal privacy so highly, it is nearly impossible to get a hit on mental illness on a background check if the person has not previously been on the radar screen of law enforcement.  You also cannot prevent straw purchases from taking place, you can make the penalty very high, but there are still people willing to take that risk.  So even if you can’t buy them at gun shows or you must pass a stricter background check or pay $200 for the license to own one, there are still huge cracks for bad ownership of these to slip through.

I don't have a hard opinion on the restriction, or not, of the rifles, I do have one regarding why we as a society have a bigger issue with these mass shootings  than we do with the day to day handgun violence (or any day to day violence, really.)  Simply put, we don't like it when bad things happen to people (particularly a group of people) that took no action or had no associations that resulted in the violence.

It's the same reason we pay much more attention to a plane crash than we do to auto accidents.   Many, many, more people day in auto accidents than plane crashes, but we accept that risk every time we choose to drive.  Either we might do some thing stupid and die, or somebody else does something stupid and we die.  Either way, we accepted, at least implicitly, the risk and took an action that put us in harms way.  with a plan crash, the passengers are passive (other than deciding to fly) in the situation.  They have no control, and it is a mass-death.  We, as a society, just don't like that.  We like to find blame, even if it is misplaced.

Same for guns.  In the vast majority of handgun deaths, the victim "did something" that either actively or passively put them in harms way.  The were involved in the drug trade, they were in a bad relationship, they started, a fight, etc...   Combine that with most of those deaths being single deaths at a time, and it's easy to shrug it off and accept (rightly or wrongly) that if we are going to allow guns, we have to accept that some level of violence, and besides, all those victims messed up in some way and that's what got them killed. Emotionally, we want to find a way to say that "they" are different than us.  It won't happen to us.

Mass shootings are different.   None of the school kids, none of the partiers in the nightclub, etc,  did anything that we can rationalize against.   Some random nut, with a weapon that was designed to shoot large numbers of bullets and then quickly reload and do it some more, just decided that those people were their target of choice.  They didn't deserve it.  We don't deserve it.  But it could have been us, and that scares us, because we can't rationalize it.  It could have been us, and we want that stopped, and we don't care about due process, etc.   

Well put.

It sounds bad to say, but the reality is there is a certain comfort when it’s apparent the victim knew their shooter.  When it is a random shooting, everyone double checks their doors and subconsciously or consciously feels a little uneasy until the killer is caught.

Should we stops selling...Airplanes...Ryder Trucks..Fertilizer....Pressure Cookers...Pipe and Pipe Caps...???

And...there it is.  The false equivalency.

There was, at one point, a restriction or at least you got looked at a little more closely after OKC if you bought fertilizer in quantity.  Thanks for playing though.

I lean with rebound.

Stuff happens in other countries & we don't really react to it, from starvation, lack of clean water, massive killings, & human rights.  We wake up and watch the news and the a tragic event strikes at home.

To be truthful, I watched one ISIS beheading to see what happened; yet I can't watch a commercial showing harmed and neglected cats & dogs.  I can relate to the animals for what ever reason.

So maybe as a species we need a way to connect better! ELSE: nothing will change... despite legislation.  Give every child a pet and then at the age of seven have them kill it.  Killing is bad & should be teached, but ain't.

And... Lord, help us with these violent video games & glorification of monchoism that is so prevalent.

I have no kids cause I feared all this; thats why I still root for massive metiorite, volcanoes, earthquakes & zombies... something to level the field & unite us.  I'm not holding my breath fo a Savior.

BINGO!

How all these people can equate assault rifles with these much more deadly items is beyond me too. ;-)

Rifles (all rifles) account for several hundred deaths a year. Heck, 100 kids a year die from accidental bathtub drownings. I keep hearing that assault rifles are made for one thing, but the evidence doesn't seem to be bearing it out. More people die by the bare hands or blunt object of another person every year than by long guns. The false equivilence occurs when most people see Marteen shooting up a club and assume that the weapon is somehow more dangerous than others. That's the problem.

Of course there is no empirical evidence, the NRA and the GOP have worked really hard to make sure we can't study the issue. I covered this clearly above. Saying "there is no evidence" when the gun lobby works as hard as possible from stopping anyone from looking for evidence is a farce.  "We can't do it anyway, it's just a meme." But all evidence is to the contrary.

It worked with machine guns. It worked with ammonium nitrate. It worked in every other country that has tried it. All of those institutions still have "huge cracks" but it has cut way, way back on crimes committed with the regulated items.

Right now there are 250,000 automatic weapons in private hands all over in the USA. How often are they stolen and used in crimes (the answer: in the last 80 years there have been 2 murders with machine guns)? How often are they bought by straw men and used in crimes? How often does a farmer buy 1500 pounds of ammonium nitrate and give it to a right wing nationalist?

There certainly will be cracks. In the short term it will do almost nothing. In the long term, nothing indicates it wouldn't work. Other than the fact we won't bother trying.

So sure, other than the fact it usually works when we try, there is no evidence saying it will work.

Exactly!  That's why I posted this earlier....it's "the light is better" syndrome.  Seems like it bears repeating....




    A police officer sees a drunken man intently searching the ground near a lamppost and asks him the goal of his quest. The inebriate replies that he is looking for his car keys, and the officer helps for a few minutes without success then he asks whether the man is certain that he dropped the keys near the lamppost.

    “No,” is the reply, “I lost the keys somewhere across the street.” “Why look here?” asks the surprised and irritated officer. “The light is much better here,” the intoxicated man responds with aplomb.

Lot's of talk about the 30's and machine guns and how 'outlawing' them made such a huge difference in quality of life.  What the outlawing of machine guns and cut off shotguns did was to make law abiding owners of those guns criminals, and had zero effect on criminals who used the weapons in crime.  What finally put a dead stop to the carnage was the end of prohibition in 1933. 

The scale of these events was very different but they also dealt with terror as the main goal - get people scared so they will respond to the message of those with great power and wealth.  For example, the St Valentine's Massacre - held up as the 'poster child' of hand wringing to get rid of machine guns - killed 7 people.  6 of them were known criminals killed by other known criminals.  One was a mechanic who happened to have a really bad day by choosing to be in the wrong place at the right time.

The massive crime wave of the time has an exact parallel to today - the prohibition of alcohol - where today's is the war on drugs.  There is an absolute cause and effect relationship that we have known about and understood since the 1920's.  And yet, some with great power and wealth continue to make this a political football

Again....IF we are concerned about death and destruction, we should quit "looking" for solutions where "the light is better".  Let's do something real, meaningful, and effective.




Little background information;

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/a-centennial-history/fbi_and_the_american_gangster_1924-1938

I call shenanigans.

Your argument is: the reason we no longer see machine guns used to commit crimes is because we made alcohol legal.

While cute, that argument utterly fails. People still use firearms to commit crimes (actually, at higher rates) but they don't use automatic weapons. Terrorists. Drug dealers. Gangs.  But since alcohol is legal, they choose not use machine guns... that's a non sequitur. Totally illogical conclusion.

Shenanigans.

(I agree with your minor premise, that prohibition was a disaster and we can learn from it)

A peasant revolt and the end of the world would seem to need assault weapons for killing bad guys.  The underlying psychology of so many (see GB votes to leave EU) is that we are afraid and want to protect our own.  Guns protecting us is why assault weapons sell, not hog hunting.

If you can't change the mindset legislating guns are for naught.

What I was getting at was that the machine guns were the weapon of choice of the prohibition criminals and instilled terror vastly disproportionate to the real threat.   In much the same way as mass shootings are instilling a terror vastly disproportionate to the real threat.


Today, the very real threat to a much larger number is the violence directly resulting from our prohibition approach to drugs.   And the one we should be focused on to try to stop mass murder of many thousands a year.  Let's get over "the light is better syndrome".


Our approach is to focus on the "mote" in one's eye, while ignoring the "beam" in another's.

Regulation of semi-auto long guns might sound like a good idea but it is a false sense of security.  If one tool is eliminated, terrorists will find another way to do it.  Out of the 25 worst acts of terrorism in human history, 80 percent involved or exclusively used explosives, at least according to this list:

http://list25.com/25-worst-acts-terrorism-committed/1/

Another was carried out with daggers, yet another reign of terror was committed with the guillotine.

It’s on the internet, so it has to be true.

The guns are merely the tool of a sick or angry mind.  If someone wanted to kill 30 school kids they can bomb a school bus or drive a semi-truck into the playground of a school.  There is no shortage of places in large US cities where a car bomb could take out 50 to 100 people during peak rush hour in the city center or detonate one as thousands of people are leaving a major sporting event or concert.  

Look how easy it was for the bombers to set off a bomb at the Boston Marathon.  We can assume what has kept that from happening again or at another large marathon is a heightened awareness of security and a stepped-up security presence, not a ban on pressure cookers or back packs.  Again, terrorists are usually not looking for resistance.  They look for a target-rich environment with minimal to no security where people would least expect an attack to occur.  Who would have ever thought a gay nightclub would be the stage for a savage attack like that?

Perhaps an investment in more police or military presence in major cities is what we need to prevent terrorist attacks, which are still quite rare in the United States.  Perhaps school districts take the threat serious enough, they have more armed guards at every school.  Perhaps nightclubs will employ armed guards.  Are we really frightened enough to say we’d rather invest money earmarked for roads on more cops and more security?  Whoops, no can’t have more police or military on US streets, that’s tyranny!

We are Americans, we suffer from a short attention span.  If more police presence or better security sounds like a better idea today, we will assume everything is okay in a few weeks and won’t vote to spent the money on more cops or security when the time comes.

Estimates range from 4 million to 30 million semi auto rifles in the U.S.  Crime statistics would tend to indicate over 99% of those weapons are owned by responsible people who have no intention of carrying out a mass shooting.  So we stop the manufacture and sale of any of these types of guns now.  What happens next?  Do we institute a government hand-over (will never happen as that would be seen as tyranny and the dis-arming of citizens) or buy back?

Let’s be honest, if semi-auto long guns did not exist, terrorism would not cease to exist.

Perhaps time would be better spent analyzing and implementing better counter-terrorism measures instead of taking the simplistic approach of banning
a weapon which is used in a very small percentage of terrorist attacks.  This is a very complex problem which goes far beyond semi-auto rifles simply existing.

Gun grabbing logic:

If we ban assault rifles there won't be any on the street and therefore no associated crimes will occur.

at the same time...

You can't ban drugs because you can never really get them off the street so we should legalize them.

Yeah.


On drugs, the phrase I use is decriminalize.  I recommend a more nuanced approach - not all drugs are the same magnitude problem for society - possession for any 'unprocessed' drug, as in found naturally and used directly off the plant/fungus should be legalized.  Growing/distribution of the naturals - I am specifically thinking marijuana, psilocybin, cane toad, etc - legalized.  Others??


Use and possession of processed drugs, including but not limited to hash, cocaine, heroin, PCP, meth, etc should be a traffic citation type event.  With treatment options available in lieu of incarceration.


Manufacture/distribution of the processed drugs - mandatory 10 year no parole event for 1st time offender.  2nd event - mandatory life with no parole prison event.

We can use the laws to 'steer' people into more productive, less destructive modes of behaviour.  And if they won't be steered, at least won't be out on the streets.  This eliminates the profit from the largest group of the most benign (comparatively) drugs.  Saving us many tens of billions a year in wasted enforcement efforts.  And as we have seen, thousands of lives due to drug related - gang - violence.   Depending on who is trying to make the case, we spend from $30 to 90 billion a year on the war on drugs that could be cut to a fraction.  

THEN, and this is extremely critical - take that fraction of the money that we are saving, since that is all that would be required, and set up help/counseling/cleanup programs for those that want them.  And even one step further - for the processed drugs addicts, provide the drug at low or better yet, no cost, in a clinical setting where doses can be reduced over time in what ever the appropriate medical method is to eliminate the addiction.

Save massive amounts of money.