Agreed - now if we can only figure out how to fix that on a national scale. 
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Hence my demoralization! 
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Maybe because you seem to be implying that gun owners’ right to not be inconvenienced outweighs those children’s right to not be murdered.
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Cue the usual “but requiring people to buy gun safes and locks [or mandatory firearms insurance] will make it harder and more expensive for the poor and minorities to own guns” crocodile tears from the ammosexuals (the same ones who apparently are fine with the poor and minorities getting shot so long as they “choose” to live in rough neighbourhoods).
This is where the issue of discussing regulatory solutions in topics about mass shootings that might avoid some future ones runs up against the predictable and disingenuous and de-railing arguments that are always – always – made against any of them by ammosexuals.
That’s why I tend to agree with @Mindysan33 that a separate reference topic, similar to the Freeze Peach one, would eliminate (or at least quarantine) a lot of going round in circles and keep certain commenters from repeating the same old disingenuous arguments and NRA talking points and wanking over technical minutiae in every new mass-shooting topic.
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This isn’t a discussion, this is gunwanking. There is no give and take here, no free exchange of ideas. Instead, it’s just the same interchangeable comments made every time there is a mass shooting, almost all of which are deeply disturbing.
If for whatever reason you don’t want to offload the gunwank comments into a separate thread, I propose a comprehensive post of gunwank copypasta high up in the thread, so we can say we’ve addressed it and move on.
I’m being somewhat sarcastic here, but it’s crazy enough to work. We need some easy of getting this disgusting self serving bullshit out of the way early on so the functional adults can have a discussion.
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There’s a discussion taking place on the role of firearms in these massacres, and what to do about that fact. We are not going to find a solution, which is frustrating to everyone. There is a legitimate concern about how to regulate weapons while allowing the ownership of weapons.
The consensus seems to very much be “those concerns don’t matter because people are dying”. I personally generally agree with that sentiment, and I’m pleased that my home up north might takes steps in that direction. But the likelihood of that happening in the US is extremely small, and so discussing options or how to work around that fact is very relevant to the question “how do we change this situation?”
The fact that there are users who disagree with the apparently consensus is not “no free exchange of ideas”, unless your idea of a free exchange of ideas is “anyone who disagrees with the consensus is not participating”.
No, I’m not. Because guns are a fundamental part of the problem. We don’t just pretend it isn’t because we can’t seem to fix the issue. To me, that’s no different than turning these topics into nothing more than thoughts and prayers.
mass shootings cannot happen without access to weaponry. The fundamental right to own weaponry (in the US) is not equivalent to the fundamental right to live free of gun violence, nor is it equivalent to the fundamental right of everyone to live free of terror. But literally nothing will happen if we don’t deal with the elephant in the room, even if folks would prefer we talk about something else.
If it makes these topics depressing and uncomfortable, then it bloody well should, because the current state of gun violence in the US is depressing and uncomfortable.
That being said, the type of weapon used or such details are only relevant in the context of narrowly tailoring legislation or similar discussions, and absolutely don’t belong in these topics. But one does not remove a discussion of what to do about guns from a topic about guns killing people.
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This. This is what makes me nearly unable to read let alone participate in discussions anywhere online after yet another shooting. It deeply disgusts me. Just the fact that this is where we really are as people. It’s so damned sad.
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Here’s the thing with these arguments and why, I believe, you can’t get this point across.
Attempts to restrict drugs that are just processed plants fail, because people can just grow them. This is also true of attempts to restrict alcohol. People just made it themselves.
Until there are widespread metal-additive printers, people aren’t going to make weapons themselves. I can’t go to canada and find a butterfly knife, even in the black market, because 1) they are illegal, 2) they cannot (easily) be manufactured by amateurs, and so 3) the supply is pretty limited in Canada. The issues you raise about other prohibitions don’t apply as a result.
Based on the discussion above, the overall murder rate is declining, but the overall gun violence rate is increasing. That suggests that while you are less likely to be murdered, it is much more likely that you will be murdered with a gun.
But I don’t even think that’s relevant, because you are far more likely to be mass-murdered with a gun. Full stop. And mass-murders are on the rise.
Your suggestion that crypto advocates are similar to gun-rights activists fails for a similar reason. Crypto underlies all manner of safe communication affecting people. You literally cannot talk securely to the bank without crypto, and you can’t prevent both sides from needing crypto. which means, if you want to talk to your bank online, everyone needs access to crypto. So, weaking crypto with backdoors affects the entirety of society, so long as digital information needs to be protected.
Weapons do not share this same “everyone needs to use them” requirement, because they are not intrinsic to the day to day lives of an average person in the same way.
The “right” to own firearms, IMHO, does not trump the right to life, nor the right to be free from terror or violence. if 10k more people a year are dying from suicide-by-firearm, that is not a thoraway statistic that “they would have found another way”, because most “other ways” are more difficult, or require more forethought, and it’s well-known that the more barriers that exist to actually taking action on suicide, the less people die. You aren’t stopping those committed to do so, but I’d bet you a year’s salary that the number of suicides would drop if weapons weren’t available to commit them, overall.
You are not going to convince anyone that the right to own a weapon is equivalent to the right of others to not live in terror, or the right to restrict weapons of mass murder from the public, any more than I am going to convince people that I should be allowed to drive a track car on the road because I am certified to do so and can do so safely. People don’t care that it’s my hobby, or that I will be safe. People care that there are others who will NOT be safe and will misuse their track car to get people killed.
It is telling that none of your suggestions for fixes have anything to do with restricting weapon access. That fact is why, I think, you can’t understand why it is so hard to get your point across.
I will never get to drive a track car on the open road. People have decided my hobby cannot be responsibly regulated, so better that no one be allowed to do it. This is bolstered by the fact that people do die from reckless drivers today, so creating more opportunities for people to be reckless is a nonstarter.
Weapons are killing people, more than they were before, despite less people getting killed overall. Restricting access to those weapons through regulation isn’t really working, so something more drastic is going to need to happen. It means the “right” to own weapons is going to be impacted, but society has decided the right to live free of gun violence is more important the the right to own weapons, at least unfettered.
And, unlike cars and crypto, people can go about their lives without guns and still be just fine most of the time, so the balance of judgement is going to weigh much heavier in the inevitable “bad guys still use cars and crypto” argument, because those still need to be in the hands of the public.
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The issue is of course about rights and the extent of them. And the majority of people believe that gun ownership rights should not be as unfettered as they are. This isn’t different from any other right. You have the right to free speech - yet you can’t own a radio or TV station without an FCC license. And everyone can’t own one. If you do own one - you can’t have any kind you want and it has to be held consistent with the public good - you can’t broadcast at any wattage or on any channel you want to - your employees have to meet certain conditions as does your equipment.
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There’s a discussion until there isn’t. I’m specifically talking about the part that isn’t a discussion. Moreover, I’m talking about the part of the non-discussion that I and others find appallingly offensive and grossly insensitive to the victims of these mass shootings.
No.
This has nothing to do with agreeing with me or not. They can disagree and still be part of the discussion. They can’t derail, however. Hence my suggestion that firearms, gun control, Second Amendment, etc. should be a separate thread. These are ongoing issues, are not going to be solved anytime soon, and can be theoretical if we want them to be. This thread isn’t theoretical. It’s about a young child shot dead at a garlic festival. I consider these comments to be off topic, derailing, and disrespectful to the victims.
What makes this depressing and uncomfortable is how little we care about the victims. We can’t even pretend to care. Look how much coverage the shooters get and how little the victims get. And that’s even before we discuss it here.
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Police overreach, racist implementations, and violation of privacy and the 4th amendment are legitimate concerns with the Ring stuff, as well as stop-and-frisk. Crypto backdoors fundamentally make everyone less safe by definition, thereby completely invalidating the entire point of the idea.
It’s interesting that you lump border walls in with this list of rights-violating policies, though. After all, border walls aren’t designed to protect the rights of anyone actually in this country (no matter what the politicians say); they exist to harm the civil and human rights of others attempting to enter this country. Border walls manifestly make everyone’s lives worse, while also being completely useless because ladders exist in this universe. I’m reasonably certain the only “wall” that even approaches a 100% effectiveness is the Korean DMZ, and that’s because it’s armed to the teeth on both sides and full of landmines.
Meanwhile, not being allowed to have a gun doesn’t affect your privacy, it doesn’t affect your vulnerability to police overreach (if anything, gun proliferation is a big reason why police are allowed to shoot first and ask questions never; they just assume everyone is about to shoot them first… also good luck winning an argument with a police officer by brandishing a firearm at them), and plenty of studies have shown that owning a gun makes you less safe. Like I said, I’m 2.7 times less likely to be murdered in my own home because I don’t have a gun there.
The reason everyone here thinks you’re more interested in your dick-replacing toys than kids getting murdered is because you’ve utterly failed to do anything to substantiate why you think your right to those toys is important to begin with. There are plenty of things we do in a free society that can be dangerous, including freedom of speech and (ostensibly) the right to security from government intrusion in one’s effects, because we understand that their value outweighs their potential abuse. What unique fundamental value does owning a gun bring to society that outweighs its overwhelming potential for lethal abuse?
If the primary purpose of the second amendment was to ensure that the nation could call up its citizens for self defense in wartime, and that purpose has been proven ineffective as well as been completely invalidated by the development of a standing army of frankly ludicrous dimensions, then what are the remaining justifications? If you want to fall back on “personal freedom”, I’m gonna need you to explain specifically what freedoms the right to own a gun grants you that are impossible to attain or secure in any other fashion. If you want to argue “self defense”, why do guns specifically need to be called out as a protected class of tools when there are myriad ways to defend one’s self when you’re under attack which don’t increase your chances of being killed by them – if you’re worried about getting mugged, perhaps you should take up aikido instead.
If you’re just worried about having collector’s pieces taken away from you in some overzealous reclamation process, perhaps a means of permanently rendering a collector’s piece unusable would be a reasonable alternative to confiscation. Pour molten lead into the barrel and weld it to the rim once it’s cooled to prevent it from ever being fired again, say.
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Er I believe the numbers show per capita gun deaths have been on a downward trend while the numbers have gone up because the population is going up, with suicides rising while homicides lower, though there has been an uptick in homicides. We will have to wait a few years to see how those numbers change, and see if we are on an upward trend or just a spike.
That is true, and they certainly get more attention. But why is this happening? The tools have been around a long time. Before 1968 one could literally have an AR15 delivered to their front door in the mail. So access has been more restricted over the years. What has changed is something with the zeitgeist where more people are now thinking this is the thing to do for what ever reason. The problem is I don’t see any real way to stop them, other than I guess a total ban. That would limit access, I’ve conceded that.
I irked a member above due to my “normal” murder comment. And in hindsight, I can see that coming off as callous, but I don’t mean to be. That wasn’t supposed to be “my” view, but society’s. When crime is concentrated mostly on the poor urban areas, the middle to upper class suburban areas don’t really care. It is when there is the shock mass shootings in their neighborhood that suddenly something must be done. There is mostly crickets from these people before that.
And that sentence there sums up what I am up against. Are you or I or anyone really living in “terror of violence”? This isn’t to say there isn’t violence, nor that we should just ignore it or it isn’t important. But objectively, does one live in terror from day to day and is that a rational fear or not? I mean my ex-gf literally lived in a neighborhood where a murder within a mile from her house would happen every other week in the summer. This isn’t an exaggeration, yet she said she didn’t really stress about it. I never considered myself in danger anytime I went to visit. Yet this was one of the worst areas on the KC metro area. If anyone should have that feeling, it should have been her and her family. And I am sure some people did live in more daily fear. But do most of us?
But this is the problem I see I am up against. Unless one uses firearms for something, they have a very distorted view of firearms use. The news and the media show/mention guns only two times: When they are used for violence or when they are getting ready to be used for violence. I literally can think of only one deleted scene in a movie where it showed guns being used for recreation not war or crime. So is it fair to say that the average person’s PERCEPTION of gun use is skewed by the media and news? What did the 80 million gun owners who hurt NO ONE do with their firearms today that didn’t make the news or become a statistic.
All these people calling for better border security, they aren’t all just bigots. They are doing it out of fear and constant exposure to news stories of illegals committing crime. If every day they see stories and share them on social media it is no wonder they think that the border is full of MS-13 or drug dealers and murders escaping to the north. Hell, terrorists COULD just cross over. Now you and I know that this fear isn’t completely rational. That yes, there is crime done by illegals, but not in any more significant numbers than regular Americans. Magically preventing any new immigrants would lower the crime numbers, because less people = less crime. But I think you and I both agree that their fears are largely highly skewed by their PERCEPTION of the amount of violence and that the chance of a “bad” person getting in doesn’t outweigh the fact that the vast majority seeking either work or refugee status are just regular, normal people not looking to hurt anyone.
That is because instead of putting what I see as a band-aid on the issue, I am going down to the cause of the infection. I could list some things that I would view as livable, but they wouldn’t actually help the situation IMO. And any action severe enough to actually make a statistical difference probably goes too far in my eyes. So why try to appease people with ineffective measures? That would make me a hypocrite, because I am saying most of the suggestions would be largely ineffective.
And another great summary of the issue. See I understand this view, I just don’t fully agree with it. I will even concede your point that these other things have more common, legal usage. I actually agree with you that the “good” and “usefulness” of things outweighs the bad things some people do with them. And people can actually relate to those things. “Hey, I bank on line, I guess I do use crypto technology.”
I just think the same thing about firearms. I can’t even get an acknowledgement that, “Yeah, ~80 million gun owners didn’t hurt anyone today.” Still if we are going to talk about usefulness or “need”, consider some people do find firearms useful or a need. I mean, I don’t NEED a lot of things others find they use in their daily lives. I wouldn’t profess to say their needs are invalid.
Many if not most 2nd Amendment supports beat what I call “the defense drum”. I don’t do it that often because 1) i find it tiresome, 2) it’s even more alienating and foreign to some people. But if one has to be convinced that whether ownership should be allowed based on a need or usefulness, then I will point out I’d like a firearm for self defense because if I am out with my kid or at home and something happens, I’d like a chance of not being the victim.
“Oh, silly, you don’t NEED a gun for defense. You’re statistically very unlikely to use it for that purpose.”
“Ok, if I am not likely to need it, then what is the harm of me owning it anyway?”
“Because there is violence being committed by them everyday.”
“OH ok, well in that case, I’d like a gun in case there is violence.”
Again, I don’t typically beat the defense drum, but it is a valid point and evidently none of the more common uses are seen as “necessary”, I guess.
Finally, it isn’t like I don’t “get” the other side. I can totally see if one cares zero fucks about it, they find them a completely superfluous object that could be put into the bottom of the sea. I mean, i feel that way about motorcycles. They are completely unnecessary in every way and add unneeded danger to people’s lives. I’ve known more people to die or get injured in motorcycles than firearms. But I wouldn’t begin to suggest we should ban them.
But yeah, I get that if people have no use for them, then why have them? I am just hoping to at least get a squinty eyed “I get your points, even if I don’t agree with them.” And that would mean not being having the argument twisted into “I just dont care about kids being murdered.” I try very hard to be respectful of peoples’ views and not twist them up (I know I fail, so correct me if I do.)
Thanks and take care. I really have to be productive today.
It can be stolen. It can be used against you in the unlikely event that you need to use it against an attacker. It can become a short-circuit to de-escalating a conflict. You could become yet another Perfectly Responsible Gun Owner™ who ends up losing their temper and shooting someone in the head over a trivial problem.
You still haven’t answered my question. Why does your access to a firearm require largely-unregulated constitutional protection? What purpose does that serve in a functional society? People in other countries seem to get by just fine without actually feeding the paranoid delusion that they’ll need to Dirty Harry a scumbag trying to steal their wallet.
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One of the reasons why law enforcement has become so dangerous to the local population is because they ASSUME everyone is carrying a gun and thus respond irrationally as if their lives were on the line at every single moment. The escalation causes more escalation, ad infinitum.
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That shows a pretty big lack of imagination in my opinion. Switzerland has a fuckton of guns and a fuckton of regulations governing who can have them, what kinds civilians can own and how they can be used.
It mostly seems to be American gun hobbyists who keep pushing the narrative that our options are limited to all or nothing.
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Ooh, ooh, I remember this one from years ago! The lack of mass-shootings there despite all those automatic weapons in homes is due not to Switzerland’s regulations but rather its “cultural homogeniety”. [that one still gives me a laugh for its combination of ignorance, bigotry, and flailing desperation]
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Meanwhile, vehicle fatalities continue to decrease despite the same factors you are using to justify the increase in firearm fatalities, namely increase in population and number of vehicles. The two trend lines crossed in recent year - remarkable because far more people use cars than guns and the number of use hours is vastly higher for cars.
That is some pretty selective blindness, right there. Simply flipping the equation from a default “right” to a privilege earned through training and certification (as implied if not outright stated in the 2A) would keep many of the mass shooters from having easy access to firearms.
One of the fundamental quandaries of freedom is the intersection of one person’s liberty with another’s. It’s a problem that has been debated since at least ancient Athens. I do think it’s safe to say that where one person’s rights negatively impact another’s, the first person’s rights need to be examined and possibly limited. When the right to own or carry an object is in direct conflict with another’s right to keep living, it is safe to say that the second person’s right supersedes the first’s.
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I absolutely agree. The media is doing a terrible job of followthrough on pointing out that there is nearly one mass-shooting per day in the USA.
I just moved to Texas from Ontario, Canada. I can tell you unequivocally that not only did the Canadian government warn me that the odds of being involved in violent crime went up substantially as part of my move, but in fact a great many of my Texan coworkers have informed me that my usual Canadian habits of not locking my doors, my partner going for late night walks, and our habit of “talking through” minor issues with strangers should all be heavily discouraged, because you never know if the person you are interacting with may have a firearm.
So yes, they are.
Would it not be fair to say that the overall murder rate is down, however the number of murders commited with firearms as a percentage of all murders has increased significantly? Is this not also true of suicides, and mass-murders?
See, I get your mindset, I really, really do. “I, an everyone I know, are responsible gun owners. We enjoy our hobby, we are harming no one, in fact, we are educating those we know in responsible gun use. Why do we have to change?”
The answer really is “because public good”. I can make the same argument about wearing a seatbelt. Why should I have to? I’m a track-trained driver with a well-maintained car and way-too-expensive tires and suspension components. I have literally been trained in extreme situational awareness and proper reactions while driving. I am much less likely to get into an accident than the average driver. So why should I have to wear a seatbelt, and even moreso, why should I be fined for not doing so?
The answer in both cases is the same. Because it’s not about me. If I get into an accident, the additional load on the healthcare system dealing with my mangled self, as well as the trauma on first-responders dealing with a much worse accident scenario are measurable, real consequences from my “choice”. Also, those who choose to not wear seatbelts who are not well trained and responsible compound those social costs.
So the responsible drivers are fined for not wearing seatbelts, and the responsible gun owners bear the effects of gun restrictions. We do this because we choose to live in this society, and this society chooses “the common good” over personal comfort or recreation.
This is a straw-man argument. Above, you suggest that gun violence could be reduced by focusing on other factors instead of guns, but gun violence can also be reduced by removing guns from the equation, and increasing the ability of law enforcement to take action on those with guns in the first place to ensure there is not a supply of weapons to be had in the vast majority of situations. We know this because there are many other places other than the USA were the top concern when being involved in a crime (or considering the possibilty of one) isn’t “But they might have a gun”.
Yes, it will be grossly unfair to those that did nothing wrong. Yes, enforcement will be unfair. But society has spoken, loudly, and I seriously do not believe inertia will suddenly shift towards the positive aspects of gun ownership anytime soon. It’s far more likely that the opposite will happen.
You are not going to convince society at large that weapons are a necessary part of civil society outside of law enforcement. And of course, you are not going to be convinced that your legal, safely-practiced hobby is a threat to anyone. But that’s not going to change the eventual outcome.
Instead, I’d strongly recommend that energy be directed at how responsible gun-owners could find a way to enjoy their hobbies in light of the fact that gun ownership is going to, eventually, be heavily restricted or even removed from the public. Because if no one takes to step to do that, then the “public good” is going to do that for you, and I sincerely doubt that responsible gun owners are going to like their choices more than the ones those owners could have proposed themselves instead.
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Yes.
"Unless one uses firearms for something, they have a very distorted view of firearms use. "
Or they’ve been victimized by guns, you know, sorry there aren’t enough of us to satisfy you… keep up the good fight and one day surely there will be! Progress! /s
But seriously, how many of us does it take for someone like you to give a shit?
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Yup. Schools now do active shooter drills more often than fire or tornado drills.
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