Not to understand resistance to gun control

[Maggiethecat]

I understand that it serves those with financial interests but cannot understand why Joe Bloggs wouldn't want restrictions on eligibility to carry guns. It's not as if guns are being banned and their freedom is being taken away, it's that there should be reasonable checks carried out.

Are Americans not exhausted by the mass shootings and wonder why this is the only country in the world with such a dismal record?

I wouldn't be so sure, there will still be a sizable portion of this cohort who were brought up by the gun crazies.

Yes I had heard about it @saltinesandcoffeecups and it has nothing to do with children going to school and ending up dead because an 18 year old is allowed to go and buy guns and ammunition without question. I can see from your posts that you don't care at all because there's no justification for that to be allowed.

Nope, but I find punishing people who don’t commit crimes not to be terribly effective in deterring said crimes committed by lawbreakers. I think we can agree that that a person who murders is a lawbreakers, right? And a person who owns a gun is not a lawbreaker (in the US).

Might I refer you to #2 on my list? (And great try on the old ‘tug on the heart strings’).

See this is why I don’t debate this and many other topics. I am willing to offer my position and opinion. You’ll never understand where I’m coming from and I really don’t care about your judgment of my opinion. So take my opinion as an opportunity to learn or as an opportunity to do research to bolster your stance on the subject.

So cold.

Upper Midwest….my university had gun storage on campus for those living in the dorms. It was safer than than having them in the dorm rooms for the hunters and those who took the hunting class. My DH is from the south where gun racks in trucks in the HS parking lot was not uncommon.

A lot of people I know want the existing gun laws to be enforced and convicted criminals in jail. And we’re sick of far left Democrats telling us how we should be living because the hard topics are hard to fix so we’ll go after the people who follow laws 😉

It's very easy to sit in your tiny, very tame island and natter on about the barbarian Americans and their affinity for guns. To me many of you sound like smug, parochial idiots who have no idea what living in rural parts of the US is like. This while you talk about how few of us have traveled outside the US. Well, I've traveled extensively outside the US, both for vacation and as a former member of the US armed forces, and I've never had as many threats to my life as I have here in the rural US. Life is wonderful here, but it's not for the faint of heart.

The penultimate sentence is rather making the point for us. Perhaps with stricter gun laws there wouldn't be more threats to your life in the US, than anywhere else you've ever been.

Might I refer you to #2 on my list? (And great try on the old ‘tug on the heart strings’)

Tug on the heart strings? How glib you are. Those children had their faces blown off and are having to be identified using DNA samples. But no biggie to you. Everyone should have the right to own an assault rifle.

And if you're against gun control then it stands to reason that you think future similar massacres are a price worth paying. So own it.

No other country suffers this gruesome phenomenon. It's yours alone.

Thanks for sharing your point of view, @saltinesandcoffeecups. I know you said you're not up for debate so I don't expect a reply from you, but I would like to say a couple of things in response to your post.

Americans have not always owned high powered semi automatic weapons with high capacity clips. These weapons did not exist when America's constitution (or the Second Amendment) was written.

I am not aware of any federal politician that has said all guns should be outlawed. I would love to know exactly who you are referring to and what it is they said.

There was an assault weapon ban in place in the 90s after Columbine. Republicans let it lapse and that is a big reason why there's been a surge in mass shootings. On the flip side, I've yet to hear from any gun owners that their non-assault style weapons were confiscated by the government while the ban was in place.

There is also data that shows gun violence is not as random as your post implies. It follows predictable patterns that law makers can use to pass laws that keep Americans safe while still preserving gun owner rights. To learn more about this, please go to the website everytown.org.

When people say mental health I think that's mostly a euphemism for past incidences violence. In fact, the data shows that prior acts of domestic violence are a significant predictor to gun violence. You can read more about that at everytown.org.

The constitution is an important document, but no right guaranteed therein is absolute. The government always retains the authority to balance individual rights against the public safety. So for example, you can't shout FIRE in a crowded movie theatre, cause a dangerous stampede for the exits and then escape prosecution by invoking your 1st Amendment right to free speech. Your individual right to free speech is not absolute and it does not trump the public safety of your fellow moviegoers.

It's not weird at all.

1. Mass killings by vehicle are relatively rare occurances. Sure you can plough your car into a bunch of unsuspecting pedestrians but once the surprise is over it's pretty difficult to maintain a sustained attack and completely impossible to sneak a car into a school building. Mass killings by gun are a more than daily occurances in America (were 147 days into 2022 and there have been 248 mass shootings).

2. Cars are primarily designed to transport people and/or goods. Guns are primarily designed to injury or kill living things.

3. Cars are essential the general public, especially in America where the public transport is even worse than the UK. Guns are not in anyway essential to general public.

Your argument of "well some guy used X to kill people and no one tried to ban X so Guns are A-OK" is whataboutery at its worst.

Apparently I’m very glib…you seem to be trying to catch me in a “GOTCHA” moment. But what you fail to understand is that when I think about those children where you see a gun as the cause, I see the human.

it’s real easy to ‘fix’ the gun problem. It’s a lot harder to fix the human problem. Do you not see the snot nose ‘I’m mad at the world so I’m going to kill innocent people’ piece of shit as the cause of that tragedy or do you see him as a victim? Why does he get a free pass?

To be clear this was a person that planned the murder of children. You seem to be just fine saying the gun made him do it. Why is that?

There's no hope for a country that has citizens like you @saltinesandcoffeecups. Don't you understand that if he was unable to go out and arm himself those children would still be alive? What kind of country won't let an 18 year buy alcohol but lets them buy endless ammunition and guns?

it’s real easy to ‘fix’ the gun problem. It’s a lot harder to fix the human problem. Do you not see the snot nose ‘I’m mad at the world so I’m going to kill innocent people’ piece of shit as the cause of that tragedy or do you see him as a victim? Why does he get a free pass?
To be clear this was a person that planned the murder of children. You seem to be just fine saying the gun made him do it. Why is that?

Now you're being tiresome and making things up. Please point to where I said that he was a victim and that a gun made him do it? That would be great.

Let me break this down as simply as possible:
He woke up intent on mass murder.
Being armed with assault rifles made mass murder very easy for him to achieve.
It's highly unlikely he would have murdered 21 people armed with a knife.

No assault rifles - no mass murder.

Every country in the world has psychos intent on killing but these types of killing sprees only happen in America.

But lucky the cops were armed, hey? They did a great job, standing outside while he went on his rampage.

Actually I’m against the 21 YO age restriction on alcohol. That doesn’t make sense since the age of majority is 18.

Oh really that's what you're concerned about @saltinesandcoffeecups. I think you're just on here to get your kicks.

Ok so you’re on team ‘It’s the gun’s fault”. Then I guess you can sleep comfortably in your gun free Utopia?

Aren’t you glad you don’t live in the US… is that what you are looking for, validation in your moral superiority? Honestly just tell me and I’ll agree with you if it stops the comments. I really can’t stress how your opinion of of my opinions means to me. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet I did say I’m not interested in a debate). Oh but bonus points you can use all my comments as justification for your opinion and sit comfortably knowing you know better than those silly Americans.

In fairness you brought it up to begin with.

Ok so you’re on team ‘It’s the gun’s fault”. Then I guess you can sleep comfortably in your gun free Utopia?

No, silly. I'm team 'it's the fault of the people who agree with unfettered access to assault rifles'. And yes, I can sleep very comfortably.

But I'll let you go now before you become any more agitated.

Nighty night!

You realise that many farmers in the UK own shotguns for protecting their livestock from dogs and crows? That many people in the UK hunt with rifles and shotguns?

Surely it wouldn't be the end of the world if you were restricted in what kinds of weapon you were able to purchase, had to keep them locked in a sturdy cabinet when not in use, and had to register your firearms?

Nighty Night!👋

Seems somewhat strange. In the US, a baby has a right to life until it is born, then it is fine to shoot it with a gun.

I don’t know. I support it. Of course in many states there ARE tight restrictions and it doesn’t really help. I’m fairly sure Illinois as a whole or at least Chicago have stricter gun laws than much of the country and so far it’s not doing much. There are just SO many guns.

I think we need to immediately stop the production and importation of high capacity magazines. Don’t go take the ones that are already out there and don’t take the guns that use them because it will lead to more bloodshed, but stop more being made. Eventually the stockpiles will be gone and the guns rendered useless by default.

I’ve said this on another thread already, but I don’t personally know any fellow Americans who don’t support radical gun reform, including the gun owners.

Most of the people I know who own guns have good reasons for owning them. Some live in areas where they regularly encounter bears or mountain lions by their homes and not having a gun or a serious protective weapon would be irresponsible. The others hunt for food that they use to feed their own families. There is often an overlap between the two groups.

the gun nuts are an entirely different breed and they are the people preventing us from passing reforms. They are the ones who think you need a gun to go to the grocery store. The way our democratic republic is set up just happens to give them a bigger voice in government than the rest of the citizens. It’s a huge flaw in our constitution.

Only got this far. Population density is quite high in many parts of the UK, yet the police force is being whittled down. Doesn’t mean that we’re all going round shooting people.

Many rural communities here, with minimal (almost zero) policing. Weird - none of us are crying out for lax gun controls for protection.

I am, obviously, heartbroken for the families invited with this atrocity.

I am NOT sorry for the USA as a whole. My empathy has gone - years of “thoughts and prayers”. Years of “it’s not the gun, it’s the person”. Years of “it’s mental health”. Basically, years of crap excuses.

To boil it down - why should it be normal that flipping school kids get training in what to do for a shooter incident?

Involved, not invited - why does my iPad decide what I’m typing?!