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:(** I feel so sad for what happened in Connecticut**
- Thread starter Springmed1
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Don't bother with him. He's just self-righteous and passive aggressive. Look a few posts back and see how he felt the need to inform me that he was blocking me.woe is me, someone opposes my demeanor on the Internet.
Kinda funny how the gun banning extremists tend to be the more condescending group in this argument. Almost like the same person is posting from different accounts.
Fact of the matter is that we are too far down in the hole with over 300 million guns to make any substantial impact in terms of getting guns out of peoples' hands. If banning alcohol was a flop of a social experiment, what makes people think banning guns, the #1 choice weapon for criminals, will be any more successful?
How about less violent TV? Less violent music? Teaching morals in our schools? We treat life like it's nothing and that violence is the answer. For some reason people don't want to step in these areas of reason to help fix the problem. Just more laws! And people complain the Bible has too many laws 🙄
Fact of the matter is that we are too far down in the hole with over 300 million guns to make any substantial impact in terms of getting guns out of peoples' hands. If banning alcohol was a flop of a social experiment, what makes people think banning guns, the #1 choice weapon for criminals, will be any more successful?
How about less violent TV? Less violent music? Teaching morals in our schools? We treat life like it's nothing and that violence is the answer. For some reason people don't want to step in these areas of reason to help fix the problem. Just more laws! And people complain the Bible has too many laws 🙄
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Intelligent yet expected 👍
Edit: As I said before, condescending nature from extremist gun ban side.
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Is this more of an issue with how kids are raised nowadays as opposed to what the gun laws actually are? My mind thinks about Japan and Canada, 2 places with polar opposite gun control laws, yet both have very low shooting deaths.
I don't know what the right answers are, and I don't believe that you're average citizen needs to own an assault rifle.
I don't know what the right answers are, and I don't believe that you're average citizen needs to own an assault rifle.
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I'm not for banning guns. I just want responsible weapon use that's all. It's a pointless argument really because nothing will change, Americans will remain ignorant and be reluctant to change- unless faced with fight or flight. That's when change comes about.
I don't believe it's useless to invest in educating kids from a young age on safety and common sense. If we can educate our kids with relatively new views that, for example, it's ok to be gay, why can't we educate in other areas of life? We certainly can. We just choose not to.
Things can change. It takes a very long time for them to. It's never going to be instant. Put a frog in hot water and it will jump out. Put a frog in cold water and slowly boil it, and now you have yourself a French cuisine.
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Because the social experiment in Japan has lowered their gun violence death to about 15 a year. Also because the social experiment in Australia has lowered the number of mass shootings and deaths to zero a year when before they has 1 or 2 yearly. Could go on and on.
Violent TV, music and similar morality exists in Canada. They don't have massive shootings like we do. The same goes for almost every industrialized country in the world. Sure, you may point to 1 or 2 here and there, but nothing comes close to 10,000 a year deaths like the US and that 15 out of the 25 greatest massacres happened in the US.
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We already banned big gulps
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If I believed that banning these so- called 'assault rifles' would save the lives of our precious children and other Americans, then I would support it. The problem is, it won't save lives. Every major mass shooting in the last 60 years, with the exception of the 2011 Tucson shooting where Rep. Giffords was shot, have occurred in places where firearms were not allowed. The 1994-2004 assault weapons ban did not prevent columbine, nor did it prevent the 1997 North Hollywood shootout (interestingly, the police were still able to borrow AR-15s from a nearby gun store. Apparently the ban didn't even ban anything. Such is the nature of legislation. Always loopholes.)
Every year, meanwhile, hundreds if not thousands of lives are saved by law-abiding citizens using firearms in self defense. These cases get little to no national media attention.
I do support some gun legislation. Stricter back ground checks, sure. I especially agree with President Obama that we need to close the loophole that allows for guns to be sold at gun shows without the customary background checks. There should be tougher restrictions on the private sale of firearms.
However, I fear that the politicians (Biden) will base new gun policy not on effective, logical steps that will reduce gun violence but on idealogical, irrational anti-gun philosophies that will restrict my human right to defend my self and my loved ones from harm. We will see restrictions on magazines that carry more than ten rounds and worse yet, we will see restrictions on concealed carry rights. These will appease the urbanite left who have no experience with or knowledge of firearms, but will do absolutely nothing to prevent gun violence.
Every year, meanwhile, hundreds if not thousands of lives are saved by law-abiding citizens using firearms in self defense. These cases get little to no national media attention.
I do support some gun legislation. Stricter back ground checks, sure. I especially agree with President Obama that we need to close the loophole that allows for guns to be sold at gun shows without the customary background checks. There should be tougher restrictions on the private sale of firearms.
However, I fear that the politicians (Biden) will base new gun policy not on effective, logical steps that will reduce gun violence but on idealogical, irrational anti-gun philosophies that will restrict my human right to defend my self and my loved ones from harm. We will see restrictions on magazines that carry more than ten rounds and worse yet, we will see restrictions on concealed carry rights. These will appease the urbanite left who have no experience with or knowledge of firearms, but will do absolutely nothing to prevent gun violence.
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Giving the general public easy access to assault rifles and concealed weapon is a funny way to defend your family's right to security. As opposed to actively seeking out weapons capable of such blatant destruction and disarming carriers the solution in your eyes is to make them more accessible... I happen to agree with your position that simply banning assault rifles alone will not do enough good for reasons all ready mentioned but I suppose the ideological snafu of the right to weapon ownership supersedes common sense and public safety.
To me it sounds just as logical as arguing the only way to keep people safe from anthrax is to ensure that more people have the right to acquire anthrax.
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This just shows how you and I represent two totally different world views. As I said before, hundreds of cases occur each year in which people successfully use their weapons in self defense. It is not hard to imagine a situation where having a gun could prevent others from doing bodily harm. I have a cousin who is a police officer. While off duty, he was driving down the street and came to a stop light when someone attempted to carjack him. He was armed with a .357 magnum revolver. Just by pointing it at the perpetrator he was able to prevent himself from becoming a victim of crime, without even firing a single shot. Should only police officers be afforded that kind of personal protection? What if it had been me? What if my wife and child had been in the car? Should I be stripped of any right to protect myself?
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If international cross comparison of violent crime rates between developed nation's with stringent gun control laws showed that there was a significant increase in violent crimes committed then there would be validity to that argument but it's the opposite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
All easy access to guns is create more problems where if any successful self-defense solution does present itself, as the one with your cousin, it is a solution to a problem that is created by such access. Not saying that people with guns can't genuinely defend themselves but I am saying that if you peruse the numbers you'd realize that it's preposterously ineffective and has a net effect of increasing the violence it is meant to deter.
And then of course there are the crazy people who 'defend' themselves while murdering an innocent person in the process as in this unfortunate case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin
Sadly, I think Zimmerman is going to walk.
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What assault rifles are you talking about?
The thing that gets me is that I think people are having a knee jerk reaction to the term "assault rifle" without really knowing what they are talking about.
I'm interested in knowing what you refer to here.
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You assume that any violent act from which a law-abiding citizen would defend his/herself would be committed with a gun. No gun control law in the world would have prevented the attack in the following situation. They might, however, have disarmed the citizen who put a stop to the attack.
http://fox13now.com/2012/04/26/two-stabbed-in-downtown-slc-parking-lot/
Again, this incident drew no national attention.
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Totally. I'm referring to weapons that are perfectly legal for purchase such as this little number:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/12/19...wtown-shooting-a-lightning-rod-in-gun-debate/
Not fully-automatic but has no practical uses aside from maximizing the number of casualties a person is able to inflict within a set amount of time.
The guy at Connecticut never used this weapon but I find it adorable that anyone would think that letting things like this flood the market is a good idea.
Also, read my response above. I don't think banning assault weapons alone is enough nor necessarily practical. Frankly, I think the idea is the spawn of capitulation, PR and politicians in general not having the balls to take on the antiquated notion that an armed nation is a safe nation.
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I'm not assuming anything. I gave you credit for the fact that an armed citizen *could* defend her/himself but I also cited numbers that suggest that trying to flood a nation with weapons in an attempt to keep its citizens safe is counterproductive and dangerous. You're ultimately arguing that the some abstract ideological precedent to carry weapons trumps proven methods that ultimately reduce violent crime and death rates from such crimes. The only justification you offer to counter it is that there are times when people escape violent situations through more violence which does not address the fact that violent crime involving guns in this country is still appallingly high in comparison to others.
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Excellent, I was hoping you'd mention the bushmaster.
OK so here's the thing. This is a semi-automatic rifle, and the only thing that makes it an "assault-rifle" is the design of the gun. It's got rails for accessory attachment (scopes, flashlights etc) You must realize that there are plenty of rifles at any sporting goods stores that use similar ammunition and are semi-automatic, but have wood stocks and no pistol-grip that nobody would bat an eye at right? This gun was no different than any other semi-auto hunting rifle with the exception of it's looks and perhaps the capacity of it's magazines.
Take a look at this one for example:
http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/g...les-big-game-hunting?photo=18#node-1001350874
It's a perfectly legitimate hunting rifle that nobody thinks looks scary. I've even seen them in .30-06 which is a scarily powerful round that's used to kill large game animals like Elk or Moose. It's also a popular sniper round.
You also realize that the most dangerous weapon for shootings like this is your typical semi-automatic handgun right? They are easy to conceal, have equal rates of fire to that rifle, and use ammunition that's build with human targets in mind. They are also much more maneuverable in tight spaces.
Nobody uses handguns (with very few exceptions) to hunt game. They are designed for personal defense, military, and law-enforcement use.
And you are wrong, the killer at Sandy Hook did use the bushmaster. The ME reported that each child had been shot multiple times with a .223 rifle.
But that's neither here nor there. The rifle he selected has very little to do with this situation, and it has nothing to do with why he decided to do what he did. He could just as easily selected a shotgun, a revolver, a bolt action rifle, or a fully automatic assault rifle the end result would have been similar (innocent children shot and killed).
I think that we do need to have a discussion about gun control in our country. But banning semi-automatic rifles because they "look scary" is just reactionary. Especially when most people don't know the first thing about these guns, only that they look like the one's the bad guys use in movies.
As far as I'm concerned, we need to get to the root of the issue and decide why it is that middle class white boys are the overwhelming majority of people who commit these types of shootings. And we need to eliminate whatever it is that's leading these boys to do this from our society. We also need to get better (or learn in the first place) at identifying warning signs for this type of violence.
I happen to know that semi-automatic assault rifles don't have the ability to cause young white males to become murderous lunatics. I also happen to know that these types of shootings are extremely uncommon among say; african-american youth. Why is that? What is it about disenfranchised, awkward, white males that leads to this type of event?
Because we can ban guns all day, and I guarantee you that the next thing will be a rash of school bombings (it was already attempted near my hometown a year or so ago).
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The problem with gun violence is not only when mass shootings happen, although you've forgotten the Fort Hood Shooting and the assassination of JFK. Legal ownership of weapons has been linked to illegal gun violence. Many guns are "stolen" or "lost" which end up in crimes, such as Sandy Hook Elementary or in the ghetto. Legal ownership is also linked to violence. Having a gun at home makes it more likely that you'll shoot a loved one or being used against you than defending yourself.
You're also cherry picking the assault weapons ban. When it "didn't work to prevent Columbine" you call it a point in your favor. Then you go to say the legislation didn't work so legislation on guns doesn't work. You can't have it both ways. If the law was too weak, the problem was the law and not that gun control doesn't work. Besides, you'd expect benefits over time because it kept assault weapons from being sold at that time while grandfathering those before it.
Yet in places like Japan they don't need to have "thousands of lives saved by law-abiding citizens using firearms" because gun violence is nearly null, but you're discounting the thousands of times when guns didn't save law-abiding citizens, as with Adam Lanza's mother.
Good, most people, including your "urbanite left" support the gun legislation you talk about, although I find it fascinating how now you think that legislation would work after you argue that it never does throughout the paragraph.
If you want to defend yourself and your family, go learn martial arts, buy a tranquilizer gun, use a stun gun, put better alarm systems at home, but for the love of god, don't buy a gun because every statistic shows you're more likely to hurt yourself, your loved ones or have it used against you.
Your fear is nothing more than fear. You may believe that the "urbanite left" doesn't understand firearms. Well, we think that you don't, but difference is that we're working from data showing consequences of gun control internationally whereas you have a conclusion and are working backward to cherry pick "facts" that support your claims.
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I asked you about what you meant by banning assault weapons, specifically which weapons you mean when you say "assault weapons". I then went on to point out that what you call an assault weapon is nothing more than a semi-automatic rifle with different dressing. There are plenty of semi-auto hunting rifles that pack more of a punch with a similar function and rate of fire than a .223 yet nobody thinks of them when talking gun ban. They just want to ban the ones that look scary. I'm just saying that people who don't know much about guns are hardly qualified to say which ones should be banned. It just looks reactionary to point to the bushmaster and say "guns like this one are unnecessary" when it's functionally identical to many hunting rifles.
And I'm not even sure that what you're thinking is entirely wrong. These weapons resemble those that are used in movies and TV to kill large amounts of people. It is no coincidence that young folks would seek them out when deciding to go on a shooting spree. But why are they deciding to kill in the first place? Isn't that the most important question to address?
I don't know where you think I misread your post. I'm merely pointing out a minor flaw in your logic.
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Self defense is such a lame excuse for owning weapon. And to whoever said it "saves" 100s of lives is very ignorant. A family is 10x more likely to be killed by a gun if they own a gun. Having a weapon in a situation where you are threatened only increases the risk of danger. It's common sense. If someone is robbing your home, a bank etc and they have a gun with them- they feel they have power. They do not feel threatened. It's when people try to hit or shoot at them that bad things start to happen. Most people committing crimes aren't looking to murder someone in the process.
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One other thing really bothers me about cases like this. Why do people feel the need to give thanks to *extra* thanks to Police and EMS during times like these? It's not like they prevented anything. They showed up after the fact and did their job just like any other day. Is anyone else not bothered by the mass media agenda intertwined with these tragedies?
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I didn't intend for it to read as though banning 'scary guns' (i.e. assault weapons) is a panacea for violent crime. I find it to be a step in the right direction but as everyone has pointed out the numbers don't suggest these are the weapons of choice.
Presenting people with the means to kill large numbers of people only increases the odds that they will be successful at it. The reasoning behind why they kill is obviously important to tackle too, obviously, but it's impossible to argue that every single would be killer could be averted.
I would actually be much more relieved with a concealed weapons ban over an assault rifle ban but both would be better if it were up to me. That doesn't mean no hunting rifles, nor turkey bows blah, blah, blah just no more high capacity magazines, automatic rifles nor concealed hand guns which are designed to be much more effective tools for killing people in comparison to baseball bats, knives and the like.
Ultimately the numbers speak much louder than rhetoric ever could anyway. I view this whole debate to center around whether people should continue to delude themselves or whether abstract ideology trumps public safety.
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There is a concealed weapons ban in both Illinois and in Washigton DC. Yep, and no one ever conceals any weapons in those places. Why is it that people think you can stop something from happening by making it illegal?
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Stupid smartphone. Nevermind.
