Gun control in the US

This is the analogy I made with drinking alcohol. If alcohol was banned so many lives would be saved. But do people want to give up their freedom to drink alcohol to save those lives?

I'm anti-guns but I think it's a sobering thought when you make the analogy to alcohol.

If you truly want to understand it, you need to find a right you personally consider to be fundamental, and work out how removing it in some way could save lives.

So, say, if it were clear that removing the right of women to go out without a male chaperone would reduce killings, saving 10,000 lives per year in the UK, would you give up the right for women to go out alone?

Or would you find all sorts of other ways you think the issue could/should/would be addressed better, short of removing that right?

(I hope it's obvious I'm neither supporting the idea above, nor saying it would save lives. Probably the opposite. Find a different example if you prefer. But you need to think of something you personally really highly value, and once you do, you'll probably find yourself making the same type of arguments about how of course that right can't be taken away, that would be absurd, of course other solutions need to be found, etc.)

Agree. It's a odd country which is pro life until a baby is born but then more pro guns after. Women really are at the bottom of the pile.

Can you imagine what a bloody mess it would lead to - literally?

And even if the law-abiding complied and surrendered their guns, the law-breakers wouldn’t. So what’s the point?

Seeing as Kirk gave a platform to Alex Jones after Sandyhook I'm not sure if the people eulogizing him in the media have rational views about that tragedy

It’s a totally pointless conversation.

It’s never, ever going to change.

If Sandy Hook didn’t make any difference, nothing will.

Presumably the same way nearly every other country in the world implemented and enforces it. The number of countries that have gun rules like America can be counted on one hand.

Polling shows that a majority of Americans supports various forms of control.
Including universal background checks and an assault weapon ban.

Too many politicians are controlled by the gun lobby.

I don't really think people have thought through how exactly "banning guns" in the US would work. Who would implement and enforce it, and how?

Although it really isn't funny that any country prioritises guns over life.

From what I’ve seen he’s been radicalised - I haven’t seen any reference to history of mental distress. I agree that no “normal” person would do something so hideous. But there are a lot of people that could fall into a vulnerable category that could be persuaded. It’s hideous.

Edited to say - laughing at me isn’t warranted. It’s really not a situation that any humour should enter into.

I lived in the US for a while and it was really interesting to try to understand their point of view. In their eyes, it is a human right to be able to carry a gun and defend yourself from bad people. Their phrase was "if you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns". I don't agree with it personally but living there for a while did make it easier to understand their point of view. It would be like saying to a British person that alcohol should be outlawed because so many people die of alcohol-related issues. Not many people would want their personal freedom constrained in this way. That is the best analogy I can think of for how the Americans I lived amongst thought.

I'm an American and I don't get it either. So if you ever figure it out, lemme know...

or they could ditch the "and", leaving the "right to keep bear arms", and promote an interest in taxidermy or soft toys.

America averages more than 1 school shooting a week, over the last 10 year, resulting in many pointless deaths, I doubt this will make any difference.

Perhaps the U S Government could say the 'right to keep and bear arms' should have have been written as 'bare arms' and just meant that people can wear t-shirts?

Then they could bring in more stringent gun controls.

They're mad over there 😭😭

If they didnt introduce it after Sandy Hook, theyre never going to do it.

Do you really want to ask this?

America: the only country in the world where kinder eggs are banned as being too dangerous, yet school shooting are just considered a fact of life.

By this point everyone has guns and if you start restricting you can’t protect yourself against all the ‘baddies’ that have them now. Also it’s part of the whole reason people went to america in the first place- ‘freedom’ and ‘my rights’ and all that.