Why can’t America ban automatic weapons?

[MaryPoppinsPenguins]

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?

Who knows, It could be a catalyst for any future trouble. More likely is that nothing along those lines will ever happen.

Average this year so far - THREE A WEEK!
three a week this year there has been 6 weeks thats 18 please can you name each 18 school shooting thanks

ONE shooting in which 17 people were killed, most of them children, is too many!!

One is too many, of course it is, but the figures being questioned where about hyperbole such as 'Schoolkids living in fear every day' or 'three mass shootings in schools a week' as though this were a constant figure, rather than a distortion.

I'm anti-gun, but we have to at least use less kneejerk statements.
Most Americans are getting by fairly well with current legislation, and for me, therein lies the problem. Gun crime simply doesn't affect most. It affects a few an awful lot - inner city deprived areas for example. For the large part, a mass shooting like this affects the nation for a couple of weeks, the media gets tired of it, and people carry on just like before... until the next time it happens. It's a cycle we've seen for decades.

We care, but we don't care for long.

No one needs a gun. It is dangerous in anyone’s hands regardless of any checks in place.

ONE shooting in which 17 people were killed, most of them children, is too many!!

point being facts are stubborn things and the poster i replied to was simply wrong (if you look at the list no fair minded person would equate a third grader somehow firing a police officer's gun can be classedin the same category as Florida)

The police 'need' them to tackle violent criminals.
Some people need them to protect against life threatening animals.

Those are legitimate uses.

Once you open up that can of worms though, someone will ask - why can't the public protect themselves from violent criminals?

We can't uninvent them, and thus bad people will always want to use them to enforce their will, and good people will want to use them to protect (in extreme circumstances).
All that we have now as a balancing act between accepting we can't uninvent them, and restricting them in a way that keeps deaths to a minimum. There WILL be deaths, that's not going away, ever.

no fair minded person would equate a third grader somehow firing a police officer's gun can be classedin the same category as Florida)

I agree, it's not the same. Still pretty scary though, isn't it? A trained law inforcement officer was negligent enough to allow a third grader to fire his gun.

There was one other similar shooting in Kentucky. Two students were killed. That kid didn't have an AR-15. He used a handgun.

In the year up to March 2016, police in England and Wales only fired seven bullets. (Although these government figures do not include accidental shots, shooting out tires, or killing dangerous or injured animals.)

These officers fatally shot just five people during that period, according to British charity Inquest, which helps families after police-related deaths.

The Metropolitan Police carried out some 3,300 deployments involving firearms in 2016. They didn't fire a single shot at a suspect.

It's a world away from the United States, where cops killed 1,092 people in 2016, according to figures compiled by The Guardian.

A police officer was killed in Manchester by another officer during a training exercise in a warehouse type environment.
They are dangerous even in the hands of experts.

More guns = more risk. But that's true of cars too! Fortunately cars primary purpose isn't to injure or kill or be a threat of any kind.

A gun's primary purpose in almost all cases is at least to act as a threat, and at worse to kill.
A starter pistol or flare gun might be a couple of exceptions to that, and even then, there's no real reason for them to resemble guns.

The life threatening animals thing is mostly bunk. That's not a problem for most Americans. I know a guy who lives on a cattle ranch out west who shot a mountain lion last year. I'm fine with someone like him having a licensed gun. He doesn't have or want a semi automatic. Because he's not an asshole.

Hunting for food is also BS. Maybe some crazy hermits live entirely off the land but it's highly unlikely that your average American will starve if they can't hunt.

Hunting for food is also BS. Maybe some crazy hermits live entirely off the land but it's highly unlikely that your average American will starve if they can't hunt.

We wouldn’t starve, you are right on that but, we came with the aim of living sustainability and independently of society. We are striving to be “the crazy hermits”

The life threatening animals thing is mostly bunk. That's not a problem for most Americans. I know a guy who lives on a cattle ranch out west who shot a mountain lion last year. I'm fine with someone like him having a licensed gun.

That's my point. Once you open up the can of worms just a little bit, what happens with the man who lives next door to him (even if that's 2 miles away?) or the man who goes camping in a dangerous area twice per year etc. Is he allowed one or not?

Those 'rare' legitimate uses get used all the time, and the biggest excuse of all 'to protect my family from the real idiots out there' is a legitimate reason. It's not a reason that would persuade me to allow someone to have a gun, but it's legitimate all the same.

My grounds for saying no would be the grounds most anti-gun people would have: a) Accidents happen no matter how well you guard against them. b) Guns can be stolen by the bad guys c) In what can be perceived as a threatening situation, people can make irrational decisions. Firing a gun out of fear is understandable, but the fear might be misplaced. I could probably come up with 10 other reasons too.

More people die in vehicle accidents than through gun crime. We could all walk to work I guess.
I am playing devil's advocat of course, but I'm trying to illustrate how complex it is to use arguments from the anti-gun side (me) without seeing parallels elsewhere that don't seem to worry us all that much.

We wouldn’t starve, you are right on that but, we came with the aim of living sustainability and independently of society. We are striving to be “the crazy hermits”

You could still live like that with stricter gun laws.

3) Half the population have below average intelligence
Well...yes. Even if everyone in America had an IQ of over 150, half of those people would still be below the average!

Erm. not necessarily:

Person A) 130
Person B) 160
Person C) 40

The average of the above is 110.
Two thirds are above average, one third below it.

That's my point. Once you open up the can of worms just a little bit, what happens with the man who lives next door to him (even if that's 2 miles away?) or the man who goes camping in a dangerous area twice per year etc. Is he allowed one or not?

If I were in charge of deciding who gets to have a gun, no he is not. If he must go camping in a dangerous area good luck to him.
I'd prefer it if no one had guns, I agree that the reasons people claim to need them are usually pretty thin. But I don't think that's doable right now. If it were up to me very few people would be allowed to have specific kinds of guns. Nearly nobody.

Because their dna as an experimental young nation still clings to its obsessive urge to protect themselves. They are still stuck in the Wild West. Oh... and Turkeys don’t vote for Xmas. NRA runs Washington. They’ll never learn. The smartest kids I’ve ever heard spoke post Florida tragedy denouncing the out dated constitution. HELLO USA. WAKE UP!!!

If you have rules in place then all 3 men can apply and if they pass the tests, meet the conditions set etc, they can own a gun.
Who knows, the holiday guy could be the most responsible gun owner of the three.

it isn't ban or not ban.

Most nations have far more permissive gun laws than the UK. Take America-lite (i.e. Canada). Gun restrictions are surprising light there, contrary to perception. But there aren't nearly as many guns and a higher portion are for things like hunting and warding off animals in rural areas.

They have sensible gun laws like requiring id, background checks and waiting

periods. don't know what happened there.

The laws won't help much without a culture / mentality shift.
As others have alluded to, other nations handle guns better, although Canada's not perfect either, it's significantly better than the US.

I agree with the poster who said that it does not help when the President uses phrases like 'if they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun'. America has a very 'kick ass' type mentality because it believes it will not be pushed around. This filters down into the very psyche of many Americans 'hell no, guns won't go!' etc.

'Tough on crime', 'tough on terrorism' seeps into everyday America and bullets are their chosen methodology.

bluepears - you're making a fool out of yourself on this thread. You would really do yourself a favour if you drop the defensiveness and open your mind (to objective facts and empathy for the lives of children and other innocents).

Bluepears, there have been 23 gun-related deaths in US schools since 1st January, plus many serious injuries resulting from gun use. Do you regard that as acceptable?

Brilliant you are right, laws wont help much with a culture/mentality shift, you only have to look at some of the comments on this thread to realise that. But it would be a start.

I agree @ToffeeUp.
It might not change the minds of current generations, but once they aren't in people's homes, the next generation might find them more alien - like smoking etc.

If your grandparents had guns, then your parents, I'd say there's a higher likelihood you will too. Rid the house of guns, and the next wave of kids might not care for them so much.