Given the U.S. is so flooded with guns already, I'm of the belief that it's WAY too late to legislate yourselves into resembling any other Western-world country when it comes to this issue (which saddens me, given how much I love the U.S.). Having said that, why do so many people talk like this is some crazy-complicated issue? How is it any more complicated than 1. Mental Health and 2. Gun Control? I'm not saying fixing those issues is easy, but from the issue-identification stage, what else could be as major a factor as those two (seriously asking)? Your country has a less-than-stellar attitude towards mental health -- from what I can tell, the attitude is similar in Canada, yet our schizophrenics etc. don't do these things at the same rate as yours. Are ours just more polite? Maybe, but it doesn't seem to happen at the U.S. rate in the other Western countries either. It's almost as if the country with absurdly lax gun laws/highest gun death rate has made it too easy for mentally ill people to access weapons that have ZERO use outside war (not sure of the real need for sane people to have guns like that, either, but whatever). I'm no math guy, but Poor Mental Health Care + Slackest Gun Laws in Western World = More Frequent Mentally Ill Shooting Rampages...doesn't seem like an overly-complicated issue, despite the talking heads on TV, who I'll admit do a decent job of acting like any of this surprises them anymore.
Connecticut already has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US... so how come they weren't effective? This issue is way more complicated than just gun control.
Because both of those issues ARE crazy complicated. Gun control partly because of the history and mind set in the U.S., and mental health because it is, by its very nature, complicated. Here is only one facet of that problem: Let's take an imaginary journey to another universe, where Adam Lanza got counseling, and it was determined that he needed to regularly take medication. Further, he has been given easy access to this medication for free. For whatever reason, he decides that he does not want to take his medication, without which he will lose control over his inner demons and kill many small children. He was 20 years old, an adult, and in the United States, we couldn't force him to take his medication if he chose not to take it. The above scenario (folks refusing to take medication they obviously need for their mental health) plays out every day here. And that is only one aspect that needs to be addressed.
Yes the stigma of "I need to get off this." I mentioned this earlier but it got lost in the videogame debate. If it was cancer medication, no one would be thinking "I need to get off this asap" but people think about it for mind medication. We don't look down on people taking chemo, we shouldn't be looking down on people for taking mind meds. But like I said earlier. Sweden everyone has a gun. Sweden if they think you're a tad crazy you're put in a very serious system where you are watched, you have a babysitter or Advokat assigned to you. They determine if you can manage your own finances and how often you need to meet. They send weekly reports to the government offices. If you don't take your meds, you become declared incomeptent, go to a ward. End of story. Girl today at work talked about her sisters friend who has a 13 year old that is psychotic and has tried to kill her. She "doesn't know" what to do because she has two options, one of them involves trusting him to take his medication and the other involves him getting locked up. Then this one lady in my office said, "Well I don't know if that's a good idea having a bunch of crazy violent people in once place." I had to hide my look of "You're an idiot" because the other option is having them running around with the normal non-violent people, and we've seen how well that works for us.
I LOVE guns. Love them. Owned and shot everything from a Swedish Mauser to a tricked out AR-15. My only concern when firing them is how to best hide my throbbing erection. Despite this I am rational enough to be accepting of the fact no society can holistically benefit from a civilian population who can arm themselves with firepower and personal armor to go toe-to-toe with a SWAT officer. The benefits just don't outweigh the cons. Revising gun control policy is not the solution to this as a problem. If this tragedy does however lead to an open and transparent debate around gun laws, I think that will be a step forward.
Wow. I'm about to go out on a limb, but we are absolutely given the undeniable right to have the weaponry capable of defending ourselves against a SWAT team, period. The number of no-knock warrants is rising yearly. Local law enforcement is militarizing at an alarming rate, and sometimes they get it wrong. I know this sounds looney, but if a law enforcement agency fucks up and makes the mistake of unlawfully entering my home, it may be the last mistake they make. I may die in the process, but that's okay. I'm okay with that. I am not okay with living in a world where local and national authorities have all of the weaponry and the people are limited to what those authorities say we're allowed to have. If I could afford it, and it were legal, I would park an armed tank in front of my driveway. As far as I'm concerned, a weapons ban is off the table. After all, this nutjob stole a rifle and two handguns. And, while we're on the subject- that's what was used. Two handguns and a rifle. Strip off all of the bullshit. They're not automatic killing machines. They don't even constitute even a meager collection. Now, do we want to talk about how cavalier our attitude is to acquiring a gun? Let's talk about that, because it is pretty fucking easy for a felon to walk into a gun show and buy a gun from an individual who is masquerading as a firearms dealer, but holds no firearms dealer's license (which, by the way, is fucking illegal). Do we want to talk about how little people are punished when they are caught violating gun laws? That's a good one. How about we talk about how easy it is to lie on a 4473, or how easy it is to shuffle guns around the law? I'd love to talk about that. If we're going to have these laws, we need to enforce them, otherwise, all of the "common sense legislation" in the world isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. AND since I already sound like Walter Sobchack. The thing that holds the bullets is called a magazine. A clip can be used to shove bullets into the magazine, but these terms are not interchangeable. Shomer Shabbos.
Do you honestly think the above and threat of it is so great and warrants the downside? I just don't see this as a very real, or possible threat. I am also very cognizant of the actual threats currently access to high-end weaponry provides and I feel this are far more real and deadly than your fear of government. Increased arming of police forces is in response to the increased arming of civilians. It is an insane internal arms race. Agreed, I tried to distance myself from suggesting this. My only comment was if change is to be sparked by this event, I think a debate on gun control is a good place to start. Respect and agree with much of what you said. That was why my comment was towards general debate on the issue. Where did I get the two confused?
You would rather murder some police officers who made a mistake (or, more likely, work for someone who made a mistake) and die yourself, than surrender quietly and take care of the fuck-up in the legal system? And you think this is enough of a statistical likelihood that you need to be armed for it? That might be the stupidest fucking thing I've read all year. And it's December, so I've had the whole year to read.
Yes. I do believe it warrants the downside. I am as concerned with the very real threat of local law enforcement as I am of criminals. I live in Memphis, TN. Corruption in law enforcement is uncovered every day. Additionally, hot burglaries- home invasions where the homeowner is in the house- is always on the radar. I carry as a matter of course. However, in my home, a handgun is only a tool used to fight my way to a rifle or shotgun. Cops will tell you that if you follow the law, they'll leave you alone. I feel that the cops and I would be best served if both of us adhered to that policy. Guns help define that line. Sorry. That wasn't geared towards you specifically.
Before you start throwing around words like murder, you may want to read up on legal defense of life in most states and how it reads when one party is violating the law and the other isn't.
No, it was aimed at me. I beg to differ though - my company manufactures gun magazines and clips for a number of gun companies. One specifically being Remington - owned by the same company that produces Bushmaster rifles as was used in the Newtown tragedy. I realize that using magazines and clips interchangeably isn't completely accurate but it is done often - even by the company that sells them! http://www.remington.com/en/product...e-clips/model-597-30-round-magazine-clip.aspx This is very similar to the ones used by Adam Lanza
A couple of factors that foreigners need to understand about those of us from the US: 1. Guns are a HUGE part of our culture. At no point in it's history did the typical American exist without guns. It's not like Sweden, Yemen or Korea where these cultures existed for centuries before guns were around or common. The US is and forever will be a gun culture. 2. People in the US do not like their government and they certainly do not trust it, or the police. I have frequently counselled my students visiting the US to avoid the police under any circumstances. We all have our pig-headed, bullshit cop stories and DixieBandit isn't alone in his feelings towards police officers in general. They have developed an "us vs. them" mentality that puts them at odds with the average citizen. The anti-government, anti-police isn't an undercurrent in our society, it's a broad stripe in the mainstream. If you want proof, look at the number of people incarcerated for "non-compliance", resisting arrest, disturbing the peace. 3. Gun control is an all-or-none contract. What that means is that for gun control to make people safer, EVERYONE has to participate. As the saying goes, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. With that said, there are 80 million gun owners and 270 million registered guns in the US. The idea of forcing 80 million people to hand over 270 million guns is absurd: a relatively small percentage would bother. 4. One of the most pervasive myths in the US legal system is the idea of personal protection/home defense killing would be considered legal self-defense and the myth that a gun in the home is more dangerous to invaders than to residents. The cases of successful home defense using a firearm are few and far between, especially when compared to wrongful death or accidental death due to a firearm. So, if the laws are passed to ban certain types of guns a few things happen: prices of guns skyrocket, as does the number of people buying them. This is what happened in 1992, and Obama is certainly smart enough to avoid inspiring more gun owners to hoard soon-to-be-banned guns. Another phenomenon that's rarely considered is that for many people guns are a safe investment. Guns can appreciate in value, and people often over-estimate their actual value or importance (for proof watch any "pawn" reality show). This is important because if I have $200-1000 to invest in something, a rifle is a relatively safe bet on something that won't lose value if I use it. Who "invests" sums like this? The poor or lower middle class who get a sudden windfall, that's who. A major reason for this is that for many families, the rifle is the oldest thing they have. I'm not unlike many American gun-owners in that the first few guns I've owned I inherited from parents, grandparents, or older relatives. I place a high value on them because they are male family heirlooms and a ban on them would simply force me to hide them away somewhere. I highly doubt many of us would entrust Paw-paw's huntin rifle to a police locker managed by the government, rather than squirrel it away in a shed.
Making a pedantic differentiation between the word I used and the law does not detract from the mind-numbing idiocy of what you proposed. It doesn't matter who is violating the law. It matters that you would prefer to kill some fellow human beings who are acting in good faith in the pursuit of enforcement of the law and die in the process, than surrender and fix the situation like a member of an evolved society. It's just amazing. Are you trolling? Is this like what Crown and them are doing over at the PUA forums?
Do you live in the Alamo? What assault do you plan on fighting off? Not trying to be an asshole, more taken aback and curious.
I could not disagree more. I have been a drunken idiot in a good number of States and the majority of cops I have dealt with are good respectful people. If you always having bad interactions, it is most likely you.
Really don't want to get into a whole thing here, but I need to clarify: If I'm understanding correctly (and please correct me if I'm not -- I HOPE I'm not), the "downside" you are talking about is, in this case, the indiscriminate and highly efficient killing of children -- yes? In your head, the likelihood of you being falsely accused by the FBI -- to the point a fucking SWAT team is storming your house -- is so real that it necessitates you having the right to a weapon (not a tool) that was designed for war? (On top of this, you think that you + your super gun could actually stop a fucking SWAT team?!). And even though making this weapon available to you means it's widely available to everyone who hasn't already comitted a gun crime, basically, you're saying that it's STILL worth the pesky downside of children REGULARLY being killed at school? I mean, at least you're being honest, but goddamn, that level of paranoia and apathy seems worthy of some sort of mental analysis. Or, to put it more simply:
No, what's amazing is your inability to understand how a no-knock works. Men with guns kick in your door and shoot your dogs. They don't send you a text. Sorry, pal. If someone enters my home shooting, I'm on the other side of the bed and pointing my rifle at the only entrance to the room. Knock yourself out reading about botched no knocks in recent years, and keep in mind, this is with all of those scary army guns.
Fine. But how do you then make the conclusion the best possible response to this threat is to arm yourself even more despite the fact this will almost certainly lead to your death and at best a couple of police officers deaths. Thus leading to more heavily armed police with more aggressive attitudes. If you genuinely live in fear of this, then why not raise awareness and campaign for change? Your response it genuinely the dumbest I can think of. I mean hell, being unarmed and hoping for a no-knock raid in which you can die a martyr would be a more effective tactic to garner change. I believe strongly in the right to defend your home, the odds of this requiring a semi-automatic military grade weapon is absolutely minuscule.
That's not at all what I mean and I do believe that we need to have stronger controls in place, and I think it's important to go back to my original post- the one that mentions how important it is to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the insane. It's way too easy to buy guns illegally, despite the fact that we have laws that try and encourage folks to remain law-abiding. If we're going to go down a road of gun control, which started with the National Firearms Act of 1934, we need to enforce the laws that we already have. There is plenty of "common sense legislation" already on the books. Sadly, most folks don't have a clue as to what is legal and illegal. The tool has very little to do with it. The sad fact is, it was illegal for Lanza to own any handguns at all. I'm not sure what CT state laws are surrounding rifles, but that may have been illegal for him to own this particular rifle as well. Sadly, that makes no difference. He acquired guns by killing his mother. Edit to add- The one part about this that I've rolled around is what I would do if my guns were made illegal tomorrow. I would reluctantly turn them in. It would pain me to do it, but my foundation is based on being a law-abiding citizen. I do my best. I don't trust law enforcement. I value my friends and family over the lives of people who wish to do me harm. That doesn't make me crazy. As far as I'm concerned, it makes me an American citizen.