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Gun violence in the USA


Marka Ragnos

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2 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

One of the tweets was about 4.5m women have been threatened with a gun by a partner 

Playing devils whatsit. 

What did they think was going to happen when there is a gun in the house ? 

Also,  who allows a gun in their house when there are little kids living there for example. 

 

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Forgetting all the bad faith stuff (politicians in the pay of the NRA) and conspiracy theory cranks, what are the best arguments in favour of US gun ownership / gun laws? Like how do you get inside the head of the people who might be persuadable?

The ones that make the most sense to me are...

  • America is a massive, largely rural country and it could take ages for the police to respond to a home break in. Can understand why someone living in the middle of nowhere might fancy having a gun lying around for self defence.
  • Gun ownership is so high already that it would take years to reverse it. The gun control policies that work in other parts of the world would brush up against the reality of a massive black market of guns. You can see an element of this in places like Chicago, where gun control policies fail because illegal gun ownership is so high.
  • Mass shootings & school shootings, while almost unique to the US, are still extremely rare events. 99.999% (or whatever) of people and communities will never be affected by them.

I can see how an intelligent, sensible person could pull a pro-gun position out of that line of thinking. I'd still disagree, but it makes some sense.

What I cannot understand at all is how you can justify making military-grade weapons capable of rapid fire available... and how you can justify not having any checks in place on motivations, mental health, criminal record, etc.

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11 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

America is a massive, largely rural country and it could take ages for the police to respond to a home break in

The reports are that it took the police a very long time to react properly to this school shooting. Lots to come out about this I think.

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16 minutes ago, Genie said:

The reports are that it took the police a very long time to react properly to this school shooting. Lots to come out about this I think.

Yep. The BBC have put up something just now about how he was free to enter the school and shoot for nearly an hour and the Police outside were too scared to enter and instead pepper sprayed and cuffed parents outside who were getting angry at them for stalling while their kids inside were getting shot to pieces. Horrifying. Insane. 

Edited by Ingram85
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26 minutes ago, Genie said:

The reports are that it took the police a very long time to react properly to this school shooting. Lots to come out about this I think.

The NRA and NRA backed politicians will try and turn this into a debate about individual bravery (amongst other things... locked doors, mental health, bla bla). Police not fulfilling their duties, etc.

Reality is that vast majority of people do not have the courage, composure or training to rush into combat with someone armed with an assault rifle. Why would we expect a donut muncher to suddenly turn into Robocop?

But anyway I was making a different point about why a rural homeowner might want to be allowed to own a deadly weapon.

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8 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The NRA and NRA backed politicians will try and turn this into a debate about individual bravery (amongst other things... locked doors, mental health, bla bla). Police not fulfilling their duties, etc.

Reality is that vast majority of people do not have the courage, composure or training to rush into combat with someone armed with an assault rifle. Why would we expect a donut muncher to suddenly turn into Robocop?

But anyway I was making a different point about why a rural homeowner might want to be allowed to own a deadly weapon.

The cops arriving on the scene also have no idea what this guy is carrying. He could have just a pistol, or maybe a collection of machine guns such is their availability.

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NRA nutters talking to a Norwegian newspaper defending their right to own an AR15 ‘cuz they’re fun’. I mean, the nerve to even say that in the wake of another f***ing school shooting. 

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12 hours ago, KentVillan said:

The NRA and NRA backed politicians will try and turn this into a debate about individual bravery (amongst other things... locked doors, mental health, bla bla). Police not fulfilling their duties, etc.

Reality is that vast majority of people do not have the courage, composure or training to rush into combat with someone armed with an assault rifle. Why would we expect a donut muncher to suddenly turn into Robocop?

But anyway I was making a different point about why a rural homeowner might want to be allowed to own a deadly weapon.

No, but if we arm the teachers it would be a different story.   They'd prevent anyone but the gunman from being injured, because a 5-foot tall  middle-aged woman who trained to be an educator wouldn't have the hesitation or fear of someone who trained in law enforcement and would be an expert marksman the first time in their life they needed to fire a gun.   Oh, and they'd be so eager to take on this totally divergent role that we wouldn't have to pay them any more than their already ridiculously low salaries.

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2 minutes ago, il_serpente said:

No, but if we arm the teachers it would be a different story.   They'd prevent anyone but the gunman from being injured, because a 5-foot tall  middle-aged woman who trained to be an educator wouldn't have the hesitation or fear of someone who trained in law enforcement and would be an expert marksman the first time in their life they needed to fire a gun.   Oh, and they'd be so eager to take on this totally divergent role that we wouldn't have to pay them any more than their already ridiculously low salaries.

Lol.

It does make you wonder whether the NRA and Trumpists have pushed 2nd Amendment fundamentalism to such an absurd point that the scales are starting to fall for a few people.

This one incident has absolutely destroyed the whole good guys with guns mythology, and every day it plays out in the media makes it harder and harder for them to push a convincing line.

Obviously every time these things happen, there’s brief optimism that things will change… and then nothing changes. But this time feels a bit different? The usual NRA talking points don’t seem to be working?

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6 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Obviously every time these things happen, there’s brief optimism that things will change… and then nothing changes. But this time feels a bit different? The usual NRA talking points don’t seem to be working?

I apologize for my laughing emoji. 

"But this time feels a bit different?"

Nothing will change. 

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35 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

I apologize for my laughing emoji. 

"But this time feels a bit different?"

Nothing will change. 

So true, the Republicans have already blocked even having a debate on new gun laws. 3 days after the shooting and they voted on party lines. Snakes the lot of them. This wasn't even to pass a law, it was just to fricking talk about it.

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56 minutes ago, TheAuthority said:

I apologize for my laughing emoji. 

"But this time feels a bit different?"

Nothing will change. 

Not even a crackdown on the mentally ill? 

Not their ability to buy a gun of course just a crackdown on them in general... 

Edited by villa4europe
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21 hours ago, KentVillan said:

 

The ones that make the most sense to me are...

  • America is a massive, largely rural country and it could take ages for the police to respond to a home break in. Can understand why someone living in the middle of nowhere might fancy having a gun lying around for self defence.
  • Gun ownership is so high already that it would take years to reverse it. The gun control policies that work in other parts of the world would brush up against the reality of a massive black market of guns. You can see an element of this in places like Chicago, where gun control policies fail because illegal gun ownership is so high.
  • Mass shootings & school shootings, while almost unique to the US, are still extremely rare events. 99.999% (or whatever) of people and communities will never be affected by them.

 

I think the "sensible" arguments for gun control are easily debunked. There really is no other reason for having a gun than they like and want them. In this country if you want one you can have one.

Just on the arguments above:

  • If self defense against bears, cougars ect is your reason im sure under UK rules farmers ect could have one on similar grounds. Its justifiable and mangeable. 
  • The argument that it is hard to do so dont do it is a standard failing in business, as is this is how weve always done it. I assume it fails in Chicago as their is general production still happening for the states/cities that dont have strict laws. It needs to be a nation solution not a city one, that has proved to work all around the world. 
  • 27 school shootings (not sure if mass) this year in the US, 147 days in that is one every 5.4 days. There have been 214 mass shootings in the US so 1.4 a day. It is not a rare event. 

I know they werent your arguments.

I do think the loud gun lover is a vocal minority all be it a passionate one with a gun, not sure what they would do if people came to take their guns off them. Civil war was said by Hannety et al. 

**** the consitution. 

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9 hours ago, KentVillan said:

Lol.

It does make you wonder whether the NRA and Trumpists have pushed 2nd Amendment fundamentalism to such an absurd point that the scales are starting to fall for a few people.

This one incident has absolutely destroyed the whole good guys with guns mythology, and every day it plays out in the media makes it harder and harder for them to push a convincing line.

Obviously every time these things happen, there’s brief optimism that things will change… and then nothing changes. But this time feels a bit different? The usual NRA talking points don’t seem to be working?

Problem is that today a female random passer by shot dead an active shooter, so they've immediately got their sordid argument back again. 😔

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5 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Problem is that today a female random passer by shot dead an active shooter, so they've immediately got their sordid argument back again. 😔

America will (rightly) celebrate her as a hero who saved the lives of a lot of prople

While conveniently ignoring what supposedly happened - a driver raced past the party, they hurled abuse at him over his speed, he got road rage, went home picked up his AR15, drove back to party and started to try and murder 40 people

They will only look at the woman and not the madness of what he almost did and for why

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