441–450 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody was talking about reducing access to cars after that guy ran over a ton of old folks in Kenosha a couple months back. In fact no one is talking about it at all as he does not fit the correct political narrative
I always hear this argument, but it’s like people forget what the primary purpose of guns and cars is. If the primary purpose of cars was to drive over people then they would be banned. This is why you can own a car, but not a tank.
As a foreigner I find this subject very complex since the right to bear arms in on the US constitution. To change or "rewrite" the constitution trying to deal with this subject could dissolve the US. Banning guns altogether (rather improbable) will only leave law abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals. More protection in schools could be a starting point to address these awful events. I'm still in favor of law ab…
The evidence in this area shows that increased police presence in schools does not reduce the amount of school shootings, but does increase the number of students arrested.
What if guns were treated similarly to cars? Mandatory training, License w/ renewals, registration w/ renewals, insurance mandatory, yearly inspection mandatory, etc. Personally I feel people should be able to defend themselves while at the same time deterred from stockpiling and accessing mass casualty capable arms.
What if cars were legislated like guns? Mufflers would be illegal. If you are driving between states, you need to check to see if your driver's license is accepted by each state you go through -- and some counties. Adjustable car seats are illegal. Automatic transmissions are illegal. Building your own car would be illegal. If your truck is too short, it's a felony. Unless you call your truck a car, and never put any…
What the GP meant, clearly, was "what if gun users were regulated like car users", e.g. requiring training and a license. IMHO this fits the "part of a well-regulated militia" clause that people always ignore. If I had to guess, this clause was there specifically to prevent unstable people from getting firearms, since your fellow militia members are probably not going to want you if you seem unstable. Social proof is not a bad heuristic, even if it does have obvious failure modes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you are suggesting is illegal. Its illegal to license a right. We shouldn't penalize the hundreds of millions of legal gun owners in the US because we're unable to catch psychopaths before they kill people.
Is it illegal to require licenses for explosives and fully automatic weapons?
As a foreigner I find this subject very complex since the right to bear arms in on the US constitution. To change or "rewrite" the constitution trying to deal with this subject could dissolve the US. Banning guns altogether (rather improbable) will only leave law abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals. More protection in schools could be a starting point to address these awful events. I'm still in favor of law ab…
Is that statement true though? The only person I know who owns a gun is a farmer and he never shot a criminal but wild boars. In the countries I lived(2 Western Europe, 1 Eastern Europe, 1 Middle East) no one I know ever shot at any criminals, any criminals were dealt through the police, we actually never saw the criminals because they avoid the confrontation even if you don't have any arms. The only time I was a victim of a crime where I was confronted by the criminal, it was when a person really high on drugs tried to rob me on a train. I wouldn't be shooting that person anyway, I simply notified the security at the train station and professionals took care of it. The rest of the times the criminals I encountered are usually things like selling me fake SD cards, which is also something I wouldn't shoot people for(though I wouldn't oppose capital punishment for fake media storage).
Is this different in the US? Are people shooting at criminals all the time? Will a JavaScript programmer in Austin be defenceless in the face of the dangers in Texas if they made the guns illegal? What's the situation on the ground? What is the number of criminals shot per year by an average US citizen?
India has 4 times the population of US and I've never heard or read about a school shooting or a mass shooting. There is way worse poverty, mental illness, lawlessness, corruption at every level in India. The only difference is easy access to guns. Not sure why it's so difficult for gun worshippers in US to understand this.
India: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_India China, with knives: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/06/09/china/china-knife-attacks... These things happen everywhere, aren’t necessarily reported in the same way. One part of why they are so prevalent in America is how each event becomes such a cultural focus, half of what I’ve seen on social media has been people posting about this event. Perpetuating t…
How many mass shootings have taken place in the US this year?
10? 20?
Try 213.
243 deaths, 922 injuries.
This month? 44 mass shootings. 61 deaths, 219 injured.
These things don't happen everywhere. They happen here because guns make them easy. People hate facts and so they pretend that everyone has the same problems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s…
We only have more anti-gun-violence activists because we have more gun violence. I forget where we are on the murders per capita scene, but I think we rank somewhere around Uruguay and Cameroon. Great company while pretending to be "the leader of the free world."
I am the furthest thing from a US ultra-patriot who thinks we’re the greatest country in the world, so please don’t ascribe other people’s opinions to me.
Tangent: other than their moderately elevated murder rate, what’s wrong with Uruguay? Is that supposed to be an example of some kind of uniquely shitty country by global standards? (It’s a bad one, if so — Uruguay is a wealthy and highly developed liberal democracy.)
What specifically makes you assume that the US should be doing substantially better than Uruguay or be held to a higher standard?
We need gory pictures from the executed kids everywhere. Until we understand the magnitude of the horror. I look at my FB and see proud gun owners cracking jokes and I really cannot comprehend how it is possible.
I understand the feeling, but I don't think it would work. People would get upset and get even angrier at whoever they already think is to blame, and after a while everyone would become desensitized to it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport." I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. The other policies you mention may be more relevant, but it goes…
> “I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them.” And yet, there does seem to be a strong correlation between “countries with stricter gun control laws” and “countries that have low rates of gun-related deaths and homicides”. Canada has between 6-8X fewer gun fatalities per capita compared to the United States - both homicides and unintentional/accidental…
Finding and fixing the causes of these is a much harder problem. NYC did a lot under Giuliani in Bloomberg to lower their crime in murder rate, but those have started rising again. Chicago hasn't done anything to fix their crime problem in the last 30+ years.
Dealing with gangs and mental health should be topics we are looking at.
Btw: getting rid of guns doesn't stop mass casualty events. The number one mass casualty event in the United States was done with box cutters. The number three was a van full of fertilizer. (The number 2 was a collection of many different weapons and methods)
Edit: if you want to read a good study about mass shootings in the US and their potential causes and statistics around them, check out this: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/public-mass-shootings-da...
It's time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. Yes, if everyone was responsible perhaps it would be OK for all of us to own firearms. But so many people are utterly irresponsible, and guns make that irresponsibility lethal. People should safely store their fire-arms, but they don't and guns get stolen and sold illegally, or used by their teenage child. People shouldn't point a gun…
>People should safely store their fire-arms, but they don't and guns get stolen and sold illegally, or used by their teenage child. This is extraordinarily rare. >People shouldn't point a gun at someone unless their life is in danger and they're prepared to take a life, but they do and people get shot by accident, or road rage turns deadly. Brandishing weapons is illegal in every state and not pointing the muzzle of…
Are you required to know basic gun safety in order to obtain one?