DEBATE Miley Cyrus 'March For Our Lives' in Washington, DC - March 24-2018 (Political debate)

I don't disagree. As I previously stated, I'm not a fan of the NRA and not a member. I was simply pointing out that there's 2 other very large sources of revenue that support the NRA that have nothing to do w/gun manufacturers.

Beyond that, I would remind everyone that gun bans world wide have never stopped homicide. Much like making drugs illegal has never stopped the manufacture, distribution and consumption of drugs- banning guns will not stop the mentally bereft.

 

I'm under the impression that this isn't about an outright ban or completely eliminating homicides. It's simply about limiting the availability of projectile weapons so that serial homicides are less prevalent than they currently are.

Obviously, nothing will prevent this completely. The recent spate of attacks using vehicles as weapons has shown that guns alone aren't the issue. Guns do, however, make it much easier to kill a large number of people in a short amount of time with minimal chance of being stopped prematurely, and that's a big problem in a country that has such widespread gun ownership (both legal and illegal).

 

Again, I don't disagree with anything you've said- though I do wonder if you're stating an oversimplification. What I mean is twofold: 1) there are more deaths every day by vehicles than guns and there are (many) more deaths by guns in individual cases than by "mass shooters"; so let's maintain some perspective. 2) As we have learned from France, U.K., Turkey, Belgium, etc., etc. cars/trucks are just as easily converted to weapons. In some countries it's acid, in others its poison. India, Indonesia, china and a couple other areas its machetes/knives and clubs.

Philosophical Academic food for thought: What will we blame/ban when some deranged kid takes a job at Starbucks (or Similar) and decides to taint the smoothie machine with cyanide, 2-4,D or something else readily available that kills 5-to-50? Seriously-- I'm not trying to make light of the current situation, I'm simply trying to make the case that our focus on guns ensures that our full attention is not on the actual issue...

 

I think the key difference with weaponised vehicles is that those vehicles serve other, valid purposes. Projectile weapons have no other uses these days. Back when they were needed to hunt meat they were tools, just as cars are now, but no longer. Like you said, people who are inclined to kill other people will look for an alternative way to do it if they can't obtain a gun, so it's about striking a balance between making such items/substances difficult to obtain without impeding any legitimate uses they may have. With the prevalence of guns in the US, it's simply too easy for them to act on those thoughts. Successfully being employed at a Starbucks and obtaining enough of their substance of choice is considerably more difficult than obtaining a firearm and walking in as a customer, for instance.

You're completely wrong about the root issues not being dealt with, though. The ultimate causes are always either psychological or sociological, and there has been a staggering amount of research into those subjects in relation to criminal psychology and criminology in recent decades. This alone has led to several major changes in how crime is both prevented and subsequently dealt with, as the blame swings across the "nature versus nurture" spectrum. It has led to - in the UK, at least - continuous significant decreases in crime rates as such research draws closer to the correct answers.

The key problem in the US is that, while those things are considered and ways to address them discovered, implemented and assessed, nothing is done about access to firearms. In every other developed country they deal with all the relevant causes, yet the US is determined to address most of the causes in the forlorn hope that it means they don't have to do anything about one particular causal factor. We're seeing this vividly right now with this bizarre reversion to the 90's as they try, once again, to blame video games for mass shootings while ignoring how easily mass shooters obtains their weapons, conveniently ignoring the fact that this stuff has been thoroughly disproven before. Everything the US tries in an effort to decrease crime - or, at least, punish criminals - is done in order to allow them to leave current gun laws alone. It's just bizarre watching certain people over there tie themselves in knots as they refuse to place any blame on the ease of access to firearms.

Here in the UK, it is legal to own many of the same weapons as in the US. However, they are much more tightly regulated, resulting in it being very difficult to obtain a firearm. People who can demonstrate responsible ownership have little problem obtaining and keeping them, whereas our hypothetical barista cannot.

 

All these mass shooters, especially the ones who kill children should be captured alive and tortured publicly on television for the rest of their lives.

And I mean fingers chopped off, beaten with hammer, balls chopped, partially burn body parts....full medieval.

This should be done on television so that anyone who ever even thinks of doing such things would be scared to death.

....too extreme for Phun?

 

I'm curious about one thing: even if the protesters somehow manage to became successful and assault weapons ban (or their real goal: complete guns ban) became reality, what is to prevent cities and counties to use "sanctuary city" precedent as as a way to ignore the law?

 

The things you've written in this thread have no basis in reality. So no, there's no counter-argument for pure nonsense.

 

The ratings would probably be spectacular. Have you ever heard George Carlin's shtick on creating a Suicide Channel?

 

I think what most folks are overlooking is that these kids, this generation who has been most affected by mass shootings at school (as well as the many non mass shootings that occur daily but go unreported in the news), that generation is going to be voting en masse soon, and they'll be running for office, and they're going to take their personal trauma with them, and changes are going to happen, possibly in a Draconian manner. And there will be change.

 

Actually, "projectile weapons" have many valid uses today. I live amongst avid hunters, who hunt to live. My best friend makes a living from competitive shooting (marksmanship circuit) and a great deal of my family/friends are either cops or military and carry weapons for work.

I can't really speak for the U.K., but as far as the US- we disagree. And to claim that I'm "completely wrong" is hard to support given that all but one "mass shooter" had been either, under the care of a licensed mental health professional or cleared by one prior to their act. I'm fully aware that I am on solid ground stating that the "root causes of these shootings are not gun related, but are due to the failings of professionals/parents/family/neighbors to act satisfactorily prior."

We completely disagree here. Personal responsibility and accountability are at an all time low and the laws on the books are routinely ignored in order to make getting convictions easier. If we simply enforced all existing laws, to their max, much of the violence in America would be avoided.

The current trend in American gun legislation equates to making weapons harder to purchase for law abiding citizens; not for criminals. But, in almost every case of mass shootings, none of the proposed legislation would have stopped them. However, had existing legislation (laws on the books) been adhered to- 75% of the fatalities would have been avoided.

 

The place where mental health and guns come together is the elephant in America's living room. In a country where someone who snaps and decides for whatever reason to take things out on their chosen target has limited or at least difficult access to a gun, another weapon is going to have to be found, and that alone will slow a lot of "crimes of passion" type of shootings down. No, it won't stop everyone, and yes, criminals can and likely still will get access to guns, but if the goal is to simply reduce the number of deaths by gun at the hands of the ones we sometimes refer to as "unstable", then at the very least, the weapon and the stuff that makes it go "boom" need to be separated and locked away.

Nothing in the Second amendment that I have seen, nor in the transcripts of the seriously off-kilter SCOTUS rulings on the subject (this is the same bunch that determined that a corporation is a "person" for the purpose of elections, don't forget) leads me to think that there is a prohibition against common sense. Lock up the guns! Lock up the Ammo! Keep the two separated. That by itself with prevent a lot of deaths right there.

And isn't that the point? Preventing unnecessary deaths? Yes, some folks will find other ways to kill themselves and each other and sadly, a few will do it in bunches. Those who say death happens in other, "non-gun" countries are correct, but they are also distracting us from the point- prevent the damn dying- period. THAT should be the goal. Simply locking the guns up will certainly help that.

Then there is one other thing that comes to my mind.....

My shooting instructor had a speech he gave us recruits on the first day of firearms training back in the 70's. "Every bullet finds a target," he'd say. "Every bullet that leaves a gun barrel whether by accident or in anger will find a target, and when you draw your weapon you had better be willing to accept that fact. Sure, some of those targets might be a tree in the back yard, or maybe a signpost, but it could just as easily be the window of the house a half mile away, and you don't know that a child isn't looking out that window when your bullet finds it's target. Are you prepared to accept that?"

"Every bullet finds a target," he'd say. "There's no such thing as a miss. You may miss what you are aiming at, but that bullet will hit something. A wall, a car, a woman walking her dog or pushing her baby in a stroller. How will you feel then? Can you live with that?"

I like to think he had a point back in 1972. I know I can still recall every word of his lecture all these years later. I also know he was 100% right. I still have a scar on my back that I got when I was 11 to back it up.

Okay, I said I was going to weigh in on this once, and I've broken that promise a couple of times. Time for bed.

Out.

 

And the vast majority of them will be voting age in time for the presidential primaries in 2020, this is possibly gonna be the main issue in determining the opponent to the current administration and you're already starting to see some of the prospective candidates in a few years suddenly distancing themselves from being known as pro-gun rights or even on a neutral relation with the NRA let alone getting their approval.

Yes I have, my alltime favorite comedian. I wonder what he would have to say about the current state of affairs. Sad thing is; at the time he did that bit about the suicide channel we laughed because of the absurdity of it. Since then; with the reality TV boom where we watch people absolutely degrade themselves in every way possible to big ratings, to the rise of social media where people have livestreamed themselves committing crimes or murder for a rapt audience or even kill themselves as people make funny comments as the body hangs from a noose(all here in the U.S. btw)? Carlin was right, absolutely right. Like he said about the suicide channel, "You don't think people would tune into this? In this sick fucking country?".

 

While those are root causes, they are not the sole root causes. Easy access to firearms is another root cause. This isn't a zero-sum issue, where one thing being a factor rules out any other potential influences.

What I said you were completely wrong about was the idea that root causes besides guns are not addressed, when this has been an area of significant research in recent decades, resulting directly in the UK's modern approaches to rehabilitation. The notion of treating crime in general as a symptom of relative deprivation has been highly successful in decreasing crime rates across the board.

This is another of the problems: laws are notoriously outdated in many cases. The zeitgeist moves more quickly than legislative changes.

Besides, the laws are often not the problem. The key is that the US has so many firearms in circulation that it's trivially easy to obtain them legally or illegally. UK law enforcement don't even carry them.

That's another zero-sum point: making things more difficult for people to legally obtain firearms doesn't preclude similar actions being taken to also prevent people from illegally obtaining them. I fully agree that the latter is important, but I also acknowledge that the former is just as important. US law enforcement often have legal access to firearms, and there are a disproportionately high number of deaths as a result of their actions too.

The biggest problem in the US on this issue is that both sides seem bizarrely determined to force this to become a zero-sum game. Control advocates often seem to think that legislating to make legal ownership more difficult will solve everything (out of sight, out of mind), and NRA fans continuously focus exclusively on the fact that legislation makes little difference to lawbreakers anyway and that only lawbreakers seem to commit these acts.

 

Yup. They even want the NRA campaigning on their behalf by trashing the opposition, which is the NRA's primary means of supporting a candidate. It will eventually become a kiss of death.

We're not far evolved from the Romans. We are in many ways just like them.

 

Well, they are lawbreakers after they commit the acts we know them for, but a great many of those folks (and I am not referring to the hot-button big number slayings, just to the normal 50 or so that happen every week largely unnoticed) had no records until that moment. Kids playing with Daddy's loaded "protection" gun. Kids "borrowing" their parents firearm to avenge a perceived wrong. The mild-mannered accountant who figures out how to buy a gun quickly and then kills his boss/wife/neighbour as a way to end some dispute or other.

All these happen with distressing regularity and are committed by people who until that moment had no history of criminality or "mental illness". Consequently they would not have been picked up by any screening in place to prevent someone with a problem from getting a gun.

It's all about making them harder to use in the spur of the moment. Regulations requiring (on pain of penalty) proper storage alone would go a long way to stop the senseless deaths at the hands of family and co-workers.

But in it's wisdom, the NRA won't allow politicians to even entertain that small step toward saving very real lives... sad. Very sad. As I said in my first post, the US has a very small organization of under 1% of the population dictating to the other 99% how to lead their lives.

And they put up with it.

The NRA are nothing but bullies- period. By not standing up to the bullying, what does that make the rest of the country?