Do you own a fire extinguisher? Purchase any type of insurance? Just because something isn't actively happening to you at the moment doesn't mean that it can't.
Forgive for my ignorance, as I’m pretty sure this was years ago you posted about it. Didn’t you once go to jail for two months for brandishing a gun?
I was holding an unloaded gun, pointed at the ground, on my own property, as I was coming back from the lower field, where I had been shooting. It was during the dispute over ownership of my property, and as I came up towards the house a real estate agent was pounding a For Sale sign into the ground. I walked up to him and told him that was a bad idea. I just happened to be holding a gun at the time because I was walking back from shooting and didn't want to lay it in the dirt while I spoke to that idiot.
Didn't say they were irresponsible themselves, but as a collective society, your access to a gun should be regulated to a point where there's no room for someone who just turned 18 to be able to buy two AR's within weeks of one another and a shit ton of ammo with ease. Sorry, but if you disagree with that, you have brain rot. Just curious about your car analogy, do you pay insurance on your car? Is it registered with a VIN number directly tied to that vehicle? Do you have to take a driving course and get your license renewed every few years? Do you have to register your vehicle every few years? Do you have to get your car inspected to make sure it is road worthy every year? Does the federal government regulate MPG requirements for new cars? Does the federal government regulate, very specifically, how cars have to conform to certain standards to be on the road? Are car manufactures brought to fault if something happens in their vehicle which is a safety issue that causes loss of life? I mean I could go on and on about how heavily regulated car ownership and car manufacturing are in this country, but I'm sure you probably are aware of these things. Driving drunk is still going to happen regardless of what policy and what legislation you enact, but do we continue to exalt drunk driving as just part of car ownership? No, we condemn it and continue to increase laws/penalties against it trying to make it AS difficult as possible to stop it from happening. With gun violence, not just school shooting, it's a fucking free for all with little regulation. An 18 year old kid, went into a gun store, bought 2 AR-15's within weeks of one another, and no one batted an eye. That's a problem, plain and simple.
Did you really just post these two comments back to back seriously, or was this like an ironic shit post meme? Curious as to your situation as well, why do you need a gun currently? Besides self-defense. Are you a member of a shooting club where you have competition target shooting? Do you live on a farm where you need a gun to help protect your animals? Are you a skeet shooter? What is your gun doing for you if in 40+ years of owning it you've never had to even point it at anyone?
That’s true. But the school massacre thing is an issue that other nations cannot even come in a far-away second place. They happen in other countries, but at a -1% rate compared to America. Every country has mental health problems, that is here to stay. However school shootings is an unfortunately deeply-rooted culture of the past 25 years that is American as apple pie.
Have you ever heard of the Proud Boys, p or Three-Percenters? The Divorced Dude Energy that radiates off those angry dorks alone could power the entire planet for a month.
And then you can also look at the UK, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland, etc where the rate is significantly lower. One of the outliers to this is South Korea where instead of using guns, they've resorted to jumping off tall buildings instead. Again, I'm not saying if you strictly regulate guns there will be no suicides, but there is a link between strict regulation of guns and a lower suicide rate amongst men.
It's not even a school massacre thing, it's a death by gun rate by country that's the issue. We are like top 5 in killing each other and ourselves with guns and it's not even close.
A few of these things are dependent on your state/county, just to clarify. I haven’t gotten a car inspected since 2002, and I’ve never had to take any course to renew a license (unless I was misreading your meaning on that).
It is true, there are a few things that vary state by state as far as the regulations surrounding car ownership. I'm not a particular fan of leaving something like this up to the states either. I think there should be federal and consistent regulations for car ownership, especially since vehicles travel between states quite regularly, but that is a totally different argument. Maybe instead of just cars, I should extend it to something like truck drivers, who need to take a DOT physical and have a background check a whole slew of other regulations in place just to drive. At the end of the day, gun ownership should be treated with the utmost regulation.
I have no issue with additional regulations, such as adding mental health databases to the background check for any purchase, or requiring training courses before you could buy different classes of firearms. Perhaps something similar to a driver license classes for different classes of firearms. You'd need to show you've attended training and met the minimum standards, had a mental health/criminal background check, etc before you can make a purchase. For example: level A bolt/lever action rifles, shotguns, revolvers level B for semi auto handguns level C for semi auto-rifles
The car analogy is always a good one because it always fits the person's argument regardless of their position...yes cars are regulated, but nobody needs a 1000hp Hellcat Hemi, or a corvette, but as long as the vehicle meets mandated safety requirements and has all inspections, registrations, it's perfectly legal to drive any car on the road. If you made modifications to a formula 1 car to to meet safety regs you could register it & put a plate on it making it legal to drive on any road in the US if you wished.
one of the most obvious and easiest, not complete solutions but something that would help tremendously, which I've yet to see proposed is mandatory annual training hours to be able to purchase a firearm. As teachers we are required to have several dozen training hours per year. Same with lawyers, doctors, dentists, and many other professions. I WISH the same was required in order to keep your driver's license. Why has this yet to be proposed in order to purchase a firearm?
I'd be really interested to see a study that proves this, not that I think you're entirely incorrect, but that seems nearly impossible to confirm correlation is causation here. Those are also all countries with established public health systems, which presumably also includes access to mental healthcare.
I also think someone who just turned 18 being able to buy two ARs within weeks of one another is not a great idea. (And, I wish that 14 year olds didn't have free access to the internet to find plans on bomb making, but alas . . .) You didn't suggest raising the age limit. You wrote Suggesting the age limit should be raised is completely different, and is a valid point to make in a discussion on improving gun safety. When your argument starts with "remove guns from the majority of people" when it's a tiny, tiny minority of people causing problems, that means you have brain rot.
The problem is having strict regulation for owning a gun means the majority of people won't fit the criteria to own or won't bother to try and get a gun. Let's say for instance, you own a firearm, but the only reason for doing so is "self defense". This wouldn't be a valid reason for owning a gun. You would need to show either a need for farming or competition shooting or something of the sort. You wouldn't be allowed to just have a gun in the house because "reasons"
What would be the options for self defense in your home, if you were denied the purchase of a handgun?
“Causing problems” This hides the cost. It may be only a minority of people causing the issue, but the issue is 10 year olds being massacred in classrooms. It’s not brain rot to say “Access to guns isn’t worth 10 year olds being massacred in classrooms.” You can disagree, but it’s not brain rot.