More to do with the underlying culture.
In Australia, the general response to anyone waving a gun around (or making a public fetish of their gun ownership) is âwhat a pathetic wanker; they need a gun to make themselves feel toughâ. American-style ammosexuals here are held in (justified) contempt.
Over here, guns donât represent power; they represent fear.
I think that might be an oversimplification - same as it is for Bernie Sandersâ campaign.
I do think that the US culture of ârugged individualityâ does encourage a level of selfishness/resistance to collective solutions that isâŚnot helpful.
I understand that even banning the sale/production of guns from here on wouldnât make gun crime/mass shootings go away, and I think that economic inequality needs to be addressed, but I think that a lot of people think these problems canât be solved, or even worse, just donât think thereâs any need to even try to solve them.
So, this happened just south of me. A couple dozen miles from where Kip Kinkle shot up Thurston (next door basically). Oh, and three nights ago there was a manhunt a few miles away from where I was after he shot a deputy (untimely joke tells itself).
Fuck guns.
But as I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. Itâs not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America â next week, or a couple of months from now.
We donât yet know why this individual did what he did. And itâs fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their motivations may be. But we are not the only country on Earth that has people with mental illnesses or want to do harm to other people. We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.
Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, âThe United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws â even in the face of repeated mass killings.â And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day! Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. Weâve become numb to this.
âBarack Obama
There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.
âRonald Reagan
âI donât know why any individual should have a right to have a revolver in his house,â Nixon said in a taped conversation with aides. âThe kids usually kill themselves with it and so forth.â He asked why âcanât we go after handguns, period?â
Nixon went on: âI know the rifle association will be against it, the gun makers will be against it.â But âpeople should not have handguns.â He laced his comments with obscenities, as was typical.
Nixon made his remarks in the Oval Office on May 16, 1972, the day after a would-be assassin shot and paralyzed segregationist presidential candidate George Wallace.
I am totes stealing that!
I always liked that guy.
As it happens, weâve have a decades long multi-dimensional attempt to make driving safer, from seat-belt laws to strict drunk-driving bans to engineering crumple zones. Thatâs why traffic deaths in the US have dropped to the lowest level since the 1940s, with a 25% drop in overall deaths since they started a really big safety push in the oughts. Meanwhile, gun deaths have held pretty much steady over the last decade, and estimates expect guns will kill more Americans this year than autos.
The second amendment is not sacrosanct, it can be modified or repealed through a new constitutional amendment.
Indeed it could. This would be the first step. It will not be easy or quick, which is why gun control advocates have generally chosen the handwringing approach rather than a dedicated effort to repeal the 2A.
The second step would be where each state and/or city establishes the gun laws that it wants to have. This would return some cities (Washington DC, Chicago) to their status quo prior to a couple of recent USSC decisions and leave the rest of the country pretty much where it is now.
The third step would be where we have the cops go into homes and forcibly confiscate guns from those who own them illegally. This was never done in (again for example) Chicago and DC. Care to hazard a guess as to why not??
I just get so tired.
My sister high school has one of the worst shootings on the west coast. The school right below where we practice has a mass shooting. There was a man hunt last Thursday after a dude shot his partner and a deputy. A mile or so from where I was from. The house I am in right now had a murder suicide.
I have never met anyone that defended themselves with a gun. I know a dozen whoâs lives have been touched by gun violence.
Gaaaaaaah!!!
Thereâs also the whole âmilitaâ part which gun nuts tend to ignore. Before the US had a standing army, militias (raised by the government, not the quasi-neo-nazi âmilitiasâ of today) were the American army. In fact, the first American Civil War wasnât in 1861 but in 1791 â the Whiskey Rebellion was fought against people who believed that the government didnât have the right to tax alcohol. And on the government side the militia was lead by George Washington himself.
Right? If gun owners are no longer members of the militias mentioned in that part of the amendment, which explains why citizens back then should have had guns, then why do citizens today still have guns?
Me too. So letâs rest a bit, then wake up, and then never give up.
Hail St. Roy, Full of Grace, The Schwarz is with thee.
Blessed art thou among woodworkers, and blessed is the fruit of thy saw, dovetails.
Holy St. Roy, Master of Chisels, pray for us sharpeners now, and at the hour of planing.
Amen.
Oh my goodness! What a rugged individualist.
I doubt it. After all, over 30,000 people are killed every year in auto accidents, and yet there isnât any movement to have subway systems in the vast majority of US cities which donât have them. (Yes, I know subways arenât 100% safe either, but they are far safer than cars).
The thing here is: Cars are made measurably safer for both occupants and pedestrians every year.
Firearms on the other hand are made deadlier with every model year. And when you make a machine specifically for the purpose of killing lots of things quickly better for killing things quickly, then you get rather predictable results. Especially when any old Tom, Dick, and Harry can get angry, go out and buy said high quality killing devices, practically no questions asked.
Well, perhaps not go away, but it would be a start. Maybe thereâs a tipping point of rugged individualists over the 50 million mark that makes comparisons with Australia moot but I really believe no argument Iâve heard has really done a good job of putting the finger on what makes America such a challenging environment for gun control.
