Gun Control

[Guitar's Cry]

Those kind of guys scare me. I don't know why but joking about threatening to shoot a guy just cuz your daughter decided to date someone is icky to me. There just seems to be a lot wrong with it. But me saying that is kinda off topic.

Right?! It comes from wanting dominance, and a gun is seen as the way to gain that.

 

[VoidCat]

Right?! It comes from wanting dominance, and a gun is seen as the way to gain that.

That and:
It seems controlling. Very controlling. Over the daughter. Not wanting her to be her own person. A man does not own their daughter. But they act like it when they do that kind of thing.

Edit: there's an imbalance of power being the father figure. And the man is abusing it by trying to control the daughter's life solely cuz she is dating a boy. He threatens a guy and scares him. No matter what way you spin it that's not right. It's an abuse of power

 

[Wildswanderer]

Recreational shooters don't need lethal guns if all they want to do is hit a target.

To get food, you must kill something.

The problem is referring to a gun as simply a tool. It is a tool for a specific purpose, to kill. And there is a word for that: weapon.

A gun is a tool to kill, unless it is non-lethal, but that is, of course, not what we are talking about.

I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against. Food is kind of important, especially as meat prices get more ridiculous. I can't kill a deer with a paint gun.
What you apparently don't want is for normal citizens to have the responsibility of using something that can kill. Well, that is long list, and guns aren't even the most lethal possiblity.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against. Food is kind of important, especially as meat prices get more ridiculous. I can't kill a deer with a paint gun.

You can't kill deer with anything for most of the year. Not legally, anyhow.

Edit: and if subsistence hunting really is your thing, in most states, you can eat venison for more of the year if you're bowhunting than if you're using a firearm.

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. the guys on Facebook that pose with their weapons or brag about having them. Or the guys that virtue signal with their NRA t-shirts. Or the guys that joke about taking their gun out to clean when their daughter's boyfriend comes over.

Those who pose with guns on social media, or engage in celebratory firing (marriages and other functions) are prosecuted in India - even if they have a gun license. There have been many cases of injury and death in celebratory firings.
Those doing stunts on cars and motor-cycles on roads without permission (and posting it on social media) are also prosecuted.
Getting a gun-license if you lived near a forest is quite possible in India. Of course, there are protected forests where one would not be allowed living or construction.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against. Food is kind of important, especially as meat prices get more ridiculous. I can't kill a deer with a paint gun.
What you apparently don't want is for normal citizens to have the responsibility of using something that can kill. Well, that is long list, and guns aren't even the most lethal possiblity.

My argument is that the gun crowd has created a dangerous culture around guns:

C'mon the only reason for alcohol is to get a buzz or get drunk, right?
Isn't that what people say about guns, that they are only for one thing.?. but it's not true. Skeet shooting and target shooting and plinking and hunting far exceed the possibility of ever having to shoot at a person.

Then why not limit access to firearms for those reasons?

Firearms are tools to make killing easier. But our culture has created this association of guns with masculinity, independence, and toughness. They solve problems related to conflict. You're a tough guy if you pose on Facebook with your weapon. You're a tough politician that's going to support rights if you put out an ad showing you shooting things (even if you're Dr. Oz!).

Tobacco companies did the same thing. Joe Camel, the Marlboro Man, Doctors...cigarettes were linked with these symbols.

When you do this for profit, you are responsible for how these products impact the community.

I would prefer hunting over the meat industry actually. The problem isn't that guns are weapons, it's that they aren't treated as if they are lethal weapons. They become "tools" or "sporting equipment" as if their function were fun and entertainment.

Their function is to make killing easier. It's what what my grandfather and father taught me when I was learning how to use firearms.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Nineteen more children are needlessly dead in America.

I.
On May 14th, 10 people were murdered while grocery shopping in Buffalo, New York. The very next day, another man was killed and five wounded in a mass shooting in a California church. A mere nine days after that, we are faced with the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook, in which 19 more children and two more adults have lost their lives to this country's ridiculous obsession with guns.

Yes, guns are the problem -- or to be more precise, the level of unfettered instant access we have to any and all manner of firearms in this country is the problem. No other country on earth is awash in guns like we are, and no other country on earth has mass shootings in their schools, churches, and grocery stores on a weekly basis. In ten days we had mass shootings in all three of those places. No other modern democracy has had mass shootings in an elementary school, church, and grocery store in ten years.

II.
Don't tell me that "the problem isn't guns; it's mental health." We do have deficiencies in mental healthcare in America, but those deficiencies are neither the cause nor an enabling factor for our mass-shooting problem. Mental health issues are no more prevalent here than they are in every other country where these shootings never happen, and deficiencies in mental healthcare are not unique to America. The one thing that is unique to America is the ubiquity of guns. There is no correlation between having a mental health condition and increased propensity toward violence, and blaming "mental health" for gun violence unjustly stigmatizes millions of peaceful people with mental healthcare needs and discourages them from seeking and obtaining help while doing nothing to address the actual problem, which is that we are the only country with more guns than people and the only country where this regularly happens.

III.
Don't tell me that "if we take away all the legal guns, only criminals will have guns." First of all, by and large, no they won't. The entire supply of black-market firearms comes from the legal market for firearms. If that supply dries up, so does the black-market supply, and it becomes (1) difficult to find firearms on the black market, (2) prohibitively expensive to purchase them even when you can find them, and (3) much more stigmatized even amongst criminals because the use of firearms is rare and the criminal punishments are extremely high. Sure, there will still be some criminals with guns, but they will be hardened, career criminals who are using them primarily as threats to carry out their criminal enterprises -- which is what zero perpetrators of mass shootings have ever been.

Second, that argument is bad because even with sensible restrictions on purchase and ownership of firearms, lots of law-abiding people will still have guns. They're called the police, it is their job to enforce the law, and they have extensive training and an in-depth and lengthy vetting process before they're able to carry those weapons (and we *still* have systemic issues with police misuse of force, but that's another argument). Moreover, the police, not gun-carrying private citizens, are almost invariably already the people who stop mass shootings.

All of that should be pretty much common sense, but if you really don't believe me, I point you to the statistics in, oh, every other industrialized country everywhere, where they have strict gun laws and practically zero mass shootings. If it really needs hammering home, in some of those countries most police aren't even armed, and yet -- guess what -- it is still exceptionally rare for criminals to use guns in any context! So it's just patently false that "if we take away the legal guns, only criminals will have guns."

IV.
Don't tell me that "if we take away the guns, evil people will still find some other means to do their evil acts." To the extent that may be true, that other means will likely be knives, and knives are far, far less efficient and effective as a tool of mass violence. Mass stabbings occur in other countries (but not very often in America, because the gun is universally the preferred tool here), but when they do, they almost always result in zero deaths or single-digit deaths. As sad as it is to say this, that would be a big, giant improvement for America over what we face now.

This whole argument boils down to saying, "because there is some alternate, less deadly means available, we shouldn't even try to remove the obvious primary enabling factor that makes this problem so endemic and so deadly." Determined people can still break into your house even if you lock your doors and windows; do you still think it's worthwhile to have locks? Yes, because they make it much harder to get into your house. Determined people can still steal your identity and financial information even if you have passwords on all your online bank accounts; do you still have and use those passwords? Yes, because they make it much harder to access your information. This argument is immedietely and apparently absurd when applied to any other context. It is just as absurd in this context.

V.
Don't tell me that "the only solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." There was a good guy with a gun at the shooting in Buffalo. Now there is a dead good guy with a gun in Buffalo, and nine other dead people there, too. As I mentioned above, the people who finally stopped that shooting were the trained, on-duty law enforcement officers, the first of whom arrived within one minute of the shooting starting, and who will still have guns if we finally decide to adopt sensible restrictions on firearms.

VI.
Don't tell me that "it's our rights, and it's the only thing protecting us against tyranny." A purported individual right to gun ownership unconnected to militia service is flatly contradicted by the text of the Second Amendment itself and is unsupported by anything in the historical record of this country from the Founding Era until the NRA made up the idea out of whole cloth in the 1970s. I could write a book on just how wrong it is to suggest that the Second Amendment was meant to codify an individual right to firearm ownership for the purpose of self-defense, how for the first 200 years of our history the idea of gun ownership went hand-in-hand with gun control, and how on multiple occasions the US Supreme Court explicitly conditioned the Second-Amendment right to gun ownership on the necessity of militias for national defense (in accordance with its text) before just conveniently ignoring all of that in the Heller opinion.

The notion that the Founders intended the Second Amendment to arm the people against the federal government is asinine. No government in the history of the world has ever intentionally armed its own populace against itself, and ours is no different. The mechanism by which the Second Amendment protected against tyranny was by obviating the need for a standing army, which was the instrument of governmental tyranny at the time. It worked not by arming the citizens to rise up against the government, but by arming the citizens to protect the government without needing to have an army for that purpose. The United States has had a standing army of some significant size since 1792 without succumbing to tyranny; neither has such a fate befallen any other modern democracy, all of which likewise have standing armies.

VII.
Almost without exception, mass shooters buy their weapons legally. They buy their ammunition legally. They buy their large-capacity magazines, scopes, silencers, and body armor legally. In many places, they carry all these things in public legally. Our legal regime functions as an enabling mechanism for these tragedies rather than an obstacle to them.

Previous argument about the Second Amendment notwithstanding, it is clearly and repeatedly established that the government can place restrictions on fundamental rights when those restrictions are narrowly tailored to be a least-restrictive means of achieving a compelling government interest. Our goverment has a compelling interest in protecting the lives or our children and our citizens (that is, in fact, the most fundamental purpose of government according to all of western political philosophy). Biometric locks are a narrowly tailored, less restrictive means of achieving that interest. Mandatory waiting periods are a narrowly tailored, less restrictive means of achieving that interest. Comprehensive background checks, limitations on magazine size and loading mechanism, and restrictions on when and where firearms can be carried are all narrowly tailored, less restrictive means of achieving that interest.

Yet one of our two major political parties continues to fight tooth and nail against any and every one of those things. They are spurred on to do so by a large portion of the American populace who, in the face of inescapably conclusive evidence from every other modern republic on the planet that sensibly restrictive gun laws are very effective at preventing mass shootings, are too afraid to admit to the rest of us, and perhaps to themselves as well, that deep down, they really just care more about getting to keep playing with their guns than they care about strangers' children.

Thus motivated, the spokespeople of this political party once again stand amidst a tidal wave of innocent bloodshed and offer "thoughts and prayers." Keep your thoughts and prayers. Thoughts without action are meaningless, and God is not coming down from on high to save our children. He gave us the compassion and empathy to care about our fellow citizens and put ourselves in the shoes of those who have lost their friends, family, and innocent little children to this needless violence, and He gave us the intelligence and understanding to write and enforce laws to protect ourselves and each other. Many of our fellow men have already done so. It is time for us to start trying something, anything to do the same, instead of just throwing up our hands as if there's nothing we can do.

VIII.
Mass shootings with more than 10 dead since Columbine:
Columbine High 1999 13 dead, 21 wounded
Virginia Tech 2007 32 dead, 17 wounded
Geneva County 2009 10 dead, 6 wounded
Binghamton 2009 13 dead, 4 wounded
Fort Hood 2009 14 dead, 32 wounded
Aurora 2012 12 dead, 58 wounded
Sandy Hook Elementary 2012 27 dead, 2 wounded
Washington Navy Yard 2013 12 dead, 3 wounded
San Bernardino 2015 14 dead, 24 wounded
Orlando 2016 49 dead, 53 wounded
Sutherland Springs 2017 26 dead, 22 wounded
Las Vegas 2017 60 dead, 411 wounded
Santa Fe High School 2018 10 dead, 13 wounded
Pittsburgh Synagogue 2018 11 dead, 6 wounded
Thousand Oaks 2018 12 dead, 1 wounded
Stoneman Douglas High 2018 17 dead, 17 wounded
Virginia Beach 2019 12 dead, 4 wounded
El Paso 2019 23 dead, 23 wounded
Boulder 2021 10 dead, 1 wounded
Buffalo 2022 10 dead, 3 wounded
Robb Elementary 2022 21 dead, 17 wounded

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Credit to Mr. Foote (a Lawyer friend of mine from my military days )

That is one of the most reasonable solutions.

 

[Mock Turtle]

I would also suggest that any comparisons of America to other countries is counterproductive. I see that it's a commonly used argument in this debate, as it often is in debates on other issues. If you want to change the hearts and minds of Americans, telling them that "other countries are better" is definitely NOT the way to do it. Trust me on this point. Americans on both sides of the aisle seem extremely wary of "foreign influence" in recent years.

But isn't this just an aspect of arrogance, and exceptionalism? Why not ask all those who have lived or travelled in other similarly prosperous countries to wonder why the USA cannot be much the same? Because Americans are somehow different, or even superior to all the rest? Or because they just won't confront their past mistakes - as to the constitution - and which seemingly has led to the current position as to gun ownership? The USA has confronted some of their past issues after all - racial discrimination and slave ownership, for example - so why not another?

 

[Wildswanderer]

I mean, yes. I live in the woods and I have a gun. Nothing high powered, but it'd do the trick. If I need to hunt or defend myself, I have plenty of options (beyond and likely before the gun).

What I refer to is the gun culture that focuses on the power they feel they get from the weapon; the guys on Facebook that pose with their weapons or brag about having them. Or the guys that virtue signal with their NRA t-shirts. Or the guys that joke about taking their gun out to clean when their daughter's boyfriend comes over.

Oh good grief. Lighten up.

You can't kill deer with anything for most of the year. Not legally, anyhow.

Edit: and if subsistence hunting really is your thing, in most states, you can eat venison for more of the year if you're bowhunting than if you're using a firearm.

You can eat deer all year if you shoot enough during season. Lots of places allow multiple deer tags.

 

[Wildswanderer]

My argument is that the gun crowd has created a dangerous culture around guns:

Baloney. The gun crowd preaches gun safety. If they had their way, every one would know how to safely use a gun.

 

[Sand Dancer]

I mean, yes. I live in the woods and I have a gun. Nothing high powered, but it'd do the trick. If I need to hunt or defend myself, I have plenty of options (beyond and likely before the gun).

What I refer to is the gun culture that focuses on the power they feel they get from the weapon; the guys on Facebook that pose with their weapons or brag about having them. Or the guys that virtue signal with their NRA t-shirts. Or the guys that joke about taking their gun out to clean when their daughter's boyfriend comes over.

Or those that mention people stepping into their yard

Baloney. The gun crowd preaches gun safety. If they had their way, every one would know how to safely use a gun.

However, many don't tout gun safety. They do really dumb things with guns and people get hurt. Thinking you already know everything is dangerous.

 

[Stevicus]

But isn't this just an aspect of arrogance, and exceptionalism?

Maybe, but that's beside the point. It's an argument that generally backfires. Foreigners telling Americans that their country sucks is not usually a good way to win friends and influence people.

Why not ask all those who have lived or travelled in other similarly prosperous countries to wonder why the USA cannot be much the same? Because Americans are somehow different, or even superior to all the rest?

Not exactly, although you may be close. Americans have been taught and conditioned to believe that America is the "leader of the free world" and the "arsenal of democracy." Americans are strongly indoctrinated into believing that the rest of the world needs us and that it would be incredibly cruel and callous of Americans to believe in more peaceful, non-interventionist policies. The recent invasion of Ukraine is yet another example of this mentality in motion. Those who have advocated that America not get involved and remain neutral get treated like they're "traitors" and "scum." Even liberals have taken that tack as far as I can tell. It's all rooted in the idea that America is exceptional (which carries the implication of superiority over other nations).

I've seen the same mentality with the Iraq war, Afghanistan, Vietnam - it's the same familiar, recurring pattern over and over. We can't just be an ordinary country. There is a very strong current of opinion that we must be exceptional, that we must be warlike and violent. And the icing on the cake is that we don't do it for ourselves or our own national interests. It's all for the benefit of other nations, so they can enjoy freedom just as we have done. It's just the sacrifice that Americans are expected to make out of unconditional, selfless love for our allies and the free world overall. Some people make fun of it (as I'm doing now), but keep in mind that this is what most Americans are taught from birth. There are many who still believe this, and it's for this reason the voters elect so many warmongers to office.

That cuts to the very core of the thought process that you're challenging here. It may not be directly connected to the issues of domestic gun laws or gun control, but there is still a relationship.

And as for those other prosperous countries you mention? The same thought process carries the notion that Americans saved all those other countries with our guns. Some Americans might see countries with gun control as weak countries which need America to defend them.

In order to continue our foreign policy and global economic policies, it's absolutely essential that Americans believe that we have this indispensable role in the world. Sure, much of it is a good deal of jingoistic, flag-waving pablum, but it does serve a more nefarious purpose for the Powers That Be in this country. But the trouble now is that their monster is getting out of control.

Or because they just won't confront their past mistakes - as to the constitution - and which seemingly has led to the current position as to gun ownership? The USA has confronted some of their past issues after all - racial discrimination and slave ownership, for example - so why not another?

Well, there are changing attitudes in America, so we're definitely not all of one like-mind here. We're confronting the issue, and we've also confronted our past mistakes. But confronting it doesn't necessarily bring about change. We still have racial discrimination in this country, even if it might come in different forms as it did in the past. And slavery was outlawed on paper, but it didn't really end sharecropping or sweatshops or any other such abuses of working people.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

Or because they just won't confront their past mistakes - as to the constitution - and which seemingly has led to the current position as to gun ownership?

I've mentioned this in the past, but in america, we really do have huge sparsely populated areas. I have lived in those places. Just imagine, in wisconsin, you are 50 miles from a police station, and you look outside at night, and it is pitch black for miles. Miles of cornfield in every direction, and so quiet you could hear a pin-drop. That is what we have here

But I have a whole different argument as well. And that is, that we live in a country where a civilian is typically elected president. Now, this civilian will rather suddenly have command of a nuclear arsenal. Do you want this person in that position, without having the experience of learning how to understand other tools, that require great responsibility to understand them?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Oh good grief. Lighten up.

...we're having a conversation about guns after a school shooting...

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Baloney. The gun crowd preaches gun safety. If they had their way, every one would know how to safely use a gun.

That'd be awesome! How well has that message gotten across?

 

[metis]

You can't put that cat back in the bag .. you can literally make a gun with a 3 D printer now. Technology doesn't stand still.

Yes we can, and many countries have shown us how it can be done, btw.

BTW, do you take Jesus seriously with his statements like "those who live by the sword...", "...be as harmless as dove", etc.? Or maybe he was just joking or was lying, you think?

 

[metis]

The gun crowd preaches gun safety. If they had their way, every one would know how to safely use a gun.

If Jesus was here, do you think he'd likely carry an AR-15, AK-47, etc? Would he encourage others to do as such, iyo?

Just askin.

 

[suncowiam]

So, I hear a lot of chatter about firearms here in the U.S. from many on this site, what I don't hear is workable soulutions to what many of you conceive as a problem.
Now as one who thinks it is my constitutional right to own a firearm I do admit that there are those that should not have access to a firearm.
So, what are your solutions?
However there is just one caveat....you must provide how your idea will work and how it would be enforced; remembering that as it stands now the 2nd amendment guareentees the right to own a firearm.

Ratify the 2nd Amendment. There is your fix.

And that will also allow your own position of not everyone should own a gun.

 

[Wildswanderer]

Yes we can, and many countries have shown us how it can be done, btw.

BTW, do you take Jesus seriously with his statements like "those who live by the sword...", "...be as harmless as dove", etc.? Or maybe he was just joking or was lying, you think?

It's easy to make the Bible say what you want if you ignore context.
How harmless was Jesus? Oh yeah, they killed him because he didn't threaten anyone? Just the opposite, he threatened the whole system so they had to get rid of him.
BTW, doves are used as symbols of peace, and snakes are thought of as “sneaky.”
It actually means to be as innocent as doves.

When the occasion demanded it, Jesus took whip and chased the moneychangers out of the temple (John 2:15).
He was still innocent of any wrong doing, but harmless? Hardly.
Peaceful? As much as possible, but not when violence was necessary.
When you come into a house, greet it. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you" (Matt. 10:12-13

 

[Wildswanderer]

If Jesus was here, do you think he'd likely carry an AR-15, AK-47, etc? Would he encourage others to do as such, iyo?

Just askin.

He encouraged others to take a sword...I'm thinking he would opt for a smaller weapon, like a Glock or revolver, easier to carry on the journey. But when you are God, you don't need a gun to protect yourself. The rest of us don't have the option of knocking solder's to the ground with a glance.
John 18:6