It prompts a lot more than that, though, and it is a HUGE problem. It prompts all sorts of people on the left to shout to the world that we need to do all sorts of things right now that are unconstitutional, or impossible, or ineffective.
Calls for banning this or that. Denigration of a Replican pol who made comments about improving security at schools. You see it in this very thread with people framing talking about inner city gun crime as a “racist” issue. And every time that happens, more red-neck one-issue Republican gun rights voters go to the polls, and vote for more Republicans.
I don’t know about you, but I am sick of losing elections. I am fuckin sick and tired of giving Karl Rove an orgasm every time he hears some idiot value-raving about the need to ban “assault” rifles or handguns. Electing non-Republicans is fucking important. Dontcha think?
First, everyone who is not 100% on the right side of this issue is by definition 100% evil and everything they say is wrong.
Second, it’s much more important to advocate things that make us feel good and courageous and uncompromising rather than advocate things which will produce incremental change.
You know what I would like to see? I would like to see folks from both sides of this issue - pro-gun and anti-gun for simplicity’s sake (ok?) - sit down in actual good faith and try to figure out a way to reduce school shootings, which is what aggravates the most people. Both sides, in my experience, do not even appear ready to do this.
And I have a feeling that the answer does not involve arming teachers, and the answer does not involve opposing increasing security in schools.
Well, they can when they aren’t at the mercy of a 2 party system with a toxic divisive culture, which ensures legislative gridlock when they are evenly matched in representation, and when they are not a constant back and forth of legislative direction.
“Do X instead of Y” in some cases (not all) recognizes the reality of the political climate.
Easy access to guns is the problem, in Canada, and especially in the USA. All it takes is one bad day for a “typical” person to snap and take their own life - and much more horrifically - and those of others.
Banning handguns (in Canada) is an important step to reducing the ability of an aggrieved individual to harm multiple people.
Cars are an acceptable and necessary risk due to city layouts, particularly in the prairies, where public transportation is not available. We have taken every measure to reduce the amount of harm cars cause. We should do the same with firearms.
Canada does not have a 2nd amendment like the U.S. does. In the U.S., it is unConstitutional to ban handguns, so Canada’s strategies will not work here. Neither do analogies with automobiles, because owning and using a car is not a Constitutional right in the U.S., but owning and using a gun is a right.
When pro-gun people say that there already exist a lot of laws to reduce the amount of harm done by guns, what they are saying is true. That doesn’t mean we can not make more. But we have to be sure of:
What the problem is
what laws already exist
what is Constitutional
what has a chance of being effective
And all of this has to be taken into consideration in light of the 2nd amendment, the fact that the number of guns and gun owners involved in untoward gun violence against another person is a rounding error to zero, and the notion that the gun issue drives rednecks to the polls.
My point is, I guess, that this is NOT a simple issue with simple framing and simple solutions. It’s the exact opposite. And people on both sides of this issues have valid points to make.
At least one, if not all, of the last three Supreme Court gun cases involved a decision or discussion specifically about the rights of individual persons to buy, possess, and use handguns for their personal protection. IIRC, a person in Chicago was denied a carry permit and things went from there.
One of the things that was discussed was that common guns (like handguns) and popular guns (which I presume might include so-called assault rifles) and which could be positioned as good for home defense would be more likely to be protected than, say, a .50 caliber bolt action sniper rifle. Pretty ironic, because as far as I can tell, AR_ type guns became popular because right-wingers bought them up as a “up yours” to what they perceived as efforts by the Left for gun control.
There was a lot of snark in my comment, but it is worth noting the actual text of the 2nd Amendment:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Awkward wording aside, it’s pretty straightforward. Only really in the last 20 years has it’s meaning been twisted.
Also worth noting that even the Heller decision includes the statement: “the right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose” which seems to have been utterly ignored.
I would disagree, if I understand where you are coming from which I may have exactly wrong!
I went and read legal reviews of the gun case law of the U.S. All the cases. Footnotes on relevant Federal and State cases which were used. The justification for an individual’s right to own, use guns has been disputed throughout the entire history of the case law. Some cases conclude that the right stems from the militia clause, others from the rights of States, others from individuals. It’s pretty mixed.
But what has never been argued is whether individuals have a Constitutional right to own guns. That has never come up, only from whence that right derives. And if one reads the background papers of the founders, it is explicitly clear that they were determined to protect the right of individuals to have guns as well as militias and states.
I believe the last three SC cases got it right. Including, as you say, stressing the point that these rights can be regulated, and have been regulated, and will be regulated.
The real questions is - what can we do to stop gun violence?
I don’t think that is helpful. We don’t even know how many guns we have - it is at least 300 million. Might be double that. And, as far as being used by a jerk to harm an innocent person, essentially zero of them are involved. Seriously - it’s a rounding error to zero, a tiny tiny percentage of under 1%. Same for the percentage of gun owners who do something untoward with their guns to another person.
Assuming the 2nd Amendment stays in place, and I can not see it being overturned, we are going to have tons of guns. We are not going to have significantly fewer guns even if we tried programs to turn them in for cash, and criminals are always going to have access to guns.
For what it is worth, I see a few opportunities:
Overturn the idiotic Republican efforts to bar the CDC from developing a robust gun violence database. We need the best available and best verified information.
As far as I have been able to determine, most gun violence comes from inner city zip codes associated with narco business and gangs. If we legalize drugs, perhaps we can significantly reduce the narco business. It worked with Prohibition and Al Capone.
We have way too many school shootings, and at the same time we have well-meaning people (who I think are misguided) actually fighting the idea of tightening security in schools. I don’t see why schools are not offered the same security features every public building in the civilised world enjoys: limited ingress through metal detectors and monitoring of all egress points. You can’t shoot up a school if you can’t sneak a gun into it.
We need to somehow work with responsible gun owners to see what else we can do. Not all gun owners are nuts. Most are not. And almost all of them are responsible gun users. We will never have a good national conversation about guns if we can not stop our binary thinking about the issues.
This is seriously flawed reasoning. It’s still 10s of thousands of people per year. Please do not use the law of large numbers to wave away gun violence in the US. It’s BS.
Sweet use of the NRA’s talking points. Here’s the rub: maybe we shouldn’t just throw our hands up in the air and give up when it’s worked elsewhere. Ask Australians.
Needs more study. Check.
It’s black and brown people. Check.
Spend billions to harden schools into prisons, rather than have reasonable gun control. Check.
“Fewer Guns” is not binary, unless your only way of thinking about it is “All guns, all the time” vs. “no guns.” The only people who I encounter who refuse to talk about the issue are pro-gun. And their position is uniformly towards zero regulation, blind to the limitations that legally existed as recently as the '90s or even now.
I would probably be characterized as “pro-gun” by most of the people here. And I do not want zero regulation.
I am fine with the level of gun regulation we have now, and would accept some additional regulation as long as it’s clear, unambiguous, and can be met by any citizen with no history of violent crime or serious mental illness.
What I would not accept is any regulation under which I have to petition the local sheriff or city manager for the right to buy a gun, and hope that my haircut, the bumper sticker on my car, and how well I keep my lawn mowed don’t enter into the decision.
I’m all for getting input from different points of view, but why should “pro-gun” people expect to have an equal say in the matter considering that the vast majority of Americans are already in favor of many measures that would restrict access to handguns and assault rifles?
Handgun and assault weapon enthusiasts are a relatively small special interest group that has inexplicably been allowed to set the terms of the entire discussion over gun regulations in America.
What are you talking about? I assume we are talking about America because you say “regulations in America”. Handguns are the most commonly owned firearm in the US. So hardly a group of “small, special interests”. It is nearly 3/4 of gun owners. If you only own one firearm, handgun owners outnumber the next group of owners, rifles, nearly 3 to 1.
I can’t find what I would consider reliable numbers on number of “assault rifle” owners. I’ve seen 5-10 million AR-15 owners as estimates in large publications. The AR-15, while the most popular, is only one of 100s of various makes and models out there. So I can say it is probably at least 10% of gun owners who own one, but I can’t say how much more than that. I guess the statement that group of owners is “relatively small” as a percentage of overall owners may be fair.
That’s functionally zero. Anyone who wants a gun can get one, either through a relative, friend, or just avoid a background check by purchasing at a gun show.
If you really feel background checks are “pointless”, then it should be cool to remove them, right?
However I doubt you really feel that way.
Are they perfect? No, but it certainly is doing SOMETHING, otherwise why have it?
There is some concern of prohibited people “tricking” honest sellers into selling to them. But I can say that most of the community is rather vigilant against this. You look like a meth-head or smell like weed, they are going to probably decline the sale (you can’t use weed and buy guns). I don’t think there is much hard data to back up this idea.
There has been data to back up that criminals get their guns from the black market and from friends and family - people who have a pretty idea their Juggalo cousin or boy friend is maybe up to some shady stuff. They don’t care.
I could live with requiring private sales go through the NICS check, but the people already selling guns to prohibited people or buying them for these people aren’t going to follow that law either.
Canada doesn’t have this problem it appears due to the different process.
