Are we as a country pretty much at a 50/50 split now on most issues? As in: Gun Control - 50% want more, 50% want no change or less? Welfare - Remember R-Money's famous 47% fiasco from the 2012 presidential election cycle against Obama? If that is the case and that is how the votes go, then doesn't that mean Congress in reality should be doing nothing and are operating correctly? I know that sounds like an inane argument but isn't the point of our system to stay out of people's lives to the greatest extent possible and only make changes that affect the populous at large when the will of the country demands it?
I think it's more like 40-40, with 20% unsure or constantly changing their minds, depending on who is making a better argument (read: presentation). I'm fine with your second paragraph.
Well, no, as I said earlier, 80-90% of people want gun reform. http://www.politifact.com/texas/sta...-bird-says-90-percent-americans-want-mandato/ According to this one, even NRA members are fine with universal background checks. "Bird’s claim rang a bell. In April 2013, we found True a claim by Lee Leffingwell, then Austin’s mayor, that 90 percent of Americans and 74 percent of National Rifle Association members supported background checks of gun purchasers. Polls taken in 2012 and 2013 supported both figures, though one taken closest to Leffingwell’s comment indicated support among all Americans possibly slipping a bit below 90 percent." CNN polling: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/06/20/cnn_orc_poll_june_20.pdf Is the only one that looks down the middle until you get to background checks and pre-existing exceptions to ownership. 86% are fine with banning people on the terror watch list from buying: https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/06/16/86-percent-americans-support-law-banning-gun-sale/ (I myself am conflicted on that, but would go along with it for now) So no, it is not 50/50.
Maybe I'm retarded, but I don't understand what kind of new gun regulations everyone wants. Doesn't the Brady Bill already address nearly every concern constantly being complained about? Not only does it provide the requirement for background checks via the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, but it also prohibits people from owning a firearm who have been: "Adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution; convicted in any court of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year; is a fugitive from justice; is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance; has been discharged from the Armed Forces under dishonorable conditions; is subject to a court order that restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of such intimate partner, or; has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence." (Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, section 922g). Just what the fuck is everyone arguing about? “Crazy” people are not legally allowed to own guns, felons are not legally allowed to own guns, and no one can just walk into a gun store or go to a gun show and purchase a gun without a background check. You cannot even have been dishonorably discharged from the armed services, and it has been so for 22 years. It seems to me like this is just another instance of never let a good tragedy go to waste so we can score political points on the other team in an election year. It's despicable.
Actually, yes they can. It's even called the Brady Bill loophole in reference to the exact law you were talking about. I don't know why people keep calling this a myth. I don't really give a shit about most gun control proposals. Most of it is just people making a lot of noise and trying to blame the crimes on something unrelated. Even so, background checks on all gun purchases is a no brainer. I mean, the counter argument to this is really fucking stupid. That's just a bunch of nutty bullshit if you ask me. Regarding people on federal aid, I refuse to believe it's just a few outliers abusing it. It's somewhere between 42-58% that are actually working while using food stamps. So about half. I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that half these people just can't find a job. I don't give a flying fuck if it's the job they want. Start with what you can get and then go from there. The right is pretty bad about acting like your starting point in life doesn't matter because this country is so great and blah blah blah, but the left is just as bad about pretending hardly any of these people are lazy fucks who just don't want to work. I'm all for helping people on hard times, but let them live on the street if they won't find a job within a certain time period. I'm so fucking sick of hearing about how they're all victims. It's bullshit. Low wages and being underemployed is a real problem. I have no issue with people staying on welfare because they get paid a shitty wage. I don't have sympathy for shit heads on the system for years because they 'can't' find a job. I lived next to a lot of these shit trash people when I was in Jacksonville. They didn't have jobs because they were utter failures as human beings, not because life is unfair or whatever else.
The Republicans already proposed two gun control bills that the Democrats didn't accept. So where's the compromise? They may not have been as strict as the ones they want, but isn't that a step in the right direction? The democrats just voted against gun control for political theater. Paul Ryan should just let them sit there and rot.
You do realize that about 40% of the people on food stamps (SNAP) are children, right? Those fuckers should be working too, right?
Or when you get assistance and try to do the "right thing" by getting a job and find out that working and having that job means assistance is cut off. But you don't make enough money with whatever job you have to actually live AND eat AND feed your kids AND put gas in your car. Now you're working and making too much money but you still can't eat.
No, I did not realize that because the numbers I was referring to exclude children and those not expected to work.
Agreed. However, as of September 2015, 18 states and Washington D.C. have background check requirements beyond federal law. Eight states require universal background checks at the point of sale for all transfers, including purchases from unlicensed sellers. It's not perfect but it's better than nothing. It should be a simple thing to fix at the Federal level, but any bill put forth will have a whole lot of bullshit attached.
It's kind of a funny coincidence this happened. Last weekend I was watching the Fifth Estate, and there was a scene with Professor Lupin and the German kid from Inglorious Basterds, where Lupin was telling him a story about how newspapers used to be banned from reporting on what happens in Parliamentary debates. A group of men started distributing pamphlets with details about the debates and it led the public to demand that the ban be lifted. The men were hanged. I don't know how much of that was true or just movie talk, but it was interesting.
I'm totally fine with the whole dumping of "no fly no buy" because the list is broken, but background checks and for the love of Jesus stop selling weapons out the trunk of cars and via Facebook...what in the world is a rational argument against it?
I follow a lot of British people on twitter, so I've been watching the angst unfold a couple of months now. My favorite tweet from this morning: https://twitter.com/Markgatiss/status/745845682485989381 Translating it as much as possible into American political terms, it seems like the liberals want to stay in and the conservatives want to leave, and a whole slew of social issues seem to be involved like refugees, health care, welfare, employment, etc. I know that President Obama was there last month encouraging them to stay in. Should be interesting.
The argument is there's no way to stop it unless you make every single person who owns any kind of gun, register that gun so the government knows who has what. And then require private sellers to tell the government that they sold the gun and to whom. But how do you enforce it? There's literally not enough people and resources to track all the guns and then enforce that without breaking down every door to see who has what to check if they have registered. It's just not feasible to stop private sales. You can only ban the sale of certain weapons and take measures for the future as far as background checks are concerned.
I get that currently it isn't feasible to stop private sales. But surely - in all the brainpower we have going on in this country - we can find an imperfect compromise. It isn't going to make everyone happy - and in fact it will probably make everyone have something to grump about - but a compromise does that. Why shouldn't it be illegal a) to purchase without a background check and b) to sell without performing the checks?
It's not that people don't think it should be illegal. It's all about the "how". How do you enforce this without egregious violations of privacy and 4th amendment violations? Making a symbolic law won't do anything to solve a problem. As it stands, you only need to be 21 to buy a hand gun and not a convicted felon. For someone to sell privately, you need to check their ID to make sure they are a citizen of age or see a CHL(if applicable). But those are all self-regulating. No one is there to make sure you are doing due diligence. Making something even more illegal with greater redirections but no way to check them solves nothing.
This recent gun control issue is downright stupid. Ban assault weapons! Ban large clips! Stop mass shootings now! Mass shootings make up less then 1% of the shootings in our country. Most shootings involve hand guns, and a great deal of those are stolen, strawman purchases, or otherwise illegally obtained weapons. Enforce the laws we already have and nail someone's ass to the wall if they have an illegal weapon or use any gun committing a crime. Recently in Chicago a guy shot another guy twice because the victim wouldn't join his gang. He's looking at 6-7 years for shooting the guy. That's 2-4 years with good behavior. Oh yeah, and the shooter won $25 million dollars in a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit...and he got out and keeps gang banging and committing crimes. http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/feds-say-video-shows-millionaire-gang-leader-shooting-man/ This recent dust up is nothing more then political grandstanding. They don't give a shit about reducing gun crime, if they did they would pass laws that punish people severely for breaking the laws already in place instead of trying to inconvenience the millions of law abiding gun owners.
Awesome. Let's not do anything then. Because clearly that's the solution. Clearly the solution is to say "people gonna do what they do so let's just not do anything". Or we can take a frank look at our situation nationally and come up with something. You're absolutely right in that private sales are a thing. Imagine for a second that you're looking to make a few bucks and sell your AR and the buyer (unbeknownst to you) is a huuuuuge nut bag. And he uses the weapon he buys from you (that all you did was verify is age) to make Aurora look like a small incident. Do you actually bear any responsibility? I don't think so. Should you? No. Should it have been so easy for wackjob Larry to purchase your firearm? I don't think so. I love the second amendment. I think that during our lifetime there's going to be a massive confrontation and physical revolution because of the direction our government is taking. But it's harder to buy hair color and developer than it is to buy an AR. It's harder to get a CrossFit level 1 certification than it is to buy an AR. It's harder to get extension certified than it is to buy an AR. I LOVE guns. Our safe is full of them. But even I am willing to concede that mayyyyybe it should be just a wee bit more difficult to buy a weapon than it is to give someone highlights. And I'm totally on board with stiffer penalties for gun crimes.