Still love your guns, America? Fourteen elementary kids and teacher killed in Texas

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I don't make my decisions about public policy
only when some terrible event happens. Too
many people have only simplistic over-reactions
only after each & every horror. Give some
thought in between, eh.

How many useful gun related public policy measures have
been enacted because "y'all" ignore the issues until raging
over a shooting, & demanding an end to gun rights?

You are welcome to dismiss me as much as you'd like, but the truth remains: the rules around guns in the United States corresponds positively with gun violence in the US, and it can be shown that around the world, the same relationship holds -- the fewer guns in the hands of the public, the less gun violence.

Now, you can decide (as @Twilight Hue seems to have) that it isn't the guns, it's the people. Okay, then maybe we just have to accept that Americans are more murderous per capita than other nationals. So maybe we need to figure what the reason for that is. Is that a discussion you would prefer?

Remember, over 50 years ago the administration of President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared that "firearms are a primary instrument of death in American crime" and that it was "primarily the result of our culture's casual attitude towards firearms and its heritage of the armed, self-reliant citizen". His admin did not suggest, then, that it wasn't the guns, it was just the natural violent nature of Americans. I tend to agree with him.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

No, I actually think maybe guns are just a kind of American fetish. I have yet to see an argument that explains how useful they are -- only "it's our constitutional right." Like fiddling with your own private bits.

 

[We Never Know]

The wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were all started by Boomers, and in the case of Vietnam, they were also the ones who committed the atrocities there.

I see no responsibility in that. It just makes me glad to see that things are finally changing.

The boomers were born between WWll and I think 1960ish. What boomer started the Vietnam war?
Many boomers fought the war(s) started by political idiots. When you are military you just an asset ordered around to do the work of others. You either follow orders or face the consequences.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Why does this keep happening?

Because Republicans, the NRA amd many Americans are intoxicated on guns and are so high they have lost all sense of reality when it comes to guns.

 

[Nakosis]

Fourteen students and one teacher were killed Tuesday during a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said.

“He shot and killed horrifically, incomprehensibly, 14 students and killed a teacher. Mr. Ramos, the shooter, he himself is deceased and its believed that responding officers killed him,” Abbott told a news briefing.

At least 15 dead after shooting at Texas elementary school: governor - National | Globalnews.ca

Obviously, we Americans love our guns. Something like this usually increases gun sales.
It's not the NRA, it the American voter who will start screaming bloody murder if you threaten to take their guns away.

Maybe republicans support the 2nd amendment more but democrats can't stand against it. I suspect holding on to our guns is a much bigger issue than abortion for American voters.

Personally I've no issue with reasonable gun control which allows reasonable people to purchase guns even if they have to jump through the hoops.
Probably not even a majority of American but a very loud minority which keep the politicians running scared.

An American cultural problem that will be difficult to get around. I think that is the reality.

 

[Debater Slayer]

The boomers were born between WWll and I think 1960ish. What boomer started the Vietnam war?
Many boomers fought the war(s) started by political idiots. When you are military you just an asset ordered around to do the work of others. You either follow orders or face the consequences.

I was specifically talking about the ones who were influential in starting and supporting the war as well as those who committed the numerous war crimes there.

I agree the typical conscript has little choice. It's one reason I strongly oppose conscription.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Let's just say a psychopath on a mission isn't going to be perturbed by a stupid gun law.

It makes them hella harder to get.

 

[We Never Know]

No, I actually think maybe guns are just a kind of American fetish. I have yet to see an argument that explains how useful they are -- only "it's our constitutional right." Like fiddling with your own private bits.

I hunt deer, turkey, rabbit, squirrel, boar, coyote, etc. I hunt some for food, some that are a nuisance. Each has its own guns that works best.
By your above comment I wouldn't expect you to understand.

 

[mangalavara]

While I mourn the dead, I will continue to support the an individual's right to own/carry a firearm.

Same here.

America has a young psychopath problem. Not a gun problem.

Well said.

It's not guns. It's a chronic psychopathic generation of young people now that is causing most of the problems.

It makes me wonder what factors underlie the 'psychopathy.' As someone with common sense, I don't think an inanimate object turns a person into a 'psychopath' or murderer. There is a television in my furnished apartment, for example, and I have yet to turn it on. If I were to turn it on, would it transform me into a couch potato? No. I do better things with my time.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Obviously, we Americans love our guns

Speak for yourself. Lots of Americans don't love them. Plenty Americans hate guns.
Americans are not unified or monolithic on the arguement.

 

[Windwalker]

Its a people problem, not a gun problem.

It's a people with guns problem.

 

[Nakosis]

Why does this keep happening?

Easy access to guns.
And enough Americans who fear the government taking their guns away to keep it that way.

 

[Father Heathen]

Yes.

Such an odd fetish.

One of my cousins’ children actually goes to that school, and is safe.

How will they be mentally and emotionally?

 

[Debater Slayer]

The reverence of the Second Amendment that some people display, to the point of suggesting or implying it shall never be changed or removed, strongly evokes images of religious fundamentalism and rigid adherence to scripture and literalism.

It seems to me the tendency of some people to place abstract concepts and dogmatic ideas over human well-being and practical benefit may be an inescapable part of human nature, unfortunately, albeit one that people should do their best to move past all the same.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why does this keep happening?

You've got an angry populace flush with ammosexuals armed to the teeth that have been taught that they were cheated out an election and that brown people want to replace them and a government lacking the will to mitigate any of it.

Please rest assured, most Americans are sick and tired of having to mourn the deaths of mass shootings, Sensible gun control measures will soon be enacted!

Extremely unlikely.

Most Americans are sick of gun violence and mourning? Have you been reading the opinions in this thread? Most people questioning the wisdom of American gun laws are not American, and most of the Americans chiming in don't seem to want anything to change.

 

[We Never Know]

It's a people with guns problem.

100's of millions that have guns would disagree

 

[Nakosis]

Speak for yourself. Lots of Americans don't love them. Plenty Americans hate guns.
Americans are not unified or monolithic on the arguement.

Oh, yeah. Then why don't the politicians do anything?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

That's because you dont want to admit and address the actual truth of the matter. You just want to attack the hardware.

Well then, can I assume that you are trying to assert that the US has way more psychopaths than anywhere else? Got an explanation for that presumed "phenomenon?"

 

[Windwalker]

No, I actually think maybe guns are just a kind of American fetish. I have yet to see an argument that explains how useful they are -- only "it's our constitutional right." Like fiddling with your own private bits.

I do believe there is a correlation between gun obsession and private parts, as you point out.

 

[Suave]

We had guns in school for shop projects.
Redoing the stocks and if needed rebluing them.
Not to mention near every vehicle in the school parking lot had a gun/guns in them.
Ttucks with gun racks of several guns and cars with them in the back seat.

When I purchased my ,357 magnum, I had to have a firearm owner I.D. card issued by the Illinois state police, A qualified firearm owner in Illinois must be a legal adult Illinois resident, be a non-felon, have no criminal convictions for domestic abuse, have no convictions for assault or battery, have not been institutionalized in a mental hospital within the last five years, nor have been legally found to be mentally defective.

When lawfully possessing my 357 Magnum outside my home. I need to have my FOID card as we as an Illinois concealed carried permit,