Missouri bishops oppose bill allowing concealed carry without permit

[Fish and Bread]

Link:

https://www.ncronline.org/news/poli...-bill-allowing-concealed-carry-without-permit

 

[Tallguy88]

But why? If I haven't been legally barred from owning a firearm by being convicted of a felony, then why should I have to jump through a bunch of expensive governmental hoops in order to exercise my right to self defense?

Criminals don't get permits to carry firearms. Law abiding citizens do. So all these requirements do is burden law abiding citizens.

 

[Martinius]

There is a big difference between owning and having a firearm and carrying it around in public, concealed or not. It is unthinkable to me that our society would deteriorate into a modern version of the Wild West with everybody packing. When I was growing up the only people with guns were people who hunted. The only people who openly carried were the police. Regulating who can carry a firearm seems to be a logical and intelligent part of being a civilized people.

I agree with the Missouri bishops on this.

 

[Tallguy88]

My reading is that this is only concealed carry, not open carry. Many states have permitless carry:

Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas (possibly)
Idaho
Kansas
Maine
Mississippi
Puerto Rico
Vermont
West Virginia
Wyoming

None of which have turned into the wild west.

 

[Martinius]

None of which have turned into the wild west.

Could be just a matter of time and critical mass. When enough people are packing, I can see a simple disagreement, or accident, or a few drinks leading to gunfights, injuries and death. For the life of me, I can't see how allowing everyone to go around with guns will make ME safer. It will make me feel less safe, since I will never know when some bozo with a pistol will start shooting at some purse snatcher, or someone who just appears to "invading their space", and hit me instead. Honestly, if you want to deter crime on your person or possessions, you should be openly carrying, making it very obvious that you are armed. And then act a little deranged, and people will clear a path for you every time.

The next western epic flick, on the order of the Gunfight at the OK Corral, might be entitled Gunfight at the Golden Corral, when some 78 year old guy pushes in front of an 80 year old woman in the food line, and she pulls out her Colt and starts blasting away, which leads to a few more people doing the same to "protect" themselves. Our young people, who are being raised on bloody and frequent mayhem in their violent video games, with dead bodies and various parts strewn everywhere, will love it.

Personally, I think we are heading toward lunacy in this country over guns, not to mention distancing ourselves from any semblance to Christianity or the Gospel. I will stick with Jesus, the Gospel, and the Missouri bishops on this one.

 

[Tallguy88]

Violent crimes have been trending downward dramatically over the past 30ish years, despite violent video games or laxing of gun laws.

 

[Fish and Bread]

I've at times lived in some rough neighborhoods, and even sometimes in some pretty safe neighborhoods, have wound up in verbal conflicts with neighbors and situations where police have been called (But no one has been detained) by both sides and so on and so forth. Some people have gotten pretty in face yelling and various things, there was once a few years in another location where I felt like I had been directly threatened and my landlord's property was destroyed and the police wouldn't take it seriously (Though they showed up in flack jackets at one point to say they wouldn't take it seriously, which kind of sent me mixed signals ). I really need to stop living in apartments and get my own house with some space around it and I'd probably be fine, these incidents mostly ultimately mostly arise from people being too "on top of each other" (Sometimes literally as in someone has an apartment above another one, sometimes figuratively as in too close proximity) without clear enough and far away enough boundaries (And sometimes with shared resources like water wells, parking, and even yards depending on the area- plus, I just tend to rub some people the wrong way), but that's not a financial possibility for me, probably never will be, and isn't really what we're talking about...

Anyway, I would feel better about these type of situations if guns weren't so easily to acquire in this country. Maybe there isn't a huge chance of something like that escalating into someone trying to shoot me or shoot my dog or something, but it's a greater chance than there would be in a country like the United Kingdom or something where guns are scarce. It's one thing for something to escalate into a physical brawl (Which hasn't happened, but would be a natural concern) where I feel I could hold by own and it'd probably eventually get broken up and I could level assault charges against someone and basically be okay (Maybe with a broken nose or something), but if someone pulls a gun and decides to use it in the heat of the moment, it's basically over unless I can disarm the guy very quickly- and over in the sense that I'm dead at the end of it, not just that the other person "wins".

Guns really escalate situations fast. And the answer to that in this country seems to be "Well, get your own gun". Great, let's have a duel at 50 paces (That was sarcasm). I don't know what the right way to do gun control versus gun rights is, but what we have today isn't it.

At the very least, I'd like to see an assault weapons ban reinstated (And which grandfathered existing owners in, so no one had to worry about "the government taking away their guns", it was just that no more guns meeting certain definitions [semi-automatics, etc.] could be sold or manufactured), which we had for 10 years until the Republicans let it sunset without renewing it. Then I'd like to see us limit the number of bullets per round (Do I have that terminology, right?), so that people have to reload after every 8 or 10 shots. That way people could still have their hand guns they can keep in their homes for self-defense, and they could still have their hunting rifles, but they don't have military grade weapons. That should basically cover the "legitimate purposes of firearms" thing, while preventing people from going into nightclubs and schools, at least, and committing large scale massacres. I mean, they could still unfortunately go in in and kill some people, but it'd be fewer people, because when you fire less quickly and have to reload, that gives people a chance to get away or to tackle you or something (I remember reading about one specific case where a guy who committed one of these things walked in with a weapon that gave him 30 shots before he had to reload. He killed 24 people. Then he had to reload and fumbled the next cartridge, which allowed someone to tackle and disarm him. I can't help but think that if he had only had 10 shots before he had to reload, he would have only killed 8 people and 16 extra people would still be alive today.).

Honestly, I'd go further with gun control in a perfect world, but I think that's about where we could get without having people go nuts. It should be a sensible bi-partisan compromise- okay, allow people to have what they would need to go hunting or defend their home against a mugger, but they don't get what they'd need to go fight a war or commit a large scale massacre. You'd think both parties would get behind these type of initiatives- reasonable gun control that still allows people to own guns for the things that the US has tended to consider as legitimate purposes of gun ownerships. But, in fact, Democrats are the only ones who propose or vote for these things, with very rare exceptions (I will say that Senator Pat Toomey, who is otherwise on the far-right, especially on economics, is one Republican who has gone alone with some common sense gun-control initiatives, but that I have to list exceptions by name like that shows you where the party in general is at). Republicans are afraid of being given "bad grades" by a pro-gun lobbying group called the NRA that ads against people who don't tow their line, a line that seems to be very absolute, opposed to any restrictions on guns or gun ownership. I think we need something, given the massacres that are occurring on an almost daily basis now. People are getting out of control, and while people do have a point when they say that part of the issue is the people and not the guns, it's common sense to limit the damage someone can do by limiting the type of guns that are out there to the type that people really need to do what we've said are the legitimate legal things to do with a gun and not to have guns available that exceed what is needed for hunting or scaring off a burglar or something.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Violent crimes have been trending downward dramatically over the past 30ish years, despite violent video games or laxing of gun laws.

This is actually a good point. It undermines my argument somewhat, but it's true, and I agree with you on the statistics (Because statistics are statistics), even while still perhaps being a little to the left of you on gun control issues.

Those statistics are one of the reason why when Republicans push a tough on crime agenda and talk about how things have gotten more and more dangerous, I kind of wonder what country they are talking about these days. Statistically, people are safer from crime than they've been in a very long time in this country. Yet, Donald Trump gets up as the Republican Presidential nominee and gives a speech at the national convention that is acting like we're in the middle of one of those dystopian movies set in a future where society has collapsed and biker gangs rule the streets dispensing brutal killings, and a firm hand needs to bring everything under control. Like, the "reality" he seems to be living in doesn't match the actually reality I'm familiar with or that the statistics show.

The problems we have with crime tend to have to do with specific situations, like "Why are police allowed to just gun down black people who are restrained or unarmed and are only a limited threat to them at best, and then have the police officers not get convicted of a crime?", and some of those are very legitimate questions to ask and situations that we need to address as a nation. However, the idea that in a generalized sense, crime is way up or something is just statistically not true, as Tall Guy has pointed out. Crime is actually down, and it's been going down more or less steadily for a long time.

 

[Tallguy88]

I've at times lived in some rough neighborhoods, and even sometimes in some pretty safe neighborhoods, have wound up in verbal conflicts with neighbors and situations where police have been called (But no one has been detained) by both sides and so on and so forth. Some people have gotten pretty in face yelling and various things, there was once a few years in another location where I felt like I had been directly threatened and my landlord's property was destroyed and the police wouldn't take it seriously (Though they showed up in flack jackets at one point to say they wouldn't take it seriously, which kind of sent me mixed signals ). I really need to start living in apartments and get my own house with some space around it and I'd probably be fine, these incidents mostly ultimately mostly arise from people being too "on top of each other" (Sometimes literally as in someone has an apartment above another one, sometimes figuratively as in too close proximity) without clear enough and far away enough boundaries (And sometimes with shared resources like water wells, parking, and even yards depending on the area), but that's not a financial possibility for me, probably never will be, and isn't really what we're talking about...

Anyway, I would feel better about these type of situations if guns weren't so easily to acquire in this country. Maybe there isn't a huge chance of something like that escalating into someone trying to shoot me or shoot my dog or something, but it's a greater chance than there would be in a country like the United Kingdom or something where guns are scarce. It's one thing for something to escalate into a physical brawl (Which hasn't happened, but would be a natural concern) where I feel I could hold by own and it'd probably eventually get broken up and I could level assault charges against someone and basically be okay (Maybe with a broken nose or something), but if someone pulls a gun and decides to use it in the heat of the moment, it's basically over unless I can disarm the guy very quickly- and over in the sense that I'm dead at the end of it, not just that the other person "wins".

Not 100% about Missouri, but my state doesn't require any kind of permit to carry a gun concealed or open on your own property. So if you were arguing over the fence or something, this law wouldn't change anything.

Guns really escalate situations fast. And the answer to that in this country seems to be "Well, get your own gun". Great, let's have a duel at 50 paces (That was sarcasm). I don't know what the right way to do gun control versus gun rights is, but what we have today isn't it.

At the very least, I'd like to see an assault weapons ban reinstated (And which grandfathered existing owners in, so no one had to worry about "the government taking away their guns", it was just that no more guns meeting certain definitions [semi-automatics, etc.] could be sold or manufactured), which we had for 10 years until the Republicans let it sunset without renewing it.

Semi automatic weapons were not banned, just some of the scary-looking ones. But I could still go out and buy a brand new Mini-14, even though it's not functionally much different than the AR-15 which was banned. It just looks like a hunting g rifle, rather than a military rifle.

Then I'd like to see us limit the number of bullets per round (Do I have that terminology, right?),

Rounds/bullets per magazine. A round is a bullet.

so that people have to reload after every 8 or 10 shots. That way people could still have their hand guns they can keep in their homes for self-defense, and they could still have their hunting rifles, but they don't have military grade weapons.

Can we hold cops to the same standard?

That should basically cover the "legitimate purposes of firearms" thing, while preventing people from going into nightclubs and schools, at least, and committing large scale massacres. I mean, they could still unfortunately go in in and kill some people, but it'd be fewer people, because when you fire less quickly and have to reload, that gives people a chance to get away or to tackle you or something (I remember reading about one specific case where a guy who committed one of these things walked in with a weapon that gave him 30 shots before he had to reload. He killed 24 people. Then he had to reload and fumbled the next cartridge, which allowed someone to tackle and disarm him. I can't help but think that if he had only had 10 shots before he had to reload, he would have only killed 8 people and 16 extra people would still be alive today.).

Honestly, I'd go further with gun control in a perfect world, but I think that's about where we could get without having people go nuts. It should be a sensible bi-partisan compromise- okay, allow people to have what they would need to go hunting or defend their home against a mugger, but they don't get what they'd need to go fight a war or commit a large scale massacre. You'd think both parties would get behind these type of initiatives- reasonable gun control that still allows people to own guns for the things that the US has tended to consider as legitimate purposes of gun ownerships. But, in fact, Democrats are the only ones who propose or vote for these things, with very rare exceptions (I will say that Senator Pat Toomey, who is otherwise on the far-right, especially on economics, is one Republican who has gone alone with some common sense gun-control initiatives, but that I have to list exceptions by name like that shows you where the party in general is at). Republicans are afraid of being given "bad grades" by a pro-gun lobbying group called the NRA that ads against people who don't tow their line, a line that seems to be very absolute, opposed to any restrictions on guns or gun ownership. I think we need something, given the massacres that are occurring on an almost daily basis now. People are getting out of control, and while people do have a point when they say that part of the issue is the people and not the guns, it's common sense to limit the damage someone can do by limiting the type of guns that are out there to the type that people really need to do what we've said are the legitimate legal things to do with a gun and not to have guns available that exceed what is needed for hunting or scaring off a burglar or something.

Well, any ban you want to impose would need to overcome the "in common use for lawful purposes" standard the court set in Caetano v Massachusetts which overturned a woman's conviction for using a tazer to fend off her ex who violated a restraining order. Yeah, that's right, they charged the victim for defending herself.

Personally, I only use revolvers for self defense. I don't need more than 5 or 6 shots and revolvers are less likely to malfunction in a critical situation. Not that I actually carry on any kind of regular basis. Usually just when I'm on a journey.

 

[Tallguy88]

This is actually a good point. It undermines my argument somewhat, but it's true, and I agree with you on the statistics (Because statistics are statistics), even while still perhaps being a little to the left of you on gun control issues.

Those statistics are one of the reason why when Republicans push a tough on crime agenda and talk about how things have gotten more and more dangerous, I kind of wonder what country they are talking about these days. Statistically, people are safer from crime than they've been in a very long time in this country. Yet, Donald Trump gets up as the Republican Presidential nominee and gives a speech at the national convention that is acting like we're in the middle of one of those dystopian movies set in a future where society has collapsed and biker gangs rule the streets dispensing brutal killings, and a firm hand needs to bring everything under control. Like, the "reality" he seems to be living in doesn't match the actually reality I'm familiar with or that the statistics show.

The problems we have with crime tend to have to do with specific situations, like "Why are police allowed to just gun down black people who are restrained or unarmed and are only a limited threat to them at best, and then have the police officers not get convicted of a crime?", and some of those are very legitimate questions to ask and situations that we need to address as a nation. However, the idea that in a generalized sense, crime is way up or something is just statistically not true, as Tall Guy has pointed out. Crime is actually down, and it's been going down more or less steadily for a long time.

It's the 24 hour news that makes us think things are worse today. It's not that these things happen more, we are just more likely to hear about them.

 

[Martinius]

Violent crimes have been trending downward dramatically over the past 30ish years, despite violent video games or laxing of gun laws.

That then makes me wonder why more people feel the need to carry guns? Are there just an increasing number of delusional people who think there are more terrorists and commies lurking in their neighborhoods, just waiting for the chance to pounce on unarmed citizens? Or are they watching too much Fox News and listening to fear mongers like Trump?

 

[Fish and Bread]

Not 100% about Missouri, but my state doesn't require any kind of permit to carry a gun concealed or open on your own property. So if you were arguing over the fence or something, this law wouldn't change anything.

That's a reasonable point, but specific to the circumstances I was describing. Let's say two people living a block or two away from each other have a dispute with each other instead. In theory, if one person walks by the other with a gun that is perfectly legal under concealed carry laws in some states, and the two start arguing, things could escalate a bit further than would be possible if neither had a weapon.

However, honestly, largely, given the traditions and attitudes about guns in this country, I think mostly what I would be working on were I in a position to influence policy, is limiting the types of guns people could own to narrowly be the minimum necessary (or maybe a little more than the minimum, but reasonable) to the purpose for which they are legally allowed to possess them for. In doing so, we might limit all these mass shootings to a lesser scale of death and destruction. That's not a total solution to the problem of gun violence, obviously, but it's something that would reduce the death toll without seriously restricting gun ownership rights, and so in my view it makes sense to do it. I don't think we should let the perfect be the enemy of the good- if we can get a consensus on something that helps and is achievable, even if it doesn't completely solve the issue, that's better than nothing.

Semi automatic weapons were not banned, just some of the scary-looking ones. But I could still go out and buy a brand new Mini-14, even though it's not functionally much different than the AR-15 which was banned. It just looks like a hunting g rifle, rather than a military rifle.

It sounds like your point is that the original assault weapons ban was being applied inconsistently in the sense that it was prohibiting the sale and manufacture of some guns, while allowing the sale of others guns that were essentially the same thing "under the hood" in terms of functionality despite looking different. So, it seems to me that if one thought the basic idea of prohibiting the sale and manufacture of new assault weapons of a certain type (While grandfathering existing guns already sold to people in so that people can keep what they already have for their own lifetime or the lifetime of the gun, whichever is shorter) was good, and saw this problem, what they would do is develop a legislative fix that added the names of more guns to the list or used a different definition of assault weapon, or something along those lines. Instead, Republicans took a hard line against renewing the ban, reforming the ban, or passing anything in it's place- they just didn't want anything in place along those lines.

That's an issue I have with the Republicans on Obamacare as well. Often a Republican will come up with a narrow point where they think Obamacare could use to be reformed. However, they don't reach across the isle and try to come up with a reform bill that fixes whatever small aspect they think isn't ideal and pays for the fix, they just keep passing all out appeals over and over again (Seriously, I think the House of Representatives has passed a repeal of the whole thing at least 40 times). These aren't the actions of people who want to compromise and work on making Obamacare better because they see some issues with it here or there, they just want to go back to the old system, which was broken. They had a mantra for a while of "repeal and replace", but they've never voted on a bill that repeals and replaces, or tried passing fixes or reforms to the existing law, they've just voted on straight out repeals.

President Obama has always said he was willing to consider constructive bills that came across his desk that changed some aspect of the new(ish) health care system, but that he would veto a repeal. Now, would he have really signed any of these hypothetical bills to reform the system a little? We'll never know, because the Republicans didn't take any votes on them despite controlling both houses of Congress. They could have tried sending something reasonable to his desk and sort of daring him to veto it, and even campaigned in the next cycle on him vetoing it if it was something reasonable and saying they needed people to elect a veto proof majority to get it through, but instead they opted to showboat and just vote straight repeals through the House, even though they obviously weren't going anywhere. I don't know if they were scared that constituents and donors who are against Obamacare would "punish" them for voting yes to a reform, or whether they didn't want to make the system better because it'd then be harder to get rid of it if it worked even better than it already does, but regardless of motivation for not doing it, I think not doing it was irresponsible governing on their part.

Actually, the person running for President right now who is proposing reforms and fixes to Obamacare is Hillary Clinton, the Democrat.

Rounds/bullets per magazine. A round is a bullet.

Thanks.

Can we hold cops to the same standard?

I do think militarization of the police is a problem, and would like to reduce their armaments and weaponry back to more reasonable levels. Some of these guys look like they are getting ready to storm Normandy beach or invade Afghanistan or something. Yet, British police manage to make do with clubs. I think we could mostly have police with flack jackets and normal police cars with bullet proof windows and hand guns and just run of the mill stuff instead of military surplus, yeah. I once drove through a rather rural city where the local police had what looked like a tank driving down the road. I don't think that stuff is necessary, really. And of course it'll be even less necessary for police to have military-style weapons and armaments if we can start reducing the types of weapons that are available to the general public they are policing.

Maybe there could be a special team of police with those type of things that we limit to specially trained people that are limited in number and really held to very high standards, and that are thus deployed very sparingly in unusual situations only.

Personally, I only use revolvers for self defense. I don't need more than 5 or 6 shots and revolvers are less likely to malfunction in a critical situation. Not that I actually carry on any kind of regular basis. Usually just when I'm on a journey.

Revolvers aren't the type of thing I'd be looking to get rid of. I think it's pretty established that people are going to be allowed to have guns for self-defense in this country to at least some extent. The politics of that situation aren't going to change. I don't know how I'd feel if I actually thought that changing that was realistic, but I don't. I'd just like to focus on stopping the distribution of military type high capacity weapons that can fire multiple rounds on a hair trigger or a lot of rounds to a clip. I wouldn't try to legislate away your typical handgun, revolver, or hunting rifle. They're too ingrained in the history of this country and in the national psyche. People feel they have a right to them, the constitution arguably gives them that right (Depending on how you read the second amendment). It is what is. Frankly, I've considered keeping a gun at home for self-defense because of all the threats I've had from time to time, though I ultimately decided against it- but that I was thinking about it at one point shows I am not by any means an absolutist on gun control, I just think we need more regulations on what type of guns are out there.

Concealed carry is a tougher issue, but I would prefer it if we'd do away with it, honestly. I am not condemning anyone for doing what they are entitled to do under current law in their states. If the law says you can do it, you can do it. Maybe people are carrying because they know other people can carry. I would just tend to want to limit that some. Maybe just to people who can show a credible threat has been made against their lives, and that they need to carry for a while, and can get a temporary permit until that situation is resolved. I think we can compromise on this issue.

What I don't like is when people just shout "Gun grabbers!" and reject any sort of restriction or regulation on guns. I think there are some good things that could be compromised on that would save some lives without really limiting people who liked to deer hunt or keep a revolver in their nightstand in case someone breaks into their home late at night overly much.

 

[Tallguy88]

(While grandfathering existing guns already sold to people in so that people can keep what they already have for their own lifetime or the lifetime of the gun, whichever is shorter)

Not how it worked. During the Assault Weapons Ban, no weapons were actually banned. What was banned was the sale and manufacture of new assault weapons. But the existing ones were perfectly legal (under federal law; state laws vary) and could legally be sold or given to anyone else who could legally own a firearm. Basically, the market wasn't shut down, it just limited the supply.

clip

Huge pet peeve of mine. You mean magazine, not clip. Very few modern rifles use clips. It's a largely outdated technology.

But stupid media keeps talking about "high capacity clips" and just spreading the inaccuracies.

 

[tadoflamb]

I grew up with guns in Montana. It was a fact of life. Just something that we did. It wouldn't be unusual to see someone walking down the street with a high-powered rifle. We all had guns and no one got shot.

Some where along the line, gun culture got really weird and to me today, gun culture is just another component of the culture of death, and I want no part of it. Here in Arizona, where it's already legal to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, the gun culture is completely out of control. The state legislature has saved more innocent guns from being destroyed than they have unborn children! That's how much we love our guns in Arizona. It goes on and on. I could dedicate a whole thread to the activities of the gun owners in my state.

I've seen a couple of my customers openly carrying in the store. While I commend them on their healthy sense of self-preservation, the last thing I would want, if something came down, is for one of these clowns to protect me. I mean, I can't really tell the difference between a good guy with a gun and a bad guy with a gun and when the shooting starts out who is to say? A dude dressed in all black, combat boots, long greasy hair and a necklace with a satanic symbol on it is a bad guy, right? During the recent sniper shootings in Dallas, there was also a gun-rights protest. Once the shooting started, the police had all these men in camouflage, bullet proof vests, and AR-15's running around. How are they to know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy? It seems to me that packing in one of those situations would make it more dangerous for the gun owner.

Things have changed. Even my beloved home state of Montana is experiencing gun tragedies which were unthinkable in my youth. The gun culture in this country is out of control, and I'm grateful to the Missouri bishops in their attempts to dial it back.