Gun control, which side wins?

[zapatos]

50 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It all depends on how much authorities are going to tap dance around collateral damage or not.

Good point. I imagine if AK-47s were in the hands of every New Yorker they could be taken with only a few weeks of carpet bombing. I'm not sure that would pass Constitutional muster but it certainly would be in "short order".

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, zapatos said:

Good point. I imagine if AK-47s were in the hands of every New Yorker they could be taken with only a few weeks of carpet bombing. I'm not sure that would pass Constitutional muster but it certainly would be in "short order".

Yep.

[MigL]

Phi said...
"We're used to tightening our belts/going to extremes in times of emergency"

I think the gun related death rate in the US is an emergency.
( never mind the illegal immigrants at the southern border )

Edited April 10, 2019 by MigL

[rangerx]

3 hours ago, MigL said:

I think the gun related death rate in the US is an emergency.

In Canada there are no sides. Though some squawk this or that, we're all pretty much on the same page when it comes to gun laws.

If anything, the collective outrage toward the long gun registry caused it to be eliminated. It did more harm than good.

In America it seems it's more about individualism and entitlement than common sense and public safety.

Edited April 10, 2019 by rangerx

[Phi for All]

12 hours ago, MigL said:

I think the gun related death rate in the US is an emergency.
( never mind the illegal immigrants at the southern border )

As do many Americans, but not enough in leadership. Too many politicians are tied to private profit from arms, prisons, law enforcement, and other opportunities that benefit from current gun laws (or lack thereof). Our two party system keeps the stupidity going even though enough elements on both sides want stricter gun control. You can't be a Republican who wants to ban assault rifles and expect to have a voice in the current government.  

[TheVat]

The youth accused of killing 10 at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., had undergone a psychiatric evaluation, ordered by New York state police after making a school shooting threat last year.  

Somehow, that didn't trigger any legal safeguards that would have prevented him from purchasing an assault rifle, or crossing into another state to purchase larger magazines for it (which are illegal in NY).  Even though his threats were specifically about doing a mass shooting.  

(Reopening this thread after three years, I wish it was to talk about what has changed in those three years.  Not much, apparently.)

 

[Peterkin]

You know the refrain: "Now is not the time for legislation; now is the time for thoughts and prayers." 

[MigL]

8 minutes ago, TheVat said:

(Reopening this thread after three years, I wish it was to talk about what has changed in those three years.  Not much, apparently.)

I wish it had been three years since th last shooting incident,unfortunately, these happen on a regular basis, and nothing ever changes.
Buffalo is a little close to home, and I knw quite a few decent people there in my younger years; the 'crazy' has spread all over.

[beecee]

On 4/10/2019 at 3:25 PM, rangerx said:

In America it seems it's more about individualism and entitlement than common sense and public safety.

Ahh yes, we in Australia call those that push this so called entitlement and individual rights issue with guns, drugs, no mandatory injections, etc etc "snivel libertarians". 

The same snivel libertarians that are the first to call the police or authorities, when something goes amiss in their lives.

38 minutes ago, MigL said:

I wish it had been three years since th last shooting incident,unfortunately, these happen on a regular basis, and nothing ever changes.
Buffalo is a little close to home, and I knw quite a few decent people there in my younger years; the 'crazy' has spread all over.

In Sydney at this time, we have had an outbreak of gun violence and killings. The guns are obviously illegal and the killings are a tit for tat thingy with opposing bikie/drug syndicate orginisations.  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-12/gangland-power-struggle-fuelling-violence-in-nsw/101058848

While a police taskforce has been in operation in trying to contain these tit for tat killings and the increasing possibility that an innocent bystander may be an unattended victim one day, many are of the opinion that we should let them simply kill each other off.

On the continued American mass killings and gun availability, isn't this due in main to your NRA? How can such an orginisation become so powerful? It seems to me that it is these "snivel libertarians", that cling to the old west days, that are running America? Or is it because, (as I would guess most likely) that many of your senators and government officials are also members of this NRA?

[MigL]

38 minutes ago, beecee said:

Or is it because, (as I would guess most likely) that many of your senators and government officials are also members of this NRA?

Probably not many members ( other than a few obvious wing-nuts ), but quite a few are bought and paid for.

Quiite a few would probably do the right thing, but it would cost them their office/election.
So much easier to re-pay the NRA's support with citizen's lives.

( am I being too cynical now ? )

[iNow]

Cynical? No. Not cynical enough.  

It’s May 16, and there have already been more than 200 mass shootings in the US… just so far in 2022. 

[StringJunky]

Next... we know what's wrong. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by StringJunky

[Peterkin]

2 hours ago, StringJunky said:

we know what's wrong

It might be more productive to start from what isn't wrong and work outward, in all directions, from there.

[StringJunky]

22 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

It might be more productive to start from what isn't wrong and work outward, in all directions, from there.

Yes, that's another approach. We 've discussed this many times over the years I've posted here, and it's just the same hand-wringing every time there's a massacre. The system seems set up to resist change. An influential number of Americans love their guns too much.

Edited May 17, 2022 by StringJunky

[CharonY]

15 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Yes, that's another approach. We 've discussed this many times over the years I've posted here, and it's just the same hand-wringing every time there's a massacre. The system seems set up to resist change. An influential number of Americans love their guns too much.

Perhaps worse, it has become a part of the identity of quite some folks. Any attempts to change will be seen as an attack on their belief system.

[Peterkin]

They're coming to take away your guns. They're coming to take away your trucks. They're coming to take away your cattle. They're coming to take away your supremacy.

(Maybe we should?)

[TheVat]

Yes, the idea of personal sacrifice for the good of a community is one that's currently in danger of being swamped by extreme ideologies.  Somewhere I was reading this social philosopher who mentioned the pizza analogy - at a party, some people grab three slices of pizza because they think the supply will run out, while others take only a single modest slice, for the same reason.  We seem to have a lot of three slice grabbers dominating the conversation atm.  

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Yes, the idea of personal sacrifice for the good of a community is one that's currently in danger of being swamped by extreme ideologies.  Somewhere I was reading this social philosopher who mentioned the pizza analogy - at a party, some people grab three slices of pizza because they think the supply will run out, while others take only a single modest slice, for the same reason.  We seem to have a lot of three slice grabbers dominating the conversation atm.  

I think the pandemic has shown that personal sacrifice is now considered an extreme ideology. Obviously we still demand it from vulnerable folks, but that is about it.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Even in the "Wild West", where none of the assault level weapons of today existed, there were laws in place to restrict guns:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/

"Contrary to the popular imagination, bearing arms on the frontier was a heavily regulated business"

Edited May 18, 2022 by J.C.MacSwell

[zapatos]

Quote

Over the past decade, the Anti-Defamation League has counted about 450 U.S. murders committed by political extremists.

Of these 450 killings, right-wing extremists committed about 75%. Islamic extremists were responsible for about 20%, and left-wing extremists were responsible for 4%.

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

Nearly half of the murders were specifically tied to white supremacists.

As this data shows, the American political right has a violence problem that has no equivalent on the left. And the 10 victims in Buffalo, New York, this past weekend are now part of this toll.

 

“Right-wing extremist violence is our biggest threat,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the ADL, has written. “The numbers don’t lie.”

https://news.yahoo.com/rights-violence-problem-184823155.html

[StringJunky]

This an example of what's wrong: gun ownership and handling is not treated with enough respect. Get this:

Quote

In an email to parents, the school’s principal said the bullet “caused some debris to ricochet in your child’s classroom, which hit a member of our school community and caused minor scrapes.” The school did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

https://apnews.com/article/crime-education-arrests-chicago-child-endangerment-8da7aaa2eab4d36ddd1cef487eeeaec5

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by StringJunky

[Phi for All]

22 hours ago, StringJunky said:

This an example of what's wrong: gun ownership and handling is not treated with enough respect. Get this:

Under the second amendment, as long as she didn't plan for that to happen, it's her right to risk her child's life that way (the American way).

[TheVat]

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/21/1099912475/states-courts-debate-18-year-olds-buy-long-guns

(About restricting gun purchases by people under 21)

Historically, the courts have limited such rights. "The threshold test is what's called 'strict scrutiny,' " says Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University who specializes in gun laws. "It's got to be a compelling governmental interest to limit the right."

For that, advocates of a higher minimum age point to brain science.

"We know from lots of studies around motor vehicles and drinking and other common types of injuries that this age group is still developing its frontal lobe, impulse control, judgment," says Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and academic dean at the School of Public Health at Brown University.

Gun rights advocates, on the other hand, say brain science arguments don't justify taking away the right to armed self-defense from a whole age group.

Matt Larosiere is with the Firearms Policy Coalition, which led the challenge to California's law. He says it's bad enough that federal law bans adults under age 21 from buying handguns from licensed dealers; he says it's worse when states bar that same age group from buying rifles and other long guns.

"States pass these 18-to-21 rifle bans, and it eliminates completely the ability of young adults of the mechanism of defending themselves," he says. And, he argues that young adults may actually rely on that right more than older people.

"There are plenty of young adults in America who are quite often lower-income, or otherwise disadvantaged, not just financially," Larosiere says. "And those are the same people who are the most likely to be violently victimized, and the people most likely in need of an effective mechanism to protect themselves,"

This legal tension has yet to be resolved. Just last year, a federal judge upheld Florida's new, age-based law limiting gun sales — but he also called this age question "a constitutional no man's land."

[MigL]

Amusing how many Americans were ready and willing to give up mobility and travel rights after 9/11 in an effort to combat terrorism, yet, since 9/11 more people have died of gun violence than died that day, and NO ONE is willing to give up the right to walk down the street with an assault rifle.
hardly surprising since the Politics of the US polarize the people so much that they are not even willing to give up the right to get sick or die while unvaccinated.

[zapatos]

27 minutes ago, MigL said:

so much that they are not even willing to give up the right to get sick or die while unvaccinated.

It does seem to be a truly American phenomenon. I think it is bred into us from an early age, learning about individualism, making your own way, being responsible for yourself and no one else. 

James Braddock was an American boxer who is widely praised for giving back the welfare money he received to feed his family during the Great Depression. So many of the people who are put up for heroes are the people who take care of themselves.