This time Cracked decides to *talk* to Gun shop workers.

Ah yes.  Cracked did the *brave* thing and decided to see what people who work at gun shops have to say about guns.


Seriosuly that's the tone they take

Of course, after every shooting, we have another national discussion on guns that goes nowhere. Perhaps because we're all partisan jerks who'd rather people keep dying than admit those other partisan jerks might be a little bit right. Taking a tiny baby step toward understanding, we figured we'd start at the source: We spoke to two former gun-sellers. We spoke to two former gun-sellers, Jerome in California and Jacob in Texas, to get a better handle on the American gun trade.

California you say?

And then they immediately go into #4. Paranoia Sells Guns.

People buy guns for all sorts of reasons -- sports, protection, vengeance -- but at Jerome's store, nothing sold like paranoia.

Wait... the guy in California found that people buy guns out of fear of them being banned?
That's... not paranoid.


Yes, the price spikes are frustrating and can get silly.  (As the article mentions). But given that after these mass shootings politicians do demand guns for certain guns...  And sometimes get their guns. Again that's not paranoia.


And then they go into how you get crazies at the gun shop.  Yup.  Nothing much to say there.

Interestingly,  2 admits that yeah... an FFL can deny a sale if they want.


And then #1 gets on the "it's too easy to buy guns whine"

If you want a gun, all you have to do is show up with a pulse and not get a visible erection when the clerk talks about stopping power. "It's ridiculously easy to buy a gun under federal law," Jacob says. "The shortlist of things that allow you to buy a gun are: Be the actual buyer of the gun, so no wives buying guns for husbands, etc. Be a citizen or a resident alien. Be of sound mind. Don't be on drugs. Don't be a felon. Don't have any record of domestic violence. That's about 90 percent of people who haven't been to jail."

Wait.... you mean the vast majority of citizens can buy a gun after proving that they're not crazy, abusive or criminal?   Gee, it's almost like it's a right.  Oh wait, for a right you don't have to beg for prior permission.

And naturally the article goes on about Default Proceeds and blathers about how great Private Sale bans are.  What's fascinating is the article utterly ignores that 1) many, many states *have* banned private sales.  and 2)  most mass killers don't bother with private sales anyway.


Still, the tone is interesting as it continues a fatalism towards gun control we'd seen in Cracked recently.  And an attempt on their part to at least understand the issue better.

And just a bit of amusement, earlier this week cracked had a bit about "Massive Catastrophes"
Which had for #5: Arson Attacks Tend To Be Much Worse Than Mass Shootings

Do tell Cracked.  Do tell.

Cracked takes... Gun Control advocates to task.

So cracked has another article about gun control.

5 Reasons Gun Control In The United States Is A Lost Cause

Now Cracked has a funny thing where the url gives a different title

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-dumbest-things-we-do-in-name-gun-control

Huh....   well that's telling.

Let's go over their list

#5. We Worry Most About Guns Criminals Use The Least
 #4. We Barely Even Mention Suicide
 #3. We Pretend Background Checks Will Fix Everything
 #2. We Don't Think About Logistics
 #1. We Forget What Country We're In

So mentioning a myopic focus on "scary looking guns", lumping in suicides to goose crime stats, acting as if background checks would be a magic cure-all,  ignoring the thorny issues of enforcement,  and the nature of the US.


Oh and then there's this

Basically, no one at any level of our current gun crisis is going to part with their weapons as freely as Australians did. Gun violence of all sorts was already on the decline in that country when the stricter laws were put in place. Whether the stricter gun laws even had an impact on homicide rates still seems like a question that hasn't quite been answered yet. 

That's right, they can't even claim that Australia's mass confiscation actually reduced homicide rates.

So the answer to "Why we can't Australia away the gun problem" is...  the Australia solution still had millions of guns out in circulation,  requires a much more pliant populace, and might not have even reduced homicides.

Hence another reason why gun owners resist.

And amazingly... the article ends on crime reduction plans that aren't gun control.

Though just to show that they're cracked they still spitball about some touchy feely gun control

Maybe we could toss a few mandatory safety features onto the guns we sell going forward to make them safer to keep around the house, thus (ideally) reducing the number of accidental gun deaths each year as well.

Just keep in ind #2 applies to safety features as well.

Obviously, even if we did all of those things it wouldn't fix the problem completely. That said, any one of those things would make more sense than our current strategy of making guns an all-or-nothing proposition where we either have to ban them entirely or freely carry them around in public without restrictions of any sort.

Oh bless your heart.

But this does show the last refuge of the gun control advocate.  They go "Oh I don't want to ban all guns!  Let's compromise!"

We're never going to go for either one of those options, so we have to find some kind of middle ground at some point. Shifting our focus away from ridding the country of guns completely and more toward combating the reasons why we point them at each other (and ourselves) so often might be the way to do it.

Told you.   Still, grading on a curve this is a big jump on Cracke's part.

Oh and for the compromise bit...  you think the writers will oppose any new Assault Weapons Bans?  Like say the one percolating in Washington State?

Or would they agree to a "compromise" legislation that has mental health reforms & safe storage liability in exchange for overturning AWBs?