Oh for sure. Its just that shootings are going to keep happening and the pro-gun lobby is going to be pushing their case for a long time.
Change happens. Weâve just seen the publicâs opinion on gay marriage and marijuana has 180âd in less than a generation. I think it is time to reframe the gun control argument in a new way and take the wind out of the NRA.
The Columbine generation is in their 30s now. Heston is a now a ghost. The world is different. Or, at least, it doesnât have to be the same.
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One point worth noting about Port Arthur is that many of the victims were Japanese tourists. Tourism and trade with Japan brings in a lot of our revenue, so the event attracted more attention at the federal level. I canât right now think of an equivalent triggering issue in the US. I doubt they would respond in the same way to tourists being killed.
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You might think the killing of a large number of children would do it. But sadly, no, not even that.
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omgâŚmeatcha:)
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Thanks for thinking about the fact that these sorts of things are scary for parents of college (or high school) students.
Yes, one of my kids is in the process now. I agree with @albill above who said that itâs too random to really filter for. However, itâs interesting to compare with the problem of rape culture on college campuses, because thatâs a situation where, if coverage of the problem hits the media, the schools usually race to put all sorts of protections in place to show theyâre taking it seriously. In some ways, a college that was in the news LAST year might be the safest campus for a female student THIS year, you know?
But we donât do anything to make it harder for people with violent tendencies to get access to weapons, not even the most aggressive hundreds-of-rounds type of guns. Thatâs sacrosanct. There is no limit to the number of young people (and letâs face it, often specifically young FEMALE people) we are willing to sacrifice at that altar.
Iâm too busy to do the research right now, but Iâll bet the death toll for women and girls committing suicide after being raped is higher than the number dying in these mass shootings. So when parents think about sending their daughters off to school, which clear and present danger should we be most worried about? There are too damned many.
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Is that why no one shot each other back in the 19th century? Oh, rightâŚ
The fact is, violent crime has decreased with the increase in violent media, so if a âviolent cultureâ is responsible for shootings, itâs unrelated to violent media.
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Ugh. If lobbying for gun control after a mass shooting is âexploiting the deaths of innocent victimsâ, then I guess we shouldnât have all of those pesky workplace safety laws infringing on a building ownerâs freedom to lock their employees in during work hours and such either.
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You mean not people? /s
Thank you @chgoliz @albill and @Wanderfound for taking the time to answer my somewhat naive questions.
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Yeah, that sounds like Douglas County. It is sometes hard to explain the dichotomy that is the NW.
Sure is funny how outspoken ârace realistsâ also are always the same people as gun violence apologists.
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Well, alcohol related deaths in the U.S. stand at about 88,000/year while guns death are at about 33,000/year. I get it that they are not the same thing but being shot or being bit by a drunk driver isnât all that different on the horrrible-death scale, at least not for me. Either way, the net human costs are greater with alcohol.
So why arenât we proposing limits on alcohol purchasesâŚhowever many oz. at a timeâŚsomething. Background checks for purchases. Gotta make sure youâre not an addict. Why donât we have alcohol licenses and insurance? Someone has to foot the bill for all losses. Why not the alcohol purchasers? Prohibition? We tried that already.
Why donât we do these things? Because it is not reasonable to put all these restrictions on people who are not alcohol abusers despite the fact that there are those in our society who are clearly out of control.
Iâm not advocating the removal of background checks for firearms and I do think there should be licensing as well but we must acknowledge our rights along with the need to establish limits and safeguards.
Well, you do have to be over a certain age to buy alcohol, and be able to produce identification to that effect at the time of purchase, and weâve instituted specific penalties for DUI, including never being able to drive again, and police do run DUI checkpoints to catch people before they kill someone, and you do have to have car insurance which would be responsible for footing the bill if you hit someone with your car (drunk or not, though if youâre drunk, I donât know if your insurance will come to your rescue)⌠but yeah other than that we donât do anything to try and tackle the problem of people getting killed by drunk drivers.
Itâs also hard to think of many situations outside of DUIs where alcohol-related deaths are something that are inflicted on innocent bystanders. I can go buy enough alcohol to drink myself into a coma without it hurting anyone else. On the other hand, if I go buy a gun, odds are much higher that I might be able to hurt someone with it, since thatâs what itâs designed to do.
Really, we do a lot to mitigate the risks of a lot of other less-risky-to-others materials. But when it comes to guns, itâs somehow the ultimate sin to suggest that being able to walk into a Wal-Mart, walk out with a semi-automatic handgun, and then go shoot up the K-mart down the street might be something we should maybe start considering ways to stop somehow. I mean, Christ, itâs harder to get an abortion than a gun, and only one of those kills an actual person.
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So is a bottle of beerâs only purpose to kill a living thing?
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Is that John Woo with all the guns in his movies like Hard Target and Face Off? Like John âGun Gun Gunâ Woo the Gun?
Bla bla bla something something automatic repeating weapons blah milspec blah not quite so ok then blsh bash bosh chat done, eh?!
Whatâs your personal experience in being shot and bitten (Iâm sure you meant hit) by a drunk driver - since youâre comparing?
But to compare, and be fair, let me point out that your weak analogy with alcohol is weak. My apologies if I come across bluntly; itâs common in my discourse.
Limiting gun access - well, if every gun had a soft bullets and wild inaccuracy; no problems with the guns really. But guns like we have now, and the numbers of them - problem.
Itâs like comparing wine to pure raw drinkable alcohol. One gets you tipsy, and the other turns you into a bleeding hospital case.
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Most states DO limit overserving and ban selling to drunks with potential jail time and financial penalties.
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Some local radio coverage of the event:
The gun lobby guy who talks from 40:54 to 49:39 exemplifies my frustrations with these kinds of debates.
When he says, âlook, what stopped that incident is what stops every single incident, was when men with guns arrived and stopped it, and unfortunately because of the policies of that school and so many other institutions, they didnât even allow their security guard to be armed,â I donât disagree with that.
Itâs not controversial when weâre talking about armed security at, for instance, a bank. But parents want their special snowflakes to exist in an alternate universe where nothing bad ever happens, and thus where nobody is prepared for anything bad happening.
The problem for the public discourse is that the actual people who express this kind of position are exactly the resentful, paranoid, angry, entitled white guys who also express all kinds of other horrible right-wing memes and who are disproportionately represented among the perpetrators of these events.
âAll the reports now are saying that this individual targeted Christians. OK, how come we donât look at that issue and say wait a minute, doesnât it make just as much sense to say that he was encouraged by the climate of anti-Christian bigotry in this state as he was by the fact that he had a firearm?â
âHereâs whatâs happening: Evil people commit crimes. This is not an American problem. You know, we could take, we could ban all the guns in the country, and then we could have a country like Mexico or Honduras.â
Somebody who believes there is âanti-Christian bigotryâ in Oregon is not somebody who makes me feel safer because he is carrying a firearm.
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I struggle with threads like this. I hate conflict and I donât get into fights I canât win.
But.
I own firearms. I used to be a concealed carrier. My children have taken the stateâs hunter safety classes. I know lots of folks who are much bigger gunnies than I am. SilencerCo is a couple of miles down the street. I am not anti-gun.
I am anti gun crime.
Yet another facet of our American system is broken. We are entrenched in our unassailable right. But the cost is so high.
The viewpoint that âguns only kill thingsâ is valid, but itâs not the only valid point of view. It is not all they do in the minds of many. And killing is a valid use in many cases. I have no qualms with hunting when done ethically.
This Salon article is about the guns used in shootings during the Obama administration. I found it interesting.
My grandfatherâs rifle hangs on the wall here. It was made around 1880 by Mauser in Berlin. Yes, it is still functional. Its bolt and ammunition reside in different safes.
Is it wrong to keep and display it? What about shooting it? (We do, from time to time.)
This is part of our culture. We have Traditionalists and Gunnies and Hunters and Folks Who Fear the Gov. Which ones to minimize in the name of change?
The âguns only kill thingsâ pumpers bother me. That seems a magic phrase and nothing can defend. I donât have time for entrenchment on either side.
Answer and @ me all you like, I think Iâll duck back down and mostly browse this thread when Iâm feeling strong and quiet.
ETA - I welcome PMs.
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