I never said anything about taking people’s guns away. I said that continuing to sell them to private individuals makes no sense to me. There are so many ways to defend oneself; neither you or anyone else has even tried to explain why a semiautomatic weapon would be needed for ‘self defense’ unless you’re planning for mob invasion or governmental overthrow.
And while the Orlando shooter posted messages of his intent, they didn’t make a whole lot of sense, given that he pledged allegiance to separate terrorist groups who hate each other. Sounded more like he was generally angry, confused, and wanted to lash out in a big way and pin the blame on terrorist groups he’d heard of on CNN.
I live on the south side of Chicago, which is obviously a lot safer than the suburban or rural war zone you appear to live in, and it is highly likely that my family owns more guns than yours (and that individual relatives have committed more suicide with some of those guns). I see no sparkles, unicorns, or fantasy anywhere on my horizon.
Woah, I never said you did. Nor have I called you names nor uneducated. I simply said if one were to magically make them disappear, criminals would move on to the next best thing. I should have added one more sentence, that the reasons for violence are independent of the tools available.
Your appeal to authority doesn’t negate the fact that there are licensing and registration in some states, and we already have background checks, and you can’t just mail order a gun to your door any more. None of those laws have had a direct and significant reduction in crime.
But none of those suggestions you mentioned above has anything to do with the tired argument that guns are only made for and good for one thing. Unlike you, I have spent 35 years using firearms and have NEVER pointed a loaded fire arm at another person. Am I doing it wrong?
OH, so they are dangerous - but not TOO dangerous.
But wait! People want to ban the super dangerous and misnamed “assault weapons” (misnamed in that an assault weapon is full auto, and these are semi-auto).
IN 2013 285 people were killed with RIFLES. Theses are ALL rifles, including old school bolt actions.
1490 were killed by KNIVES. So really, which is more likely to be used to kill someone? An AR15 or a knife? The thing is, everyone is more familiar with and less afraid of a knife. I concede the AR15 is potentially more dangerous, but the reality of how often they are used in crimes shows that the fear and bias is based on emotions and not hard facts.
You are not doing it wrong, but that doesn’t change the intended purpose of a firearm. It was created and has evolved with the sole purpose of killing living things more effectively and efficiently. PERIOD. There is no argument here. There is no other interpretation. From the first gun crafted to the latest one coming off an assembly line…death is the only true purpose.
And just so there is no confusion, I am specifically stating fire arms. NOT stun guns, bb guns, pellet guns, bean bag guns, water/squirt guns, cap guns, etc etc.
Fire arms are designed to do one thing and one thing only…fire a projectile at a living target. Albeit for personal defense, for hunting/gathering, or in the name of conquering/defending land.
Take two cookies out of petty cash for being a responsible gun owner. I honestly do applaud you for it. But as a responsible owner you should also have no issues registering and insuring your guns.
Isn’t that a little logically misleading? I would suggest that something approaching every person in the US had access to knife whereas only a small minority have access to rifles. So the death rate from rocks is actually very high in comparison.
The rhetoric of most gun advocates makes it clear they oppose responsible ownership practices nor feel the need to shoulder the costs to the public for misuse of their firearms. The number of accidental injuries and deaths from firearms is rather high and more importantly mostly preventable. How many arguments does one hear about the need to keep a firearm “at the ready, just in case” and ignore sane safe ownership issues? Too many.
Liability insurance is a two way street. It assures the public that you are taking full responsibility for ownership of a piece of property which can imperil the public. It also protects the owner from being sued out into poverty for accidental misuse of their property. There is absolutely no reason why a piece of personal property with such lethal purpose should not require insurance. As I have stated in other gun threads, insurance avoids the heavy hand of government by creating market based personally tailored protection. It also allows for collection of gun ownership data for crime statistics in a way which precludes confiscation arguments.
Most don’t. Its why alcohol consumption is heavily regulated in terms of acquisition, where it can be consumed and what activities you can’t do afterwards. If we naturally trusted people who drink to act responsibly, we would not have such rules.
A better analogy more like saying that if you own a car, commercial explosives or a pet tiger, you owe a responsibility to the public to deal with the damages that may be caused by them.
If only mass murder was as fucking rare as every month. If only anyone or outraged, but hey, random internetters are too cool to be fazed by mass murder. Just say “we couldn’t have stopped it” or “if everyone was armed in the club” and move on to the next thing our death cult suggests is better worthy of our time.
There have been many suicide attempts in my extended family. The only ones that have succeeded involved guns and/or long term drug & alcohol abuse…usually AND.
There’s roughly one mass shooting every day, and one death by guns about every 17 minutes.
According to Mr44, there are about 80M gun owners. Which means that every year 1 in 200,000 will initiate a mass shooting, and every year 1 in 2500 will kill someone. That is, of course, ignoring all the wounded and injured.
I dunno. That really doesn’t sound like there’s a whole lot of “responsibility” going on.
But that’s “personal responsibility”, and he’s a rugged individualist with a lot of love for the second amendment and zero collective/collectivist responsibility towards the dead.
Right. I can think of many things we can limit or ban in an effort to reduce deaths an injuries. If one or more of those affect you, I assume I can trust in your 100% support because of your deep sense of “collective/collectivist responsibility”.
If a given restriction can be shown and proven, in a causative fashion, to reduce rates of deaths and injuries (such as the 1996 gun laws in Australia), I think you’d have the support of most of the forum, with the obvious caveat of being subject to further refinement as additional data comes in and secondary effects become known.
Get the NRA to endorse these methods and (funding them properly) and force Congress to pass them.
Which will never happen. The only time these so helpful suggestions are offered are when the blame has to be shifted and the alternatives are just as quickly dropped.
We can’t even fucking research alternatives that surround gun deaths for the mere possibility that it might affect gun sales in some way shape or form. It’s horrible, and anyone supporting the NRA encourages such fuckoff moves.
You’re forgetting the fact that most people committing gun crimes are already restricted persons. They aren’t supposed to have guns. 79% of the guns used in crime, per the study I linked above, were not “theirs”. They were stolen or borrowed or from a straw purchase. So these people aren’t “Responsible gun owners”. They are already criminals using guns to commit more crimes. But I am sure we are just a few more laws away from finally putting an end to them.
I will try to reply to the rest later, I have to work late.
