If you're seeing this topic then another mass shooting hap…

On March 01 2018 00:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This has been circulating the internet. I hope it's true.

On March 01 2018 00:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
This has been circulating the internet. I hope it's true.

On March 01 2018 00:37 Danglars wrote:

I mean considering their 35 owned chain of F&S compared to their ~600 stores that never sold them, this is mostly PR with little impact. Compare to the AP headline that one of the largest outdoor gear retailers has stopped sales ... when they’re a bit player. Interesting move.

On March 01 2018 00:42 GreenHorizons wrote:


It was mostly to get out from under the bad press of selling the most recent Florida shooter a shotgun. Just wonder how long it is until an active duty/veteran comes in to buy a gun and gets rejected because they are not old enough?

On March 01 2018 00:37 Danglars wrote:

I mean considering their 35 owned chain of F&S compared to their ~600 stores that never sold them, this is mostly PR with little impact. Compare to the AP headline that one of the largest outdoor gear retailers has stopped sales ... when they’re a bit player. Interesting move.

On March 01 2018 00:42 GreenHorizons wrote:


It was mostly to get out from under the bad press of selling the most recent Florida shooter a shotgun. Just wonder how long it is until an active duty/veteran comes in to buy a gun and gets rejected because they are not old enough?

On March 01 2018 00:55 GreenHorizons wrote:


Of course, won't stop it from being a scene though. Just means that they will have to carve out an exemption if there's ever a legislative attempt at something similar.

On March 01 2018 01:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


Why does there need to be an exemption? Obviously, veterans and active-duty have gone through plenty of training and checks as it is, so maybe that'll allow them to check off certain boxes in advance when it comes time to buying a gun, but shouldn't the regulations still apply to them, whether that's hoops to jump through before purchasing a gun or what guns they can and cannot buy?

On February 27 2018 04:56 r.Evo wrote:

What it is is a culture of guns that is celebrated by a substantial amount of Americans and which, at least in my opinion, was massively twisted over the years. Analogue to how the first amendment becomes more and more twisted since the legal reality doesn't align with the perception of the people anymore, but that's a different story for a different thread.

The rise in mass shootings (we're at almost the same amount of school shootings in the 21st century than in all of the 20th century combined) is a symptom of this culture, just like you arguing that there should be no (or very few) exceptions to the 2nd amendment is a symptom of it.

From the perspective of an outsider, who has also seen what your founders had written on these issues, arguing for total availability of firearms seems like complete insanity that was never intended because it's so incredibly irrational. The American founders were a lot of things, I'd sometimes go as far as the word 'naive' from a modern perspective, but they certainly weren't stupid.

Samuel Adams argued that the constitution should never be construed "to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms" - peaceable citizens.

Here, have Joseph Story on this:

Well. Regulated. Militia. Those words don't come from nothing, yet in 2006 the US Supremecourt found that this extends to "an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia for traditionally lawful purposes".

Guns are cool, everyone should have one. They make people safer, everyone should have one! People who use guns are cool, everyone should use one! The only person to stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun, hence I should have a gun since I'm a good person!

That kind of culture is a complete perversion of both common sense and what your founders had intended. The basic issue is that it's visible everywhere and people don't even see it anymore. If I look up Columbine on wikipedia this is the first thing I see. For comparison this is the picture I find when looking up one of the worst school shootings Germany had. The trick is also that I had to look it up in the first place. I didn't know the name of who committed it before I looked it up. I don't know the names of the victims and the only people who have a right to know them are family and friends. The victims deserve their privacy.

More people died there than at Columbine, yet I'm confident most people haven't heard about it. Meanwhile a lot, lot more people all around the globe know Harris and Klebold.


Now, this is where you'll likely go "See, you agree with me! It's the evil media making money off this and spreading the word!" - And that's where bullshit needs to be called: "The media" celebrates the killers by putting their name and picture everywhere and it turns victims into cash cows not because it's evil or because of some agenda, but because of money.

Because the American people love hearing about it and because the American state shrugs and says: "What privacy?" - Because a lot of people would have loved to be the hero with a good gun at the scene who stopped the perpetrator. In reality, there are no good guns except those who serve a well defined purpose. Like for hunting. Like in law enforcement.

Or, like the American founders intended, for the purpose of giving citizens the means to rise up against a tyrannical government that should be afraid of them. You don't need pistols for that. You don't need every single individual armed for that. You don't need to even discuss that arming teachers is in any way shape or form a reasonable response to random kids deciding to shoot up schools.

[...] among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations. - Joseph Story, 1833.

Weapons shouldn't be cool in the sense of todays America. The right to bear arms should be a burden since it represents a right that comes with a massive degree of responsibility. The responsibility of being able to kill another human being in an instant. Regulations are the tool of the state by which it ensures that something that requires responsibility also is treated responsibly. Samuel Adams knew this, so did Joseph Story, Madison and all the others.

Yet at some point this turned into "Everyone should have any kind of gun!" because gun culture as a whole has gone berserk.

On March 01 2018 01:08 GreenHorizons wrote:


basically the reason Danglars explains. Not gunna pass the smell test if we can hand you an automatic weapon and send you to some foreign country to kill poor people but then your deemed incapable of having a gun when you get back.