Social Media Is The Easy Scapegoat For Politicians Who Don’t Want To Deal With Actual Problems
from the scapegoats-are-not-good-policymaking dept
The recent mass murders in Buffalo and Uvalde are sickening, horrifying, and extraordinarily frustrating. And part of that is because, as The Onion keeps having to point out, we live in a world where the underlying message is: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.
And that is the most frustrating part of this. There are ways to deal with this. But they’re politically infeasible. Democrats focus on what appear to be pretty basic gun control concepts, around background checks, and putting at least some limits on the more extreme weapons out there (i.e., the ones favored in many of these mass murders). Republicans politicians (though, bizarrely, not the actual voters, outside of a few extremes) refuse to even consider any kind of gun laws. At all.
Republican talking points have focused on mental health. And, clearly, that is an issue. But it also raises the question: why aren’t Republicans then in favor of better, more readily available, mental healthcare for everyone? Or, even more to the point, why are Republicans, who say they’re concerned about mental healthcare, unwilling to consider gun laws that might keep guns out of the hands of those who are at risk of committing a mass murder?
And, Democrats, being feckless and incompetent as always, take all of their talking points and focus by letting Republicans frame the debate entirely, always on the defensive, and rarely, if ever, making even the slightest attempt to frame things in a positive manner. It’s always just pushing back on Republican’s and their dishonest framing.
Both parties deserve each other, but neither seems to want to explore actual solutions.
And thus, they’re converging on the same nonsense: blame social media.
We saw it in New York, where it’s now clear there were multiple levels of government failings that contributed to the situation in Buffalo, but where the Governor and the Attorney General have decided it was easier to blame social media than to tackle the real issues related to a racist teenager deciding to commit mass murder.
And, now we’re seeing people trying to do the same regarding the equally horrifying mass murder (of children!) in Texas. US Senate candidate from Georgia, Herschel Walker, (who is not exactly known for coherently talking about anything) went on TV to argue that the answer can’t be taking away 2nd Amendment rights, but should be taking away 1st Amendment rights.
In that video he says:
What we need to do is look into how we can stop those things. You talk about doing the disinformation. What about getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at social media. What about doing that? Looking into things like that? And we can stop things that way. Yet they want to just continue to talk about taking away your Constitutional rights…
News flash, Herschel: a department that is looking into the speech of people also is taking away constitutional rights. It’s the first one. The one before the one you’re talking about.
But, even if you want to dismiss that as Herschel Walker being Herschel Walker, there are more serious conversations that seem to want to keep pointing the finger at social media as well. The Washington Post, for example, has a story covering both mass murders with the title: As young gunmen turn toward new social networks, old safeguards fail. And again, it seems to want to suggest there’s some sort of blame here:
Both the Uvalde, Texas, shooter and the one in Buffalo, used a combination of disappearing video-app Snapchat, Instagram direct messages, chat-app Discord and social-app Yubo to meet people and share their violent plans with acquaintances. In the case of the Buffalo shooting, the gunman also used video streaming platform Twitch to publicize his deadly attack.
These apps are communications apps. People communicate with them. It’s weird to blame the tools for the actual communications, but that always seems to be the focus.
And, to some extent, I understand the psychological reasons for this. The framing of the debate means actual solutions are off the table. I mean, anyone who even mentions guns is accused of “politicizing” tragedy. So, it’s easy as a kind of venting to focus anger and blame on the tech industry at a moment when the media narrative has been already beating up on that industry from every direction. So why not just blame mass murder on it as well?
To be clear, I actually think the meat of the Washington Post article is fairly balanced, and it includes comments from smart people highlighting that these services have been mostly incredibly powerful in useful ways for people. But, it just feels like the frustration about not being able to do anything about the bigger issues — guns and mental health — means everyone is converging on the current favorite punching bag: social media.
Filed Under: blame, gun control, mass murder, mental health, school shootings, social media
Comments on “Social Media Is The Easy Scapegoat For Politicians Who Don’t Want To Deal With Actual Problems”
Discord didn’t make the kid shoot up a school
Instagram didn’t pass the law that let the kid purchase a gun when he turned 18
the tools aren’t to blame – the violence-glorifying culture of America is
Re: Do we actually want solutions?
I’ve been doing a bunch of research and discussion on this topic. There are a few strong contributing factors that I (and others) have identified. First, there is an extremely strong correlation between lead exposure and violent crime, with about a 20/21 year lag. A mother’s exposure to elevated lead levels will have detrimental effects on at least the next three generations, so even though lead exposure has diminished greatly since around 1975, we’re still seeing second and third order effects. Some of those living in poverty may still be experiencing first order effects.
Second, there is a strong correlation between economic disparity and violent crime, across all nations of the world, regardless of the legality or availability of weapons. Globally and in the US, economic disparity is at record levels and only getting worse. The economically challenged have less hope than ever of breaking out of their financial trap, and there’s little more dangerous than a human who feels they have nothing to lose. Improve people’s lives enough that they have hope, and much of this violence will go away.
Third, are social media echo chambers, clickbait extremist propaganda, and disinformation. The media is in it for the money, and things that cause outrage sell. We (collective) are literally paying the media to make people angry. An overdose of anger then leads to lashing out in one form or another.
Fourth, there is a high cost to getting mental help. Both financially, and in social credit. Even among those who can afford to buy mental help, they risk being ostracized, and potentially losing job opportunities and even constitutional rights. Creating options for cheap or free confidential mental health help could have a dramatic impact.
Fifth, the data shows, at least in the US, that most violent crime is committed with stolen weapons. These weapons are stolen from homes and from cars. A program to give vouchers for gun safes to the economically challenged could help the theft from homes, while changing the laws that cause people to leave their guns in their cars could help reduce theft from cars; parking lots at “gun free” zones are hot targets.
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I’m fine with addressing the root causes of poverty and social desperation, which breed the kind of violence that the U.S. can’t seem to deal with these days. Fund it all, spare no expense.
But gun control would sure as shit help, too. Background checks, lifetime limits on the amount of guns someone can own, limits on what kinds of guns can be sold to civilians (no civilian needs to own a fucking weapon of war), raised prices on ammunition, firearms licensing with mandatory training in firearms safety, routine mental and physical health checks (e.g., drug tests)—all of that would do wonders towards curbing gun violence.
The Second Amendment is a relic from a different age. Fuck anyone who still holds it up as basically the word of God. Gun ownership should be a privilege and healthcare should be a human right instead of the other way around.
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We already have background checks. Every mass shooter I’ve looked up either passed a background check, in which case the background check didn’t help, or they acquired their gun illegally, in which case the background check didn’t help.
There is no gun show loophole; I don’t know the last time you went to a gun show, but you need an FFL to sell at one, which means you need to run background checks.
A limit on the number of guns owned wouldn’t help one bit; how many guns does one need for a mass shooting?
Weapons of war are already illegal. I cannot go out and buy a full auto M-16 or M-4 (except on the black market), which are the current issue weapons of war. AR-15’s are not weapons of war.
If you raise the price on ammunition, that means only the wealthy can afford to train and practice. So when poorer people try to defend themselves they will be less effective, and more likely to shoot bystanders. But yes, the primary purpose of gun control is to disarm the poor; the wealthy and connected will always be armed.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that we could wave a magic wand and make the hundreds of millions of civilian owned guns in the US disappear. What stops people from making more? I can make a functioning firearm in 15 minutes with $10 of materials and a a hand drill. Not exaggerating. It wouldn’t be great, but it would be lethal. If I spend a couple days on it I can make something equivalent to the evil “assault weapons” being villainized. I can 3D print magazines in any capacity, so magazine size limits are useless too.
If you ever find yourself thinking that gun control could possibly work, just scroll to the bottom of this page:
https://homemadeguns.wordpress.com/
Re: Re: Re:2 If you ever find yourself thinking that gun control could possibly work
Just visit any other country on the planet.
You are a fucking nut job, mate. You’re the headline on The Onion: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
You are the reason those young children are dead. Until you work that out this shit is on repeat.
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To be fair, sane countries with sane gun laws have next to zero gun violence (including suicides).
They also have better societies that recognize SOME basic rigjts.
But I wouldn’t say repeal the Second Amendment just yet. Trump and the Republicans are a big reason why.
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And whose supporters are the most ardent supporters of the second amendment, and most likely to use them to gain power.
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Trump and the republicans are a symptom, not a cause. We have a dem leadership who is openly hostile to its base the same way Trump is openly hostile to the US, and dems are unable to pass legislation or vote in lockstep the same way the republican base does. It’s a “ratchet effect” in US politics (though not only here): GOP moves ratchet to the right, Dems prevent movement to the left.
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No carrying a loaded gun outside of ranges and hunting grounds would help to start to change the US’s gun culture away from guns being everyday tools of self protection.
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No, but the US Congress passed a law that puts guns into the hands of 18 year olds will-they/nil-they. A law that was used in many of our lifetimes.
Wake me up with that changes.
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I honestly believe social media in general is causing a lot of this. From constant dehumanization of “the other” to easily accessible violent content on sites like Reddit (burned out Russian bodies, pictures of tortured/raped/killed women girls, etc etc) that anybody can easily access without restrictions (so easy a kid can in fact).
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This started long before social media.
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True, but it has gotten a lot worse since social media became popular.
Practically every household had a gun in 1900, but we didn’t have this issue. It was also possible for a single full time unskilled job to support a family. People need hope; take that hope away and they become desperate and dangerous.
Regarding another case:
Social Media Is The Easy Scapegoat For Parents Who Don’t Want To Actually Deal With Their Children’s Problems
Just sayin’.
Oh, I certainly blame social media
It is a major channel where people consume the stuff that they build into some victim philosophy.
The problem is that social media is a reflection of society. And it’s a problem if every nutjob is able to find their personal echo chamber for amplifying crap by throwing it back and forth and adding new crap (just like a laser amplifies photons) until it bursts out.
The only way social media can both be functional and not dysfunctional is by moderation: enough crap has to get drained and not reflected to avoid the terminal buildup.
Now particularly the problem from the MAGA-Republican side is that they want to blame every consequence on social media while at the same time they don’t want to see any moderation on the crap they inject into the system.
They want their cake, they want to eat it too, and they want to shit on the head of the baker and tell them they stink.
Yes, the massive dissemination of both centralised and non-centralised “information” and the resulting effects on mass psychology are a real problem and reached a new dimension during two World Wars that focused populations via radio broadcasts.
It is a really big problem of our times how to maturely approach the potential and dangers of an age of unprecedented dissemination of content (which can be all of information, disinformation, fiction, and thought).
It’s nonsensical to assume that a First Amendment from the 18th century will be all we’ll ever need to surmount this challenge of a new age. And it is pathetic to think that the solution to this (and most other) emerging problems is going to be fingerpointing.
Instead of developing robust mechanisms and frameworks that will keep content amplification from resulting in recurring catastrophes, politicians try finding people to blame for progress.
Apropos solutions from the 18th century applying to the 21st century: the Second Amendment obviously also does not apply to the same situation now than it did then.
Politicians really need to pull their collective heads out of the long-rotten ass of James Madison and work on keeping the Constitution a framework that makes sense for dealing with the emerging problems of the present.
Instead of focusing on finding more and more scapegoats for the discrepancy between 18th and 21st century. Social media and mass media provide problems of unprecedented scale, and problems need solutions and strategies rather than culprits.
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You mean means like Putin uses to support the fiction he is not at war, but rather liberating Ukraine?
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Well, nobody could accuse you of being an echo chamber here.
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The problems present on social media and mass media are nothing more than our societal problems. There were plenty of mass murders before social media, and to blame it now, well, is just plane ignorant of the underlying societal issues and history.
Getting rid of social media will not fix the deep rooted societal issues.
Twitter can disappear tomorrow and there will still be another mass shooting. Why? Because of easy access to guns, not social media.
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Getting rid of the resonator in a LASER will not get rid of the photons, either. But the quality of the discharge is entirely different.
Re: Re: For want of the Some Asshole Initiative...
Twitter can disappear tomorrow and there will still be another mass shooting. Why? Because of easy access to guns, not social media.
Media channels ensuring that anyone who shoots up a bunch of people will have their name and face aired constantly for days at a time, giving them the sort of fame that you normally have to be rich and/or famous to get probably doesn’t help.
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And do more harm to society by eliminating all the good things that come from it, and rarely make the news. Small business support networks, and various creative cooperation all rely on social networks, but fly under the radar as people only find them by looking.
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We have had easy access to guns since the founding of our country and school shootings are a relatively new phenomenon historically speaking.
What IS relatively new is how easily anybody, including children, can go on social media like Reddit and see dehumanization of “the other”. It’s too easy to go on sites, again like Reddit, and see a constant flood of burned out bodies, tortured and dead women, etc etc. Our youth are becoming desensitized to atrocities.
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Rights don’t become obsolete. The chronological snobbery forgets the definition of obsolete in the first place – you need the better solution first. We have heard this nonsensical accusation before and the proclaimer inevitably produces an authoritarian hellhole which falls apart within a single lifetime at very best while the “obsolete” lead the world.
The cry of the politician looking for a soundbite
‘Something Must Be Done*!!’
*So long as it doesn’t negatively impact any rich and/or powerful donors/figures.
You're WRONG with Herschel Walker
He is a senatorial hopeful.
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Well, in light of the quote it’s probably safe to state “some kind of full”.
easy to blame apps. because apps are easy to regulate or ban. not so with guns. then it is a people problem and nothing can be done.
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The actual kind of tool is much less important than the efficiency with which it allows wide and fast redistribution of content.
That we don’t have the lag of communication inherent to carrier pigeons and riding messengers makes a vast difference to what kind of society emerges under whose control and how conflicts arise and get resolved.
Blaming an individual tool rather than wrapping one’s head around what the technological advances imply for society is a futile exercise.
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Pardon me, sir. I’d like a word with you about that…
Isn’t all news done the onion style now?
I can’t tell anymore.
Social Media doesn’t propose laws or pass laws.
The fuckheads blaming social media are supposed to.
If you think they will do something this time about the dead, have you not been paying attention?
1,000,000 people died while some pretended covid wasn’t a thing and while we have a buncha dead kids its not up to a million yet & hey forced birth will replace those lost kids so that they can keep sucking on the teat of the NRA.
Your rights do not allow you to leave a bodycount in your wake, and if you are okay with blocking anything that might slow down your right to put a clip into a deer in 15 seconds you need to explain how a background check or waiting period is to much vs dead kids.
We aren’t coming for your fucking weapons, even if every mass shooting gets you to purchase even more of them increasing the supply of weapons that can end up in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.
The newest idea is to turn schools into fucking prisons with man trapping gates and controlled doors. Because spending millions to build more prisons is a better answer than background checks & closing loop holes that allow cities to be flooded with straw purchased weapons.
Why does Congress get better security than our children do? Most of them are old and useless and those born fetuses might grow up to be something worthwhile.
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“& hey forced birth will replace those lost kids”
Just answer this question: Which is more important, a woman’s convenience or a human life?
No caveats or qualifications, no “this, but…” answers. Just one of the two above options.
Oh, and until you’ve actually witnessed an abortion (especially an ultrasound one) or accepted the accounts of those who have and the many, many doctors and nurses who’ve left the abortion industry because of it (and it IS an industry, their profits are what really push the pro-“choice” movement) then you can’t really understand the issue and are supporting a brutal procedure that often involves dismemberment, a procedure that an overwhelming majority of women refuse to go through once they actually see an ultrasound of their baby.
Are you so invested in your online persona that you can’t take any challenges to your worldview or ever admit you may have been wrong about something you thought you believed in? Is saving face in front of the others here more important to you?
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I do so love how you attempt to denigrate the whole thing by framing it a matter of convenience, as if women are getting abortions because it would just be such a bother spending nine months pregnant with all the medical and other costs associated with that, giving birth with all those costs and then dealing with either the extensive costs of raising a kid or offloading them to the adoption system.
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Women can’t survive ectopic pregnancies, and the SCOTUS is going to uphold a law that bans that.
It is you who doesn’t respect life.
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If you frame abortions as a convenience issue I can only surmise that you are a liar – and that means any thing you say are suspect.
Take your lies somewhere else you fucking vulture.
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Only amoral garbage would push such murderous lies.
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Remember: The only murders that have ever happened at abortion clinics were of the innocent doctors killed in cold blood by fundamentalist terrorist zealots.
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“especially an ultrasound one)”
Uhh bro, ultrasounds are a method of visualisation. So come back once you get your terminology straight bro.
The simple fact is social media is holding a mirror to society both for good and for ill. We had mass shootings before social media and would continue to if it all vanished tomorrow because the underlying problem would still be there and all social media does is shine a light on it.
But none of our elected representatives are interested in solving the core issue because then they wouldn’t be able to keep campaigning on solving them so they need a scapegoat and it’s a macrocosm of what happens in tech when people point out problems. THEY SHOOT THE MESSENGER.
That’s all this is in hindsight. Scapegoating and shooting the messenger which is in this case social media.
Only tools try to ban tools.
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If my child hits another child with a stick, I’ll give them a stern telling-off.
And I’ll take away the stick.
They're Also Blaming Video Games
The Texan police have been floating all sorts of theories to deflect blame from themselves. Just today, I saw reports that they are already trying to blame video games shortly after suggesting that the shooting was probably the fault of the teachers.
I think the police, in this case, are shotgun blasting every possible scapegoat they can find and trying to see what sticks. At this point, if they blame DnD campaigns and The Twist as well, I’ll probably be able to stand up and shout “Bingo!”
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Well as its come out they lied about the narrative & stood by as more children died they need a hail mary at this point.
There is no "debate"
You repeatedly mention “framing the debate” and speak of the Democrat’s inability to engage.
There is no real debate about gun control.
The Republicans just feed the wannabe cowboys some red meat and they vote like Pavlov’s dogs.
The Democrats don’t even have to change anyone’s mind. Most polls show that a majority favors reasonable gun control. But they’re not passionate about it, and not enough of those folks vote.
Perhaps you mean getting folks in favor of gun control to outvote the folks who believe that guns equal liberty. That’d be good, but debate isn’t the answer.
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Therein lies the problem: Both sides and the media want to act as if there is a debate—as if gun control can “go too far” in light of the Second Amendment. They also frame this shit as a debate as if doing so will somehow appease the ammosexuals who own a dozen guns and shitloads of bullets and shotgun shells. After all, if our elected leaders endlessly “debate” gun control, none of them will ever do anything.
And another classroom will be shot up. And another grocery store. And another mall. And another theater. And another concert. And another public place where we once felt safe, and another, and another, and another, until every day becomes a question of “do I want to risk my life by going out in public today”.
Gun control will save lives. Hell, gun control did save lives—until Republicans blocked the assault rifle ban from being renewed. Anyone who wants to debate the point can rightfully be told to fuck off.
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Statistically the previous AWB did nothing to curb gun violence. To this day the worst mass shooting in American history was done with a handgun. The AR15 is the most common rifle in America because it’s lightweight, reliable, effective for home defense (less penetration through dry-wall than a shotgun or even a 9MM handgun), and even the smallest woman can easily handle it. It’s semi-automatic. Like 90% of all firearms on the civilian market.
We’re not banning it, you’re not getting another AWB, and we’re not gutting the 2A because somebody did something bad.
I want more complete background checks including an expansion of NICS so the general public can use it.
The only outcome, amd thus logically the only reason sfor supporting – opposition to legal abortion is to increase needless death amd suffering. Everyone pushi
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ng to make abortion illegal is a murderous, subhuman monster.
Only a complete idiot would delusionally believe there’s anything at all “pro-life” about that fascist eugenics movement.
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Christians to the lions!
Newspapers are cynical opportunists
If it involves a sponsor expect kid gloves. If it involves a perceived rival then the knives come out and the target is responsible for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby, Hitler’s rise to power, and making teens sullen and rebellious.
I’m a strong advocate of the 2A and am near 40 years old. I don’t blame guns for what’s happening around our country but I do blame the people using the guns.
In terms of history – school shootings are a relatively new phenomenon. I was still in High School when Columbine happened. I remember that day vividly because I was relatively close to it as I went to school at the time a district over.
I do believe social media contributes to this. For a basic example I can go on Reddit, go to the Ukraine sub-reddit, and I can see photos and videos of Russian soldiers dying horrifically. I’ve seen bodies burned, the dead tortured bodies of women and young girls, etc etc. My point is I see this as an adult and I know how to mentally handle it. Children do not.
And images and videos like this, indeed gore and such in general, is readily accessible to anybody with a cell phone regardless of age. So straight up any juvenile with a cell phone can see the same type of content. And its not a one off its routine. Pretty much throughout social media graphic and horrendous content is easily accessible without controls. And I believe that this is a core contributor to desensitization to atrocities, death, etc.
What we’re facing in a mental health problem nationally and multiple factors are contributing to it.
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People in every country have mental health issues. The United States is the only industralized country where people who supposedly have mental health issues use guns to kill people in elementary schools and grocery stores and theaters and other public gathering spots on a regular basis.
Gun bans may only treat a symptom of the twin diseases of the American obsession with violence and the poverty and desperation that create the conditions for rampant violence. But as the assault rifle ban (and its eventual repeal) proved, treating that symptom will save a lot of lives.
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Statistically speaking the former AWB did very little to cut down on gun crime. The worst mass shooting in our history was done with a handgun. Furthermore there is no functional difference between an AR15 and every other semi-automatic rifle ever built. 90% of the firearms on the civilian market are semi-automatic. The AR15 is the most popular because it’s reliable, light weight, shoots a caliber that’s great for home defense (.223) as it has less penetration than a 9MM handgun, and can be easily wielded by the largest man and smallest woman.
We’re not banning the most common rifle made. Full stop. We’re not doing it.
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The frequency and fatality rates of mass casualty shootings both rose exponentially after the ban was repealed. But sure, tell me how making sure people can’t get their hands on the AR-15—the weapon of choice for mass shooters as of late—will do nothing to help stem some of the gun violence in this country. Are you going to press for “door control” next?
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I do believe that we can harden our schools and that it can be done in a non-intrusive way. I also believe that to do it correctly would basically require every school nationally be rebuilt from the ground up with the correct design philosophy, proper architectural considerations, and a full embrace of technologies common in corporate and industrial applications. These school shootings could be made impossible, without attacking guns, but would require a major economic investment. Student ID’s are a thing, RFID controlled access is a thing, bulletproof doors that are indistinguishable from a normal door, single access point man-traps (common in data center applications), multiple exit points, curved hallways, etc. It CAN be done. Ironically we could improve public education this way too by embracing new technologies baked in.
We also need to pass a stand alone be bull that funds and enhances mental healthcare. The problem is, at least in the gun community, that people fear seeking any form of mental healthcare less they risk losing their basic right to self-defense due to the way the laws are written.
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Right, right, and…uh, where in that plan of yours do you make room for gun control? I mean, your whole idea of rebuilding every school in the nation from the ground up to effectively turn them into prisons might sound nice and all, but how do you plan to keep people from shooting up the schools that aren’t yet rebuilt according to your obviously flawless plan?
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Would you consider a corporate building that has controlled access “a prison”? Would you consider secure buildings a prison?
Prisons keep people locked in. Castles keep people out. You want to make our schools extreme difficult for unauthorized people to enter and extremely easy for the people inside to get out.
Turn our schools into Castles. Not prisons.
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Whether you call a building a prison or a castle is missing the point, in either case you build walls and add a lot of physical security instead of actually addressing the real problem. You solutions is just a stupid band-aid for the symptom instead of actually addressing the root cause.
Also, if it gets harder for shooters to get into schools they will go elsewhere or just wait outside when the school-day ends. We are talking about irrational people but that doesn’t mean they are stupid.
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I don’t know what to tell you. I am willing to invest the money to rebuild the educational institutions. To harden them; to be make them safer. I have two little girls and my worst fear is that something like this happens to them at their school.
That said – I will not permit our Government, not ever, to have a total monopoly on force. I will not trade my right, or the right of others, for a false pretense of security. We’re not repealing our Second Amendment. We’re not going to turn firearm ownership, the right to self-defense, into a State approved privilege. We’re never going to give up our guns, or our right to own said guns, not ever.
We are NEVER going to stop every mass shooting. Unfortunately our freedoms are paid for in blood. They have been and will continue to be. We live in a violent world and evil exists. As long as that holds true disarmament isn’t even open to discussion.
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The interesting thing about your stance is that others have the same stance and their weapons have been used in shootings. Oh, statistically speaking your daughters have a 50% increased chance of getting shot because you have firearms in your home..
But you aren’t even trying. Fortifying schools is just like patching one hole in the plumbing when there are leaks everywhere rotting the building out through and through. When you are literally willing to pay for your rights with the blood of innocent children something is seriously wrong – some would call that being fanatic, letting others die because of your belief.
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Well we’re fortunate to an extent. Our two girls go to a private school that takes their safety seriously. My wife and I are exploring the possibility of bringing them into a home schooling environment but we haven’t made a decision yet. Obviously she would probably have to sacrifice her career to do it (which I’m okay with if that’s what she wants – I like the idea of my wife being a housewife).
We own a safe, my wife and I keep our firearms locked up, and we have also eliminated the “curiosity” factor of our children by letting them handle and shoot the firearms. Obviously gun safety is part of that. We take them to the shooting range with us every other weekend and we let them practice on a .22 (our youngest just got her first BB gun). Eventually when they’re older they’ll graduate into higher calibers.
Our rights were purchased by the blood of innocents, have been routinely paid for in the blood of innocents, and will continue to be paid for the same way. My rights are more important. My freedoms are more important. It’s cold. But it’s the truth.
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Whose rights—and which rights—were secured by the lives of the 19 children killed in Uvalde, Texas last week? How much of a comfort do you believe your assertion would be to the families who will soon be burying children? How much of a comfort do you believe your assertion will be to the families of the next group of victims of an inevitable mass casualty shooting at a school?
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I don’t have an answer for you. All I have are potential solutions.
We will never agree to fundamentally weaken or alter our 2nd Amendment rights any further. As we’ve been shown time and time again every single time we compromise on an issue that same compromise eventually becomes a ‘loophole’.
Our 2nd Amendment is here to stay. We will never surrender our firearms. We will never shut up and stop fighting for our civil liberties. Even if sometimes the cost of that civil liberty is immeasurable. Our right to self-defense, both in our own homes and from the State should it ever become necessary, is well established through historical and legal precedent. We’re citizens of the State, not subjects to the State.
We must do everything we can within the constrains of our Constitution in order to limit such events.
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Owning an AR-15 won’t stop the state if it wants to kill you with a drone.
Re: Re: Re:12
True. But you can’t control a population with a drone, tank, or plane. Controlling a population requires people, with guns, on the ground. Those same people are susceptible to bullets. Specifically bullets from those who don’t want to be controlled. Say, for example, an insurgency. God forbid one ever became necessary in this country. May that day never come.
Re: Re: Re:13
I mean, depending on the drone, it’d be pretty easy, actually.
Re: Re: Re:3
And what do you do to protect the kids on the school bus, use IFVs for transporting children?
Hardening the schools is tackling the wrong problem, which is despair in parts of society driven by the extreme imbalance in wealth.
Re: Re: Re:3
So, I guess you want to ‘harden’ all the mosques, synagogues and churches, not forgetting the cinemas, theatres and shopping malls as well eh? After all, mass shootings have happened in all these places.
All because of a minority of the population, mostly republican from what I’ve seen, throw a tantrum if they can’t play with their toys?
Re: Re: Re:4
Guns here in America are not going anywhere. There are already more firearms in circulation than there are people and no law will change that. Too many people like me who will NEVER give up their firearms and will resist, violently if necessary, to prevent their confiscation.
I’m willing to accept licensing and registration IF that includes firearm training, a national CCW training standard and a Federally-issued CCW permit that is valid in ALL states and locales. Paid for at tax-payer expense (otherwise it comes out as a poll tax which is unconstitutional).
I’m willing to discuss raising the age to buy a semi-automatic rifle or semi-automatic handgun with detachable magazines to 21 provided that hunting rifles, shotguns, and revolvers remain legal for the 18+ crowd.
I’m willing to enhance the background check system. Open NICS to the general public.
There are areas where I am, personally, willing to compromise. The problem is that any compromise we make today equals tomorrows loophole.
Back to my original point however. We need to invest the money, whatever the financial burden will be, to fortify any place where our children gather. To make it difficult, if not outright impossible, to conduct a mass-shooting. To our very best ability. Eventually all public facilities should be hardened as we do live in a violent world and evil exists.
Re: Re: Re:5
And if it turns out you are deemed mentally unfit to own firearms, are you going to use them to kill people to really drive that point home? Because that’s the reality of your stance.
But that doesn’t include you willingly giving up your firearms, hence it isn’t to the very best of “our” ability.
You are essentially arguing that your right to bear arms means the government need to build fortresses to protected people. Well, if that’s your argument then the solution is simple – tax the owners of firearms to build these fortresses.
Re: Re: Re:6
We just sent $40,000,000,000 to Ukraine (justly might I add; dead Russians make an American smile). That same amount of money could easily rebuild many of the educational institutions nationwide. Money isn’t the problem – it’s willpower.
Re: Re: Re:7
Rebuild the buildings all you want, but that won’t stop shootings from happening in places that don’t get rebuilt or are in the process of being rebuilt or happen to have some kind of flaw after they’ve been rebuilt.
You can turn schools, grocery stores, movie theaters, places of worship, and every kind of building where a mass casualty shooting has taken place into what will essentially seem like prisons. But what happens when the next mass casualty shooting takes place in a public park or along a busy road or a local sports field—in places that can’t be fortified in the way you would have us fortify everything else?
I’m all in for better security. But I’m all in for making it harder for anyone to get a gun, too.
Re: Re: Re:8
And I’m open to having that discussion but I urge you to remember that we’re talking about a core Constitutionally-protected civil liberty. Certain tools and methods used by countries parroted on social media simply cannot be implemented here because to do so would significantly infringe on said civil liberty.
My issue with UBC’s is that every single time it’s discussed it always leads to the same conclusion. A national firearm registry. I see no reason why I should let the Government know, when we’ve all seen first hand what kind of trash can control said Government, what firearms I own and where they’re kept.
My issue with RFL’s center mainly on Due Process concerns. If someone is dangerous enough to themselves or others then they should be arrested immediately when the RFL is enforced. The person subjected to the RFL should also be made aware of who filed the initiating complaint so that civil due process remedies are possible if it was done in bad faith. Criminal penalties too.
Waiting periods are all fine and dandy except in rare cases. They’re pointless and annoying after the first firearm purchase, however.
My issue with the AWB is… too lengthy for here. It normally boils down to a ban on all Semi-Automatic firearms. That’s 90% of the market. Every single firearm my family owns is semi-automatic.
And NONE OF THESE could’ve prevented this atrocity. Once he decided to kill it was as good as done. You can’t stop crazy unfortunately. Someone perfectly sane today could snap tomorrow. Evil exists.
Re: Re: Re:9
So what? The Constitution can be changed. We have the amendment process for a reason. Or do you want to suggest that the Second Amendment should be permanently and irrevocably off-limits to the amendment process?
19 kids died in Texas last week because Texas decided that an 18-year-old who isn’t old enough to legally drink is old enough to legally buy a gun. Whose civil liberties did their deaths protect?
The government commands the full might of an increasingly militarized law enforcement apparatus in addition to a military fighting force that regularly uses drones capable of wiping anyone off the map in an instant. Someone in the government knowing where you keep the rifle you use to shoot a couple of deer every fall is the least of your worries.
We have these things called “courts” to handle that. In the meantime, anyone who trips a red flag should be denied the right to own a gun.
That you say “first firearm purchase” as if the average American jackoff needs to own more than one gun is telling.
That you also think the average American jackoff needs semi-automatic firearms is also telling.
The assault weapons ban could’ve prevented the killer from buying an AR-15. Texas refusing to lower the legal age for gun sales could’ve prevented the killer from buying his guns soon after his 18th birthday. Plenty of other measures could’ve potentially stopped him from legally purchasing the guns he used to kill almost two dozen children.
But I guess we’ll never know for sure. Those 19 children apparently had to die for the sake of protecting the right of the man who killed them to buy and use the guns he used to kill them. I hope you can live with paying that price—because those children won’t.
Re: Re: Re:10
I don’t think you’re an American so I’m not going to waste my time responding to what you wrote. Stay out of our internal affairs.
Re: Re: Re:11
I am an American. That you think otherwise because I don’t believe the deaths of 19 kids are an “acceptable loss” for the sake of protecting gun ownership is on you.
Re: Re: Re:10
Let’s just suppose, hypothetically, that it was possible to ban and confiscate all the guns in private hands. Wave a magic wand, poof, they’re gone.
Do remember before the mass shootings? There were bombings instead. Hundreds dead per incident. Is that what you’d prefer?
And then anyone who wanted a gun would just make one anyway, or buy it on the black market from someone else who did. Making guns that work is easy, it’s only making good guns that’s hard. There are people who make functioning 1911’s with a torch, a drill press, and a file in a third world shack. They do this for a living, in a country with a total ban on civilian firearms.
If gun control worked, why does every gang banger in my city have a switch?
Re: Re: Re:11
FYI, I’ve never once said I was in favor of confiscating all guns. Hell, I’m fine with guns being available to the public. What I have an issue with is what kinds of guns are made available to the public (few people need anything more than a handgun) and how easy it is for anyone in this country to buy a gun via legal means (an 18-year-old in Texas can buy an AR-15 before they can buy a beer).
As for your question: No, I’m not fine with bombings and whatnot. But that doesn’t really explain why you seem to think 19 dead children are an “acceptable loss” for the sake of gun ownership in the United States.
Re: Re: Re:12
“(few people need anything more than a handgun)”
This proves how little you know about guns. What guns are suitable for my purposes? Do you even know my purposes?
I have never claimed that any number of dead children, or dead anyone for that matter, are “acceptable losses”. I know enough about guns and the making thereof to know that no amount of gun control will reduce that number. If you work the symptom without working the cause, those who wish to do violence will find other means.
How many more children have to die in gun fee zones before we ban gun free zones?
How many more disarmed minority populations need to suffer genocide before we learn to stop allowing the people to be disarmed? Are they acceptable losses?
Re: Re: Re:13
You never explicitly said that, true—but your rhetoric heavily implies that position. After all, you take issue with dead kids, but you seem to take more of an issue with gun control of any kind even if it would mean fewer dead kids.
We can work to treat the root cause while also treating the symptom. And while those who would do violence will find other ways to do violence, those ways may be less deadly than using an AR-15 to mow down a room full of kids in a handful of seconds. (They might also be more deadly, but those ways also present risks to the perpetrator that may stop them from going that far.)
Yes, let’s take your suggestion at face value and ban gun-free zones. Let’s also arm teachers and train them to fire at school shooters. Teach kids to distract shooters by running around and throwing books so the kids can delay the deaths of kids in the next classroom over by a handful of seconds. Hell, put more armed police officers in schools and train them to handle even the most minor misbehavior with violence.
And when you realize how all that will only turn a school into a prison where kids could be killed by a school shooter, a cop with a bad temper, or a teacher trying to fire back at a school shooter, you let me know.
Minority populations can suffer genocide even if they’re armed. Their oppressors will often be better armed—and better organized.
And as I said, I’m not for disarming people altogether. But owning an AR-15 will not keep the government from turning you into dust with a drone strike.
Besides, the United States is damn close to becoming a fascist autocracy. What makes you think you’re going to stand against tyranny when some of the politicians who beg you to protect the Second Amendment at all costs are also eager to steal an election by any means necessary?
Re: Re: Re:14
More gun control equals more crime, and more dead kids. gun control is evil. It is the tool of the authoritarian oppressor.
You are demanding that we give up the means to defend ourselves and others against an oppressive government in the hope that it will somehow save lives, with zero evidence to back that up.
Yes, the oppressor is often better armed, equipped and trained. But outnumbered. How did the Vietnam war go again? The US outspent the locals by several orders of magnitude. But the locals, often armed with nothing more than a rifle, sent the US military running with it’s tail between it’s legs. Despite the tanks, and jets, and carpet bombing. Not because they could win militarily, but because they made it too expensive for us to win.
The same thing played out in certain black neighborhoods during the civil rights movement in the 60’s. Cops were harassing, beating, and killing black people, just for being black. So these neighborhoods armed themselves, and every time a cop showed up, he caught a bullet. Cops stopped showing up. And that, my friend, is why Reagan started pushing for gun control. He was afraid of the minorities demanding equality.
You might draw the line at AR-15’s, but Biden just said he thinks a 9mm pistol is too powerful. Canada just banned pistols. England has banned curved swords and is trying to ban knives that have points. If we let them take another step, they will demand another, and another, until we’re completely at their mercy. But if we can fight that, if we can stop this ridiculous push to ban guns, then we won’t have to use them, because the authoritarians would know what the cost would be.
Re: Re: Re:15
Do you really think you can win a war in which your “enemy” can kill you without ever leaving a military base?
Re: Re: Re:16
As I said, we don’t have to win it. We have to make it too expensive to be worth it.
You may imagine battle lines and uniforms. That’s not how insurgencies work.
Re: Re: Re:17
I imagine drone strikes that wipe you out before you can even think to run. I imagine gun owners willing to lay down their lives for their preferred authoritarians killing you before you pick up a gun in protest of tyranny. I imagine a good chunk of the country standing in violent favor of tyranny so long as it’s a tyranny they like.
Good luck.
Re: Re: Re:18
Sure, imagine a drone strike takes out one insurgent and 12 innocent bystanders. How well will that go over? How many more insurgents will that create?
The iron fist approach to insurgencies is 100% counterproductive. It ALWAYS fails. Read some history.
Sounds to me like you’re ready to roll over and give up on on the whole concept of freedom.
Re: Re: Re:19
Imagine 19 kids dying in an elementary school and everybody in power agrees to let more kids die by way of refusing to pass gun control reforms. How well will that go over?
And as for the drone thing: I’m pretty sure the supporters of an American tyrant will see those innocents the same way gun owners see the lives of those kids as it relates to the Second Amendment—an “acceptable loss”. After all, if Donald Trump had sent the American military into “liberal” cities to quell protests-turned-riots, his entire voting base would’ve had a collective orgasm at the thought of “liberal thugs” getting what they deserved. Those who support tyranny want their “enemies” destroyed; don’t think for a second that Americans would ever be excluded from that.
Re: Re: Re:20
I’m sorry, you’re just too far off the deep end. You’re not capable of rational discussion.
Re: Re: Re:21
19 kids were shot to death in an elementary school last week. Your attempt at rational discussion with me has been to all but tell me that being able to kill government officials in the event of tyranny is more important to you than preventing another 19 kids from being killed in another school.
If I’m irrational because I’d prefer to have tighter regulation of gun ownership instead of more mass shootings and more dead kids, what the fuck are you?
Re: Re: Re:22
I do not want another holocaust. I do not want another trail of tears. Yes, the lives of tens of thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands, do outweigh the lives of the few.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll
But that’s all beside the point, because gun control doesn’t take guns out of the hands of criminals. They can buy them on the mass market, make them, buy them from someone who made them, or steal them from someone who’s still allowed to have them (like cops).
So what you’re asking, is for us to render ourselves defenseless, accept the possibility of government genocide, and not have any reduction in criminal violence. Most likely even an increase in criminal violence, as there will be no one on site to stop them.
You are asking for more death. I am asking for less.
Re: Re: Re:23
*black market
Re: Re: Re:23
Let me make this absolutely crystal clear for you so that if you make the same “mistake” again, you’ll be flat-out lying about what I said:
I HAVE NOT NOW, NOR WILL I EVER, CALL FOR—UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES—THE UNILATERAL AND COMPLETE DISARMING OF EVERY LEGAL GUN OWNER WITHIN THE UNITED STATES.
I want the government to pass better regulations for gun ownership in addition to addressing the root causes of violence in society. I want gun ownership to be treated as the grave responsibility that it should be treated as—to be treated no differently than we treat the driving and the ownership of a car, truck, or other such vehicle. I want Americans to reëxamine the national relationship with guns—that includes both the culture of violence that celebrates guns (as well as the idea of “guns are the last line between us and tyranny”) and the modern reverence of a constitutional amendment that was written over 200 years ago by men who could never have conceived of the guns we have today.
I want anyone who wants a gun to be able to legally buy one—so long as they pass background checks, licensing requirements, and an extensive gun safety course that includes training at a firing range. I want anyone who wants a gun that isn’t a handgun to jump through additional hoops for the sake of buying, say, an AR-15. I want guns to be available, but I want the kinds of guns that are legally available to be limited.
I want illegal guns off the streets, which is why I’d support a national buy-back program that pays a good amount of money for each gun. I want guns to stop showing up on the streets, which is why I’d support mandatory gun safes for all legal gun owners and stricter controls for gun storage in military bases and police departments.
If we’re going to keep thinking gun ownership is a human right, we need to remember that rights have responsibilities—and consequences—attached to them. All I want is for the law to reflect that reality. If that makes me a bastard in your eyes, I don’t give a fuck.
Four people were killed in Tulsa, Oklahoma yesterday by someone who bought an AR-style rifle earlier that day. Better gun laws might’ve prevented those deaths—we can’t know for sure, of course, but we can make an educated guess. How many more people—how many more children—need to die before you finally understand that easy access to guns is a problem that needs addressing even as we work on all our other issues?
Re: Re: Re:24
None of what you are advocating would have any impact on violent crime. At best, it could reduce accidental harm, such as negligent discharge.
I strongly support maximizing firearm training for every one who touches a gun. Making it a prerequisite creates a financial hurdle however, a filter to only allow the well-off to be armed. Government funded training, available to all, could meet both of our goals in that respect.
If you advocate limiting the type of arms available to the public, you want the people to be at a disadvantage as compared to the government. This is not as bad as total disarmament, but it’s a step on that path.
Gun “buybacks” (it’s not “back”, they were never the government’s guns in the first place) repeatedly result in the collection of antique, damaged, and scrap guns that no one wants anyway. There are also those who quickly make several guns that meet the minimum requirements for the buyback, to turn a quick profit at the public’s expense. How much are you proposing that I (as a taxpayer) pay to for he government to collect a homemade pipe gun? Then those who sold their scrap and junk guns will often use that money to buy nicer guns. Is that your goal?
But overall, though you and I may be able to find some middle ground where we could both be reasonably content, if you support the politicians who are pushing for gun control, you are supporting total civilian disarmament, because that is what they’re pushing for. They are not advocating training programs or gun safety.
Re: Re: Re:24
You may find this meta-analysis informative:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiQ-LmJGMY
Re: Re: Re:5
Not only do you need to fortify the schools, you need 24/7/365 guarding of all entrances and metal detectors etc. less someone sabotages the defenses and pre-places guns and ammunition for the main event the next day.
Also such an approach encourages the idea that nobody is to be trusted, and going about armed is required for personal safety.
There are other countries as heavily armed as the US, like Switzerland, where reservists, that is most of the male population, keep military weapons at home. They have almost no gun violence, but that is a cultural, not ownership difference. There is no culture of using guns for personal self defense, or as a co8unterbalance to the government.
Also having guns is not sufficient for a revolution, you also need leaders and organization, and from what I have seen of US culture, an attempted revolution would degenerate into factional fighting and a race war. You should also note that almost all successful revolutionary leaders have instigated an authoritarian government, and frequently mismanaged the economy to the extent that the killed millions of their citizens.
Re: Re: Re:6
So we’re 200-something years late, give us a break.
Re: Re: Re:7
I said almost all, and the US revolutions is one of the few exceptions and was a war against an eternal power. Internal revolutions involved civil war excepting the US, like Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, along with right wing revolutions in South America have led to authoritarian regimes. The democratization of Eastern Europe came from the replacement of failed and collapsed authoritarian regimes, rather than any revolutionary fervor.
Re: Re: Re:5
And die one by one in futle last stands.
Re: Re: Re:6
Congratulations on being the one advocating for a holocaust of cold-blooded mirder.
Re: Re: Re:7
Not advocating, just pointing out what happens when individuals resort to violence to keep their guns.
Re: Re: Re:8
When authoritarians resort to violence to confiscate guns, people will respond in kind.
Re: Re: Re:6
I have no doubt that any attempt to disarm the citizenry as a whole, by force or otherwise, will result in the dissolution of our Union and the beginning of our second civil war. The death toll, the level of atrocities, and the overall violate will make a day in Ukraine look like a day at Disney Land in comparison. This is NOT a road that we as a nation need to go down but it IS a road we’ll go down, together, if our civil liberties are threatened.
Millions. Millions of us share this mindset. Tens of millions. This point of view. To take away our civil liberties will require that every single one of us be killed. And our children, on all sides, will learn of this fratricidal civil war with their own eyes. And like in every war past through-out the world our wives, and our daughters, will suffer the worst of it.
We must avoid such a fracture. I just don’t know how.
Re: Re: Re:7
Listen to yourself, dude. You’re all but drooling over the idea of you and millions of other people rising up to kill possibly millions of your fellow Americans in a civil war. And for what—to be able to own a gun?
The Onion headline says there is no way to stop this—but the only reason we can’t is because people like you think owning a tool used for the sole purpose of killing other living things is a right that even God Herself can’t take away. How the actual fuck do you think that is a good thing?
Re: Re: Re:8
My position on it isn’t going to change. Not today, not tomorrow, and probably never. I will not compromise any further on gun control because any compromise we make today in good faith is tomorrows loophole.
Hell wait until someone uses a 30.06 bolt action in a mass shooting – they’ll be calling a common hunting rifle a “sniper rifle” and seeking to ban that too. We’ve seen this rodeo once before.
Re: Re: Re:9
That you’re more concerned about guns than about the children killed by guns says a lot about you. None of it is good.
Re: Re: Re:10
Elsewhere in this comment section I’ve offered some proposals that I believe can help. Unfortunately they’re not the proposals you want to hear. The fact remains that my fundamental right to self defense, in defense of my family, and indeed a final defense for my individual freedoms… no I will not be giving up my guns.
Nobody likes to turn on CNN and see nineteen dead children. Especially a parent like me who has two.
Re: Re: Re:11
But you’re not willing to actually do (or advocate for) anything worth a damn to prevent another Uvdale or Parkland or Newtown or Columbine. You don’t like to see the news of dead kids, but other than your idea of turning schools into what will essentially be prisons, what actual policies are you advocating for that will help prevent another 19 kids from dying at the hands of a man with a gun?
Re: Re: Re:12
I won’t advocate for a further dismantling of our 2nd Amendment rights. I won’t support such actions either. There are OTHER solutions that, if implemented properly, should be tried first.
Re: Re: Re:13
We are the only industrialized country in the world where schools are shot up on a regular basis. What the fuck other solution do you think there is to a problem that involves gun ownership, gun culture, and the American obsession with violence: bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills in pre-schools?
Re: Re: Re:14
I gave you a list of five strong contributing factors, way up at the top, all of which would yield better results than an unconstitutional and unenforceable gun ban. Why is it that banning guns is the only potential solution you’re willing to entertain? That’s an intellectually dishonest position.
Re: Re: Re:15
Go ahead and turn schools into what amounts to prisons. Hell, arm more teachers with guns. Let’s go even further and give kids more bulletproof school supplies and make them run more active shooter drills. But do you truly believe any of that will stop the next “bad guy with a gun” if his gun is powerful enough to scare the cops and he is sufficiently determined to kill?
Cars, knives, and hammers can be used to kill, but their primary uses aren’t tied to killing. A gun is a tool that exists for a single purpose: to wound and kill living things. The sale and ownership of guns should absolutely be regulated to the point where getting a gun is harder than getting a driver’s license. And guns like AR-15s, which exist to streamline and “improve” the primary purpose of a gun, shouldn’t even be available to the average American.
Oh, and before you say jack fucking shit about government overreach into gun ownership: I’d rather have the government knowing every detail about every gun (and gun owner) in the nation than have to watch another news story about people being shot dead in a public place where we all once felt safe.
Re: Re: Re:16
Palm, meet face. You did not read a word I wrote.
I was not the one advocating turning schools into prisons; I detest the idea.
I’m glad you think that 1984 was an instruction manual. Go live in North Korea if that’s your utopia. But just in case you actually want to work the problem, and maybe have a chance of saving some lives, I’ll repeat myself for your convenience:
I’ve been doing a bunch of research and discussion on this topic. There are a few strong contributing factors that I (and others) have identified. First, there is an extremely strong correlation between lead exposure and violent crime, with about a 20/21 year lag. A mother’s exposure to elevated lead levels will have detrimental effects on at least the next three generations, so even though lead exposure has diminished greatly since around 1975, we’re still seeing second and third order effects. Some of those living in poverty may still be experiencing first order effects.
Second, there is a strong correlation between economic disparity and violent crime, across all nations of the world, regardless of the legality or availability of weapons. Globally and in the US, economic disparity is at record levels and only getting worse. The economically challenged have less hope than ever of breaking out of their financial trap, and there’s little more dangerous than a human who feels they have nothing to lose. Improve people’s lives enough that they have hope, and much of this violence will go away.
Third, are social media echo chambers, clickbait extremist propaganda, and disinformation. The media is in it for the money, and things that cause outrage sell. We (collective) are literally paying the media to make people angry. An overdose of anger then leads to lashing out in one form or another.
Fourth, there is a high cost to getting mental help. Both financially, and in social credit. Even among those who can afford to buy mental help, they risk being ostracized, and potentially losing job opportunities and even constitutional rights. Creating options for cheap or free confidential mental health help could have a dramatic impact.
Fifth, the data shows, at least in the US, that most violent crime is committed with stolen weapons. These weapons are stolen from homes and from cars. A program to give vouchers for gun safes to the economically challenged could help the theft from homes, while changing the laws that cause people to leave their guns in their cars could help reduce theft from cars; parking lots at “gun free” zones are hot targets
Re: Re: Re:17
Addressing the root causes of violence is good—but that takes time and money, and the results won’t be immediate. Gun control would take less time (and I would hope less money), and the results would be more immediate.
I don’t want to abolish gun ownership. But I want controls on what weapons can be sold to civilians and I want gun ownership treated as the responsibility that it is—to be treated as we treat, say, driving and owning a car.
A gun is a tool with one purpose: to wound and kill living things. For what reason should we refuse to make owning a gun—and especially a gun like an AR-15—harder to accomplish?
Re: Re: Re:18
How much time, money, and killing do you think it would take to round up the 350+ million guns in the US?
How much time, money, and killing do you think it would take to prevent people from making more?
I can make a functioning firearm (not great, but lethal) in 15 minutes with $15 of hardware store parts and a hand drill.
With a week, a 3D printer, and a garage shop, I could make something equivalent to an assault rifle, a pistol, whatever you want, with any sized magazines. Two weeks and I could make dozens of them.
Full auto’s have been illegal as heck (without thousands of dollars in proof of wealth / fees and paperwork) since ’86, but every gang banger in Minneapolis has one. Gun control doesn’t take guns out of criminal’s hands, it only disarms the good guys.
The Buffalo shooter was a repeat felon. It was illegal for him to have any kind of gun. So how did he get one? I’ll tell you how: he decided to break the law.
Yes, violent crime is a big, complicated problem, and it will take time, money, and effort to solve. complicated problems take complicated solutions.
Re: Re: Re:19
Did I fucking say anything about rounding up all guns? No, I didn’t. I never will. And I’ll thank you to stop acting as if I did/will.
I dunno. How invested are you in seeing people kill others for the right to own/make guns?
19 “good guys” down in Texas couldn’t stop 19 children from being killed by one “bad guy”. Do you think arming and training teachers to fire weapons in the middle of a school, where a potential crossfire with a school shooter could end up killing a child, is a good idea?
Yes, yes, I’ve heard “people who want to break the law will break the law”, “guns don’t kill people”, and all that other NRA apologetics horseshit before.
Of course we can’t stop all violence. Of course gun control won’t bring about national peace and rid us of all the illegal firearms on the streets. But given the number of mass casualty shootings in America in only this year alone and the fact that few mass casualty shootings are stopped by the mythical “good guy with a gun” (including the police), gun control laws and regulations beyond what we have now sure as shit couldn’t make matters worse.
Re: Re: Re:20
Dude, wipe the spittle from your chin. I didn’t swear at you when you put words in my mouth.
If you support Biden and his gun grabbing agenda, you support banning all guns. That’s what he’s trying to do, and he has said as much.
19 COPS (not good guys) sat around while kids died. If we give up our arms, those are all we have to rely on for our safety. Would that make you feel safe?
Meanwhile, and deliberately exempted from most news coverage, a woman in West Virginia last week prevented a mass shooting by promptly killing the attacker with a legal CCW pistol. I want that woman in my kid’s classroom. One woman with a pistol did what 19 cops loaded for war were too chicken shit to try.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61615236
You don’t hear about the potential mass shootings that were prevented by a good guy with a gun, because if they were prevented, they weren’t mass shootings, and don’t make the news or the statistics.
Here’s an archive of reported defensive gun uses:
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/defensive-use
The CDC estimates that including unreported defensive gun uses, most of which involve only displaying, not not firing the gun, there are between 300,000 and multiple millions of defensive gun uses every year.
I want the good guys to have the best possible weapons, equal to those the bad guys have. You want them to be at a disadvantage and outgunned.
Re: Re: Re:21
I ain’t got the time or the “spoons” (look up spoon theory) to deal with all of this, so I’mma limit this to one quick remark:
Is your goal to keep arming the police until they and the military are one and the same?
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No, the police can already get arms that are illegal for the civilian population. The police are an occupying military force already. They are the boot that treads.
My goal is the same as the drafters of the constitution; to ensure that THE PEOPLE have arms equal to those of the government and the criminals.
Re: Re: Re:23
The government has nuclear weapons. Think about what the fuck you’re saying for a minute.
Re: Re: Re:24
Again, wipe the spittle. You seem to be having trouble with civil discourse.
I understand it can be stressful to have your heartfelt presumptions and biases questioned.
Yes, the government has nukes. Do you think they would use nukes against the people, within our own borders? That they would nuke a US city, because it contains 10% insurgents? If the order were given, do you think it would be carried out? If not, then they’re irrelevant to this discussion. If so, then it’s even more important that we be armed as well as possible, so that might be prevented.
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Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No.
The uniquely American obsession with violence—including the idea that guns are the solution to every problem—is one of the ways American society is fucked up. How do you plan to counteract that if your plan to solve the gun violence problem is to arm everyone with AR-15s?
Re: Re: Re:26
If guns aren’t the solution, why does every nation in the world rely on them to enforce the peace?
Re: Re: Re:27
Plenty of countries fight crime and keep the peace without resorting to firearms and the “war zone” mentality that modern American policing drills into its recruits. Then again, those countries also try to actually take care of their citizenry by offering affordable healthcare and such, so…yeah…
Re: Re: Re:27
U.K. police themselves have rejected being always armed on several occasions, and note that was the police rejecting offers from politicians to arm them.
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The UK has banned curved swords, and the carrying of pocket knives. They’re trying to ban kitchen knives with points. You have to be over 18 and show ID to buy a box of plastic butter knives. Technicians get their toolboxes raided for screwdrivers (they’re a lethal weapon, you know.) Yet they still have a violent crime problem.
Not exactly an example to emulate.
Re: Re: Re:29
Unless they are antiques, or you are a martial art practitioner, and it is lock knives that are banned. Try this video foor analysis of UL laws.
Re: Re: Re:30
According to Matt Easton, who is both, police will frequently confiscate presumptively, and then you have to go to court to beg for their return.
Re: Re: Re:31
Good. Because everyone knows the laws. Even knife crime is very limited. And we don’t get mass killings of schoolchildren.
America loves dead kids. Ammosexuals love dead kids. Stephen is completely right.
The only point you are right on is that there are a lot of … substitutes… in the US. But it is cowardly and lazy to say that means there is no point doing anything about them. On no other topic is that argument used. Imagine saying you’ll just chuck all drug laws because drugs are still everywhere?
Imagine being so pathetically afraid of your own government that you fantasise fighting it and don’t care about the collateral damage. Remember Waco and Ruby Ridge. Not exactly ringing endorsements of “citizen defence”.
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That’s a lot of words to say “I won’t compromise”.
And what will your stance be when the process of making it difficult involves you compromising? Because any time you ammosexuals get told that you can’t open carry, concealed carry – or really, any time you’re told that you being armed makes people concerned – you piss and moan like someone just asked you to lick their shoes.
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And… crickets. Not really a surprise, considering this guy’s solution to the gun issue is to throw even more guns at the problem because he wants to hold onto his.
The real question is why the cosmetics seem to be so significant. Functionally a Ruger 14 is essentially the same thing and would work just as well. Slightly slower aiming at worst but they were used against soft targets and not a firefight. If it matters why? Is it something memetic where wood bodied rifles feel less empowering than one with military aesthetics?
Re:
Banning guns isn’t actually about banning guns, it’s about having a bogeyman to wave in the air, to say “Look how scary this is! you have to vote for me so I can save you!”
If they actually got what they’re wishing for, they’d have to invent another bogeyman.
Other countries also have social media, violent games and TV, etc., but not as many guns
All other developed countries have social media, violent games, violent TV, etc. But none of them have as many guns (especially the deadliest semi-automatics with large capacity magazine) as we do in the US. None. Americans are not crazier or more evil than others. They just have more, far more efficient and easily available tools to “express” their moments of anger and derangement with bloody consequences. Guns are the difference. It’s that simple.
Re: PS
PS And no,I’m not defending social media, violent games or TV. But this is about guns.