It's time to have a serious chat about gun control, America. Is the NRA really that powerful that all sensible debate is quelled?
Otherwise it rather looks like, oh, say, screaming about scary terrorists using encryption as an excuse to ensure insecurity for the rest of us.
The fact that a comment like yours always appears is a large part of why we can't ever have discussions about reasonable regulations.
Hell, where I live there are people who literally argue that property owners should not be able to decide whether to permit what are essentially armed trespassers, since that might infringe on someone's "right" to be armed on your property.
Focusing on cosmetics is silly, and some advocates of restrictions would just as soon see all guns gone, but I think most people just want to see common sense applied.
I think you have not talked to many gun fans. Exceptionally few crimes have been committed with legally and privately owned fully automatic weapons, so I see absolutely no reason why those laws should be revised. Your issue is with the illegally owned guns, and I think that few gun fans would object to enforcement of those laws.
I cannot think of any crimes committed with a legally owned RPG. Clearly the regulation for RPGs that is already in place is sufficient.
I worry when Governments go out of their way to disarm their citizens; even if they're benevolent at the time, they often don't stay that way. Look up the history of disarmament in pre-WWII Germany and Russia.
Today, you can purchase an SKS from a federally-licensesd dealer after a NCIC background check. You can then take that gun home and replace the magazine with one made in the United States, and no law is broken. Replace it with an identical magazine made in Poland, though, and you've committed a felony under 18 USC § 922(r), and if convicted face up to 10 years in prison.
The laws surrounding the ownership of arms in the United States are onerous and Byzantine. I've spent a great deal of effort doing my best to comply with those laws in order to exercise a right that's protected under the federal constitution.
Forgive me if I no longer treat "But we can compromise!" as a valid argument.
It would be so nice if Americans could somehow hand in their guns. On the Old Continent, if you are upset at XY and say that XY ought to be shot, it's viewed as obvious hyperbole, because people don't shoot each other. In America, it's a threat, because the culturally acceptable thing for an upset person is to go on a rampage with a firearm. It's crazy.
Please, no talk about "personal responsibility for one's safety". It's the environment that is safe or not, and a single person is plainly incapable of defending themselves against it. In a variation on Peel's principles, it's not the individual's responsibility to shoot criminals, it's society's task to prevent crime. I'm very cynical and have found that universally whoever talks about "personal responsibility" wants to unload their responsibilities on you.
Downvoters, shoot away!
No, even here, people just don't do that.
> because people don't shoot each other. In America, it's a threat, because the culturally acceptable thing for an upset person is to go on a rampage with a firearm. It's crazy.
It's crazy? No this idea of yours is. Where did you get it? Some bizarre movie?
No, in America people pretty much never shoot each other. I've heard there is this perception in other countries that you constantly have people shooting each other in America, but actually you don't. You could go your entire life and not see a gun.
> It's the environment that is safe or not
And it's safe. Not sure what that has to do with guns though. I guess the more guns people have the safer?
I think you might want to come to America and visit Texas, or some other area with greater than 50% gun ownership. You'll never feel safer.
You perception and reality are so far apart that words are not likely to convince you.
Interesting. This is technically incorrect, in a way that would leave it more misleading if corrected naively.
Any given American almost never gets shot or shot at, and any given American almost never shoots another. Partly because of the size of our population (and partly for some other reasons) it is pretty frequently the case that some American shoots another. That is not incompatible with it being not being a significant risk.
When people say America is an oligarchy, this is what they mean. Your congressperson almost always does not represent you, they represent groups like the NRA. Sensible debate is not "quelled," Congress just does not want to have the debate at all. It is totally sensible for Congresspeople to not have what you would consider a real debate on gun control, because doing so would directly affect their chances of reelection. Instead they avoid the topic or engage in a sort of theater debate while the proverbial smoke-filled room dealmaking happens.
On top of this, many people do not grep the 2nd Amendment and truly believe that it protects all gun rights. In a sense it does, because that's how most people today interpret the Constitution: loosely. So public opinion is often with the NRA more than you might think, especially if you live in a blue state.
See also: the exclusion of a public option from Senate healthcare debates as a topic. It's a perfect example of this phenomenon.
It literally boggles my mind that people make this suggestion with any sincerity.
Seriously though, either:
- school shootings are a statistically significant threat, in which case, arming teachers who wish to be armed seems reasonable
or
- school shootings aren't statistically significant, in which case, enough with the fear-mongering already
You can't point to other countries with no guns and just wish it were like that where you are. It isn't, it won't be for a very long time, and to pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking.
That seems a little silly to me - especially considering the rate of non-compliance with previous registration schemes. In California more "assault weapons" were sold in the state in the three months prior to the registration deadline than were registered. In Connecticut there are people calling for armed conflict over a similar registration scheme, and the reports I've seen say that there are about 100k unregistered weapons there.
Regardless of how you feel about guns, to believe that America could be disarmed in 5 years is exceedingly naïve.
Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad.
It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.
That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people. How likely is it that a teacher is going to flip and kill Andy, 16, next time he shoots his mouth off?
> It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.
The UK essentially legislated away private gun ownership years ago. But of course, it's a society choice. I'd rather live in a society where my kid can go to school safely, with no guns on the premises.
It's true though. Even better, we can in practice select "good people" (defined as "won't murder somebody with a gun") from the general public with an exceedingly low false positive rate (although with a high false negative rate).
The combination of having to fill out stacks of paperwork for the ATF, go through their background checks, pay a $200 per-gun tax, and pay several thousands of dollars for the gun itself makes for a very effective "good people" filter.
Furthermore, people purchasing semi-automatic weapons are not subjected to the scrutiny that I described. What I described is the process that you go through if you want to buy an automatic weapon. The high price of semi-automatic rifles such as AR-15's discourage use by people who would abuse them, but the even higher price of automatic weapons is even more effective. Only two people have been murdered with legally owned automatic weapons since the 1930s.
http://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-a...
Your stats actually back my position up quite nicely, which is: if you're going to have an armed society, then probably the worst thing you can do is gather large numbers of children together under the care of people who are themselves unarmed.
Personally, I think that it's reasonable to be allowed to go armed in public; especially for the old, infirm, and physically weak a weapon is a great equaliser.
The problem comes when you have an armed society, with pockets of disarmed (as opposed to unarmed) prospective victims.
It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it situation. Either you disarm the population (wearing the cost to those incapable of physically defending themselves, and also, best of luck with that) or you arm the teachers who wish to be armed.
Any other position is wishful thinking.
Because after the first shooting started by a teacher, there's really noone left to arm. Other teachers, or security are not exactly helpful here, because the shooter has easy access to taking kids hostage. Everyone who was useful has been armed. What's the solution now? And if there is one, why wouldn't we apply it as step one, before arming teachers?
Or, maybe just maybe, it might lead to less deaths by shooting if there were less guns floating around to do the shooting with?
Government: Give me your guns.
The People: No.
By a "serious" "chat" you mean one in which The People surrender the law and their rights to the current government. In fact, that's not serious. That's juvenile.
People: Maybe we could figure out something that helps to keep known violent or mentally ill people from being able to go on killing sprees.
The NRA: LIBERAL OBUMMER FARTBONGO WANTS TO CONFISCATE EVERY GUN IN THE WORLD BUY ALL THE AMMO YOU CAN GET COLD DEAD HANDS COLD DEAD HANDS COLD DEAD HANDS
It is unfortunate that the very worst thing I can wish on you is to have to live in the society that results from implementing your views.
The NRA's entire schtick since 2008 has been, well, um, pretty much what I said. Plenty of analyses running around of ammunition prices/shortages and their relationship to the frankly vicious campaigns run by the NRA and other even less reputable organizations on its side of the issue.
What is juvenile is continuing to act -- and see this thread for examples -- as if reasonable gun policies are being held back by extreme gun-confiscation advocates who can't be trusted to know what they're talking about. Meanwhile, people die.
I am a gun rights advocate, and I most certainly do not use slurs to talk about Obama or anyone else.
Meanwhile, politicians who are leading figures in the gun control movement in Congress show a lack of basic knowledge, to the point that they often don't even understand the impact of their own bills.
Honest question--I've never owned a gun and I don't intend to.