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On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'?
https://kotaku.com/legally-owning-a-gun-in-japan-is-really-really-hard-1479865283
It became retarded when muskets were no longer the weapon of choice. Or maybe when tanks were invented. There are plenty of points in American history at which "fighting the tyrannical government" became a laughable option. Maintaining a weapon for self defense is moot if the attacker also has no gun. And you stand no chance against the military should the unthinkable happen. It's just outdated and doesn't need to exist.
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There is no reasons to even argue that this will impact anything. We have not passed substantive gun laws at the federal level for +20 years. The CDC or any government agency cannot collect data on gun violence. After sandy hook the senate and House didn’t even have a debate about guns or debate a single bill. They didn’t even talk about it. But they did admonish Obama for talking about it. The gun manufacturers lobby, NRA and gun lovers have won for 20 year and there is no sign of that changing in the next ten.
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On February 15 2018 09:45 micronesia wrote:
In other words, the answer is "there is no right answer and it depends on your values."
We don't have a right answer because we do not have enough data to draw definitive conclusions. And we don't have data on the problem because the gun lobby has been blocking the CDC's ability to research gun violence as a public health issue for the last 2+ decades.
The three concerns you raised:
The three remaining concerns then are the ability of the homeowner to defend themselves from a dangerous person in their home, the ability of a person to defend himself or herself when out and about, and the ability of the people to defend themselves from the government a la second amendment (without getting into whether this is individual or militia). There is no way to say with any certainty how that would ultimately stack up against the victims that were prevented.
Are not outside the scope of what can be reasonably modeled if sufficient data based on the effects of state-level differences in gun control could be collected and extrapolated. But the CDC has neither the money nor the government's blessing to pursue such research despite it being a public health issue on the scale of diabetes or HIV.
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It is tough to humor the both sides debate when one side has been gotten their way for 2 decades pretty much unopposed. The status quo is one side gets everything they want and the other side gets vilified for even trying to talk about it. And we have so many shootings now, we can’t even avoid politicizing shootings when trying to talk about it.
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On February 15 2018 10:03 Ayaz2810 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). The 2nd amendment is retarded. Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'? https://kotaku.com/legally-owning-a-gun-in-japan-is-really-really-hard-1479865283It became retarded when muskets were no longer the weapon of choice. Or maybe when tanks were invented. There are plenty of points in American history at which "fighting the tyrannical government" became a laughable option. Maintaining a weapon for self defense is moot if the attacker also has no gun. And you stand no chance against the military should the unthinkable happen. It's just outdated and doesn't need to exist.
Being able to fight off the government is only one of many reasons that people want to be able to own a gun.
If I wake up in the middle of the night to find someone in my house with a knife robbing me or trying to rape/murder a family member, I want to have the easiest method available to me to kill him before harm is done to myself or my family.
Some people want guns to protect themselves from the government, some want them to protect themselves from other people, some want them to hunt, and some want them because they enjoy shooting
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United States24768 Posts
I agree with the problems with limiting government study of the current problems.
On February 15 2018 10:03 Ayaz2810 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). The 2nd amendment is retarded. Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'? https://kotaku.com/legally-owning-a-gun-in-japan-is-really-really-hard-1479865283］
Ah ok, that was helpful, thanks. Personally, I don't agree with having a system for getting a gun permit where it's intentionally designed to be infuriatingly difficult to get through with lots of hoops you have to jump through for the sake of it. Requiring multiple reasonable measures to prove you aren't some moron who is about to go abuse your gun is fine, though (and many places certainly don't have that).
It became retarded when muskets were no longer the weapon of choice. Or maybe when tanks were invented. There are plenty of points in American history at which "fighting the tyrannical government" became a laughable option.
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And you stand no chance against the military should the unthinkable happen. It's just outdated and doesn't need to exist.
Why do you assume this? I agree, it's less likely an armed population is going to accomplish what the framers were thinking, but it's far from impossible. If you are envisioning a conflict with the population of US city X against the US Army, and the Army begins the conflict by carpet bombing the entirety of US city X, then yes, in that extreme example, gun ownership bought the people little in beating back the oppressive government. But if, at the other extreme, the government starts rounding up all the people in an area to send to concentration camps, it becomes much harder to deal with all the resistance if everyone is armed. It is hard to predict what form the government could take that would motivate the people to bear arms. You may think you have more insight into this than others, but I still wouldn't throw the word 'retarded' around.
Maintaining a weapon for self defense is moot if the attacker also has no gun. What do you mean its moot? A competent person with a bat or a knife or something can easily take out an equally armed homeowner or dweller. I'm not necessarily defending gun ownership for home defense, but I also don't accept your absolute argument here.
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Some of the reporting from this latest incident:
The suspect pulled the fire alarm before the shooting, likely because he knew that active shooter training dictated students should shelter in place and was attempting to get them out in the open. He also chose a day when there had been a fire drill that morning
The weapon used was an "AR-15 style rifle" & had multiple magazines
17 People are dead
Shooter may have had smoke grenades and been wearing a gas mask
The shooter was a former student who had been expelled and was know to have had problems
The shooter attempted to hide in the crowd to escape but was apprehended outside after escaping the school
Law enforcement saying the attack was well planned
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On February 15 2018 10:19 Chewbacca. wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 10:03 Ayaz2810 wrote:On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). The 2nd amendment is retarded. Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'? https://kotaku.com/legally-owning-a-gun-in-japan-is-really-really-hard-1479865283It became retarded when muskets were no longer the weapon of choice. Or maybe when tanks were invented. There are plenty of points in American history at which "fighting the tyrannical government" became a laughable option. Maintaining a weapon for self defense is moot if the attacker also has no gun. And you stand no chance against the military should the unthinkable happen. It's just outdated and doesn't need to exist. Being able to fight off the government is only one of many reasons that people want to be able to own a gun. If I wake up in the middle of the night to find someone in my house with a knife robbing me or trying to rape/murder a family member, I want to have the easiest method available to me to kill him before harm is done to myself or my family. Some people want guns to protect themselves from the government, some want them to protect themselves from other people, some want them to hunt, and some want them because they enjoy shooting
And honestly there is zero chance of you being deprived of your right to own a fire arm in this life time. I will be shocked if a single federal gun law is passed in the next 20 years.
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On February 15 2018 10:21 micronesia wrote:I agree with the problems with limiting government study of the current problems. Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 10:03 Ayaz2810 wrote:On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). The 2nd amendment is retarded. Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'? https://kotaku.com/legally-owning-a-gun-in-japan-is-really-really-hard-1479865283］ Ah ok, that was helpful, thanks. Personally, I don't agree with having a system for getting a gun permit where it's intentionally designed to be infuriatingly difficult to get through with lots of hoops you have to jump through for the sake of it. Requiring multiple reasonable measures to prove you aren't some moron who is about to go abuse your gun is fine, though (and many places certainly don't have that). Show nested quote +It became retarded when muskets were no longer the weapon of choice. Or maybe when tanks were invented. There are plenty of points in American history at which "fighting the tyrannical government" became a laughable option.
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And you stand no chance against the military should the unthinkable happen. It's just outdated and doesn't need to exist. Why do you assume this? I agree, it's less likely an armed population is going to accomplish what the framers were thinking, but it's far from impossible. If you are envisioning a conflict with the population of US city X against the US Army, and the Army begins the conflict by carpet bombing the entirety of US city X, then yes, in that extreme example, gun ownership bought the people little in beating back the oppressive government. But if, at the other extreme, the government starts rounding up all the people in an area to send to concentration camps, it becomes much harder to deal with all the resistance if everyone is armed. It is hard to predict what form the government could take that would motivate the people to bear arms. You may think you have more insight into this than others, but I still wouldn't throw the word 'retarded' around. Show nested quote +Maintaining a weapon for self defense is moot if the attacker also has no gun. What do you mean its moot? A competent person with a bat or a knife or something can easily take out an equally armed homeowner or dweller. I'm not necessarily defending gun ownership for home defense, but I also don't accept your absolute argument here.
So get yourself a bat or knife. Or a fuckin' crossbow. Any argument made in favor of an intruder holds true for a homeowner. Or even better, own a few dogs that love you like the ones I have. My dogs would wreck an intruder, and are the best companions in every other situation (yellow lab and a pitbull/lab mix).
In any scenario of people versus government, the country collapses. Whether it's carpet bombing or guerrilla warfare, you still aren't going to "win". The people won't take the country back and maintain any semblance of control. It will be like living in the middle east or some of the African nations. In a world where the "bad guys" don't have guns, which is the hypothetical we're addressing here, there's no good reason to own one aside from hunting to feed your family. Like those kooks who live in the woods in Alaska or whatever.
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On February 15 2018 09:37 dvzxc wrote:
As a non-American, if guns are banned will the increase in victims unable to defend themselves really outweigh the amount of gun enabled violence?
a gun ban would result in a net decrease in deaths/casualties. as others have said, it's also politically infeasible; various interest groups have also managed to convince people that this wouldn't necessarily be the case (and/or is irrelevant as it's an issue of rights), regardless of the data available on the issue.
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If you want guns to defend yourself in a hypothetical scenario in which you fight against a tyrannical government because their army were nice enough not to bomb you and would rather conduct urban warfare on their own citizens, then the country's already lost and it's probably time to move. You wouldn't want to be around when they finally get serious. Maybe become a refugee and hope a more sane country would be kind enough to take you in.
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On February 15 2018 10:21 micronesia wrote:I agree with the problems with limiting government study of the current problems. Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 10:03 Ayaz2810 wrote:On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). The 2nd amendment is retarded. Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'? https://kotaku.com/legally-owning-a-gun-in-japan-is-really-really-hard-1479865283］ Ah ok, that was helpful, thanks. Personally, I don't agree with having a system for getting a gun permit where it's intentionally designed to be infuriatingly difficult to get through with lots of hoops you have to jump through for the sake of it. Requiring multiple reasonable measures to prove you aren't some moron who is about to go abuse your gun is fine, though (and many places certainly don't have that). Show nested quote +It became retarded when muskets were no longer the weapon of choice. Or maybe when tanks were invented. There are plenty of points in American history at which "fighting the tyrannical government" became a laughable option.
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And you stand no chance against the military should the unthinkable happen. It's just outdated and doesn't need to exist. Why do you assume this? I agree, it's less likely an armed population is going to accomplish what the framers were thinking, but it's far from impossible. If you are envisioning a conflict with the population of US city X against the US Army, and the Army begins the conflict by carpet bombing the entirety of US city X, then yes, in that extreme example, gun ownership bought the people little in beating back the oppressive government. But if, at the other extreme, the government starts rounding up all the people in an area to send to concentration camps, it becomes much harder to deal with all the resistance if everyone is armed. It is hard to predict what form the government could take that would motivate the people to bear arms. You may think you have more insight into this than others, but I still wouldn't throw the word 'retarded' around. Show nested quote +Maintaining a weapon for self defense is moot if the attacker also has no gun. What do you mean its moot? A competent person with a bat or a knife or something can easily take out an equally armed homeowner or dweller. I'm not necessarily defending gun ownership for home defense, but I also don't accept your absolute argument here.
its evident here that the entire perception of "self defense" by americans is another factor in gun control regulations.
you clearly didnt understand that by wielding a gun against an attacker without a gun, you are no longer just "defending" yourself. you have the means to inflict much more damage to the attacker than he does to you. strictly speaking defense is just putting yourself out of harms way; it doesnt necessarily require you to maim your opponent to do so. the fact that americans think that its perfectly fine to injure/kill an opponent under the cover of "self defense" shows why gun control is not just an issue of regulations, but a problem with the mentality of american people in general
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On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'?
Sometime at the beginning of the 20th century. The genocide of the native americans was more or less completed at that time and the chance that you would ever find yourself in a situation where you had to defend yourself (and your state) against hostile warriors and no official law enforcement or military was anywhere to be seen, was extremely small. On the other hand military technology was becoming so advanced that effectively resisting a tyrannical government with small arms was becoming increasingly unrealistic.
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On October 03 2017 16:47 Nebuchad wrote:
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The conversation around gun control is hollow because the reason why you don't have better gun control in the US isn't genuine political disagreement, it's lobbying.
You will have progress on this question not the day you gain the hearts and minds of your opponents (who btw, are something like 10% of the population when you're pushing for some specific gun regulations as opposed to a gun ban), but the day people who have a lot of money to gain from the system staying the same stop being able to dictate whether the system gets to change or not.
The approach of attempting to convince an opposition that there's a problem only works if the opposition is actually oblivious to said problem, and not willingly ignoring it because they have been told to do so by people who benefit from the situation.
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On February 15 2018 09:50 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2018 09:46 Ayaz2810 wrote:
Americans treat guns like toys. The fact that devices explicitly made to kill are used for "fun" is fucking stupid. You wanna shoot at a range? Check a gun out and return it when you're done. You wanna hunt? Pass a Japan-level background check to prove your capable. What is a japan-level background check? I can guess from context but I'm curious what that entails. I take issue with the 'keep your gun at the range' policy, but I would support common sense protections for people who shouldn't be getting their hands on guns from being able to buy them. Right now the system is clearly insufficient even if you generally support private gun ownership (in my opinion). Was it always? If not, when did it become 'retarded'?
The Second Amendment became retarded in 2008, in DC v Heller, where the five justices appointed by Republican presidents basically redefined the Second Amendment, completely reversing judicial precedent that had stood for around eighty years.
It's kind of amazing the way that the US has become so numb to mass shootings and regular school shootings when things were completely different less than a decade ago.
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When a firearm is discharged in a school more often than it snows in the UK, it's hard to make it "news".
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I'd like to make a law that anyone who has ever uttered a phrase similar and in earnest to "guns don't kill" has clearly demonstrated they don't understand what guns do and shouldn't be allowed to own one.
There is an irony in that the people who argue most for the continued proliferation of guns do so by imagining ways and reasons to use them "appropriately". It has always been about glorification over reason.
America has more guns. Effect: it has more gun-violence. Localities, like Chicago and school-zones, can not singularly ban-guns, when the state or district next-door is still selling them. The "black-market" lives and dies off the same Smith&Westons and Glocks that the "shop enthusiasts" enjoy so much.
The simple number is every legal gun manufactured and sold in America is increasing the likelihood of someone being shot. Every single legal gun manufactured and sold makes it more likely for a gun-runner to maintain a supply to their criminal clients. They're all "legal", and the only protection any place has is stop this inhuman, evil, rampant supply.
If you make strong, real bans on guns, it will not be simple or clean. There are more guns than people right now. I'm sure there will be incidents of violence in response to those bans, and I'm sure a lot of them will come from people whose understanding of the Constitution begins and ends with the second-half of the one sentence that is the 2nd Amendment.
And they clearly don't know what the word "Amendment" means. "Over my cold dead hands"? It's an amendment, and we can amend it if we want to. Threatening other Americans to not democratically amend the Constitution makes you the tyrant. The irony is suffocating.
If we want to be a modern, peaceful nation, as weaponry continues to evolve and become more complicated and deadlier, it's a hump we need to stop neglecting. Future generations are going to see us as cowards.
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On February 15 2018 10:07 Plansix wrote:
There is no reasons to even argue that this will impact anything. We have not passed substantive gun laws at the federal level for +20 years. The CDC or any government agency cannot collect data on gun violence. After sandy hook the senate and House didn’t even have a debate about guns or debate a single bill. They didn’t even talk about it. But they did admonish Obama for talking about it. The gun manufacturers lobby, NRA and gun lovers have won for 20 year and there is no sign of that changing in the next ten.
Not immediately, but I'm hopeful that a post-Trump America can be shaken enough to start demanding some real changes, and gun-control should be one of them.
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I dont really comment on US poltics since its kinda pointless. But You know what i found retarted? That the Florida shoter was old enough to legally own a gun but not old enough to drink a beer.
PS.I assume its 21 across the states for alcohol, not 100% sure though.
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