US data, deaths per annum:
Rationally, you should be doing a fuckload more than less-than-nothing about firearms deaths.
Oh, I forgot to add: assuming we value a human life at $9M (and someone who is ‘only’ injured at $0), then you have an annual budget of $297,000,000,000. Hopefully that’s enough to get something useful done by this time next year?
Where to start?
But not now. I can’t get past that “timing” thing…
Well mostly it was for the posses to hunt down escaped slaves.
Also to the best of my knowledge the founding fathers didn’t want a standing army either so the local militia was it for defense when needed. Guns were muzzle loaders and actually quite expensive so most people didn’t have them anyway.
And today we have a standing army, and guns are not one shot take 10 seconds to reload things anymore.
That’s why we need our CNC machines and our microreactor arrays. When the stuff-takers come, so we can make our own when we feel we want it, whatever the “it” is.
No use trying to discuss them, they will have their version of The Truth. Better go to the lab so they can not achieve blanket compliance with their wishes, whatever the wishes are. There has to be balance.
Off to order the load cells I go.
Yeah, he like brought a knife to a gunfight…
Yes, I’m not very appropriate, at all, hanging my head in shame…
So I did an FB search and came across several conspiracy theory nutjobs saying this is “false flag” operation. What’s the best way to silence/disprove these nutjobs? Seems to come up again and again. People claiming Sandy Hook didn’t happen etc. I mean it would be one thing if one dude believed it but I see threads full of people who purport to honestly believe this shit is part of a conspiracy.
Subtract suicides. These are self-inflicted and liable to bleed to another category of causes.
He really likes that rifle, really!
Edit: and even if they do (which they don’t), why not take half of that $297,000,000,000 and spend it on suicide prevention?
Fair enough–I think you were just throwing out examples of why it (or really: any shooting) may not be exactly what it sounds like from what might only be a few minutes worth of details at the start. That is a fair assessment.
I think we will agree (and most people here too) that people shouldn’t jump to conclusions about motivations or political/social group links of the perpetrators. Even for last week’s tragedy, it seems like most knowledge is anecdotal or about his character, and little more.
OK I am not 100% sure what you are asking. First off, yes it is a personal right, just like every other right in Bill of Rights. It says right there “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The REASON for this was so that the militia would have a large number of people and resources to pool from. It didn’t limit it to ONLY militias.
Furthermore, they use the antiquated word of “regulated” which doesn’t mean to govern and control, but for the militia to be well equipped and drilled. You can find militia laws passed in the 1780s and basically any man of fighting age could join, but they needed so much shot, powder, and supplies like food, bedroll, boots, etc. They had to be an asset, not a liability. Rich people owned artillery and cannons and loaned them out when needed. Or because they had the hardware, they were the officers.
Remember back then the theory was to have a very small standing army. Unlike Europe who was going to war with each other every other Tuesday, after the Revolutionary War, they didn’t have a lot of other countries to fight against. They didn’t even HAVE a Navy at one point. There were skirmishes with Native Americans, but no full scale wars. The theory was if they needed to put down a violent group internally or repel an invasion, they would call up the militias. It wasn’t until the War of 1812 that they put their model into full practice. Honestly it didn’t turn out super well. Too many of our leaders were too old or didn’t have experience running a war. The militias were inconsistent on how they fought vs British Regulars.
You mention the irony about putting down insurrections being part of the point, but at the same time that was the reasoning behind the use of Militias vs a large standing army. With out a large standing army, the federal government wouldn’t have military power over the states. Of course this all changed in the course of history.
So one COULD argue that the main points of the amendment was to have a pool for militias, it isn’t really needed any more, especially with the formation of the National Guard. But others argue while that was one reason behind it, another was just the general reason of defense.
Either way, it has been deemed a personal right, so you can’t enact some laws like they did in the UK (with mandatory turn ins) most likely. Of course our laws are plastic. They could repeal the 2nd Amendment, but I doubt they could do that any time soon. Doing so would be the big step in enacting what ever laws one were thinking about.
And you are aware that as a result of the type of bomb McVeigh built, the ATF started more strictly regulating and monitoring the people who bought large amounts of stuff like ammonium nitrate, and tightened security around federal buildings, right? We didn’t just throw up our hands and say “oh well, crazy people are gonna bomb government buildings no matter what we do, so we might as well not do anything.”
Yes. And we created the TSA after a handful of radical Muslims crashed 3 planes. I don’t think every action warrants a reaction. Definately not an over-reaction.
We also put over 100,000 Japanese in camps after Pearl Harbor. Anything to make us safer, right?
A few years ago (after Sandyhook, I think) I did some curve fitting and extrapolations. Looking at ONLY mass shootings (more than 3 or 4 dead, according to FBI definitions), the rate in the U.S. is going up exponentially. Meanwhile, heart disease, the number one cause of death, is slowly going down.
If the trends continue as they have for the past several decades, mass shooting will pass heart disease around 2160. So yeah, maybe there are higher risk issues at present, but shooting is a fast growing one, while many other risks are declining.
But that’s way in the future, so lets put that on the shelf, right next to global climate change…
Our house has a backyard pool… It was in bad shape, so needed to either be filled in or renovated – I voted for filling, but the wife and her family vetoed that (both options cost about the same).
We had to do a lot of things to make sure that the pool was secure before the renovation would be allowed. Luckily, we already had walls of sufficient height, but we had to have new locking self-closing gates installed, alarms on all the doors that lead to the backyard, etc. – this was all checked and verified (along with making sure that all the other stuff was safe).
Pain in the butt, but reasonable precautions that helps protect small children from drowning. YAY!
Too bad that there is a very active lobby that seems to oppose all reasonable steps to protect kids from household firearm accidents.
Edit: I’m also pretty sure that the pool lobby hasn’t influenced Congress to pass legislation banning the collection of pool death data.
Where to begin?
I mean, at least the(se) dicks could pick a fight with a target that can fight back, like a SWAT team. Why don’t they do that? Children, people in need - why the weaker people?
I mean, bullets are going to shred whatever they hit.
Timing? WTF does that mean? It is a discussion board with a 5 day limit on posting. So on day 4 I can come in and defend irrational attacks before the thread closes?
eta:
Yes - asking people to evaluate risk assessment with something they are more familiar with is just crazy talk. Hysteria and hyperbole works much better.
“irrational”
“hysteria”
You’re doing a great job of making me even more anxious to engage.
You mean like the whole fucking 2nd amendment?
