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Original poster

Why can’t America ban automatic weapons?

905 replies

MaryPoppinsPenguins · 14/02/2018 22:42

I don’t get it. I honestly don’t. After Sandy Hook that should have been enough... statistics speak for themselves.

Why? What don’t I get?

OP posts:
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26
Biggreygoose · 17/02/2018 09:38

@kursk.

Must be kept locked up with only the licence holder having access to the keys.

If you have a rifle ammunition then that must be under a separate lock. (But can be a shelf part of the main cabinet)

While out and about security just has to be 'reasonable'. It's suggested that if leaving a rifle or shotgun unattended in a locked car or similar you remove the forearm or bolt. That's not compulsory though. Of course the only test of 'reasonable' is in front of a judge so people tend to be careful...

Kursk · 17/02/2018 09:45

gingergenius Some they can be converted, but it’s not that easy, you would need to be a experienced gun smith.

Kursk · 17/02/2018 09:49

Biggreygoose

Ours live in a free standing wooden wardrobe that DH converted to a gun cupboard. It can be locked but often isn’t

If we leave guns in the car we lock the car

Biggreygoose · 17/02/2018 09:50

So would locking the cupboard everytime be that much of an additional hassle?

Kursk · 17/02/2018 09:54

It’s a bike combination lock so not really.

It’s more making sure the firearms are all stored in there when not in use.

ToffeeUp · 17/02/2018 09:58

We own 3 Hunting rifles, 3 handguns and a shotgun

Stricter laws wouldn’t have prevented us from buying them. The only thing they would do is make it inconvenient or annoying to store or transport

So inconvenience and annoyance is what stops you supporting stricter laws?

TheHodgeoftheHedge · 17/02/2018 09:59

For those of you defending the ease of access to semi automatic weapons in the USA explain to me why you think it's ok that a 19 year old can easily and legally buy a semi automatic gun, but legally cannot buy alcohol for another two years, please?

Kursk · 17/02/2018 10:04

ToffeeUp

Not really as I have recently been discussing with Biggreygoose.

It depends on what laws were introduced. 3 of our rifles are unregistered. they are only registered if purchased from a shop. The unregistered ones were trades for stuff we were trying to sell.

The Prepper in me wouldn’t want to have to register those due to their survival value

TeasndToast · 17/02/2018 10:11

How could you buy guns if they were illegal? No shops could sell them and if you were found to have posession of them your house would be raised by armed police and you spent many years in prison?
Even if I wanted a gun I couldn’t get hold of one. Even the bloody criminals don’t often have guns. You get mugged with a knife or bat in the UK usually because even IF (and thats a big if) the criminals could get hold of guns they know that A) a murder is FAR more likely to happen and B) the jail stretch is much longer.
So this ‘making guns illegal wouldn’t stop me buying them’ is nonsense. Only seriously hardened criminals in the ‘know’ would even have the slightest clue where to get them in the UK. Armed police are likely to shoot you dead just for carrying one because its taken so seriously. As police are not generally armed, you don’t get murdered by them for the crime of ‘driving while being black’

I just can’t understand why, when comparable evidence between countries with very strict gun laws vs those with the USA shows unequivocally that bans save thousands and thousands of lives each year, people still think they shouldn’t be banned.
Australia banned them. Guns deaths dropped astronomically. How can anyone argue with that?

TeasndToast · 17/02/2018 10:19

Every time there is a shooting tragedy in my home country everyone and their mother wants to use it as an excuse to push their anti gun agenda

Well duuur Hmm no shit Sherlock.

Like when knife crime goes up in areas of the UK, structure laws are brought in to combat it. Because of people’s ‘anti knife agenda’

It’s scary that people with your thinking skills are legally able to have a gun.

TeasndToast · 17/02/2018 10:20

#stricter#

squishysquirmy · 17/02/2018 10:21

kursk
"Stricter laws wouldn’t have prevented us from buying them. The only thing they would do is make it inconvenient or annoying to store or transport"

Well, yeah.
It might be "inconvenient" or "annoying" to be forced to store guns responsibly but it makes it much less likely that they are stolen by an opportunistic criminal, picked up by a child, or even (god forbid) fall into the hands of a teenager having a "mental health crisis".

Not everyone on here making the case for stricter gun control are 100% anti gun, and some (like greygoose) seem to have experience of owning guns in the UK.

The point is that making it harder for guns to fall into the wrong hands (despite the "inconvenience") reduces gun deaths. It wont eliminate them, but it will reduce them.

I find it staggering that so many in the US are so against even the mildest form of controls (like not keeping a loaded gun within reach of a toddler).

squishysquirmy · 17/02/2018 10:22

"The unregistered ones were trades for stuff we were trying to sell."

Is that legal?

ohfortuna · 17/02/2018 10:23

American gun owners are emotionally attached to their guns
No amount of rationalizing will make them change their feelings

Kursk · 17/02/2018 10:26

squishysquirmy

Yes it’s legal in my state,

squishysquirmy · 17/02/2018 10:32

If you were to trade a gun for something, would you have any qualms about who you traded it with? Is there anyone you wouldn't give a gun to?

TeasndToast · 17/02/2018 10:39

Emotionally attached to a gun? I don’t disbelieve you but fucking hell, if that’s the case they’ve got even bigger problems that I thought.

Kursk · 17/02/2018 10:46

I have only be on the receiving end of the trade so far. So yes I am happy to keep considering guns if they are offered to me instead of cash for whatever I list on Facebook.

I would probably ask if someone on Facebook was open to trades and see if they were interested in firearms.

I wouldn’t continue with the trade if they appeared bat crap crazy in any way

soupforbrains · 17/02/2018 10:53

Here are so many problems with it all.

It drives me insane if I try to think about it because I have no attachment to guns at all so look at the base logic and you can see that obviously gun control would help. It doesn't even have to impinge on the 2nd amendment. The right to bear arms can still exist, you just have to ban automatic and semi-automatic weapons. That way hunting and farmland management rifles and shotguns can still be licensed as can pistols for self defence etc.

But it comes down to the fact that the majority of Americans look at the lives lost and look at the guns they own. And they think " we'll I would never do that, my guns are therefore safe." And they also weigh up how much they simply want to keep their guns and the make the decision that keeping their guns means more to them than the 'abstract' loss of life of people they don't know

You cannot argue using reason and logic with people who are not reasonable or logical. If ANY event should have made people change their minds it was Sandy Hook. But even that incident wasn't enough. And once you reach the point where the lives of innocent 4 and 5 year olds mean nothing you are beyond the point of no return.

It's a nightmare, it's an awful situation. I hate it. I feel enormously for the many Americans who DO want stronger gun control laws and who feel the way I do. It makes me feel sick to my stomach observing it from a distance. I can only imagine how awful it must feel on the inside.

Rinoachicken · 17/02/2018 10:54

I wouldn’t continue with the trade if they appeared bat crap crazy in any way

And you can tell just by looking and a 5min conversation can you?

squishysquirmy · 17/02/2018 11:06

Kursk
Hypothetically, if you sold/traded a gun (maybe to free up more money for a better gun) and the person seemed fine, and 6 months/a year later you found out that gun had been used to murder someone (maybe its switched owner more than once since you had it) would you feel guilty at all?
Or would you feel content in the fact that the criminal had the right to buy/trade that gun from you, and that the life/lives lost were a sad but reasonable price to pay for that right.

I know that's a horrible situation to contemplate, and apologies if I sound goady but I am curious.

Biggreygoose · 17/02/2018 11:14

@kursk "The Prepper in me wouldn’t want to have to register those due to their survival value"

I really struggle with this. You (and others) argue that America is perfectly safe, if not safer than the UK. Yet the threat of the irrevocable breakdown in law and order is so real to you, you have guns 'off grid' specifically for when that happens and it's a case of 'every citizen for themselves'

I just can't get over that logical incongurance.

TheBrilliantMistake · 17/02/2018 11:16

I don't believe American schoolchildren are living in fear every day. That's hyperbole.
There are some aspects of American life that present danger, and others that present opportunity and freedom. Some emmigrants to the US will have decided the positives outweigh the negatives. Simple as that.

Rinoachicken · 17/02/2018 11:19

So mass shootings in schools every week are a price America is willing so pay??!! That’s acceptable??!!

TheBrilliantMistake · 17/02/2018 11:28

By owning guns, it normalises their presence in the household. It is probably too late for the current generation of kids, but you can effect change for the next generation who might ask "granddad, did people really keep guns back in the day?"
You can't just turn off millions of guns with a legislative switch, but you can start to initiate their obsolescence in the household.

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