The Topic of Gun Control and How it Relates to Recent Mass Shootings

I tend to agree....but I don't see that as being mutually exclusive with gun restrictions.

 

An assault rifle ban might survive Heller, as it could be argued to not be an arm in the common use for self defense. But there will never be a constitutional ban on handguns, which is the weapon of choice for the vast majority of killings. And I don't know how you could fashion a meaningful restriction on handguns that would pass muster with Heller. Also, I'm skeptical how many lives a year an assault rifle ban would save.

 

I agree.

 

Fine, how about a 500% tax on handguns? What about hyper-stringent registration requirements? Why not plant tracking chips in all gusn? THere are many creative solutions that haven't been investigated under the present legal regime which is very untested.

You can't really say what would happen to any of them under Heller or the Supreme Court (which will likely have changed composition again in the years it will take for it to get to that level)...."it might get overturned" some day because of a 5-4 related case, just doesn't strike me as a valid reason not to do something especially if it proves effective.

 

Making the argument about guns completely detracts from making headway in the mental health argument... because anti-gun folks are going to be slamming pro-fun folks and they'll go back and forth rather than focusing on the real issue.

 

Arguing for more intervention on mental health is not mutually exclusive with advocating for gun restrictions. In fact, logically speaking, they would be correlated with one another. An activist agenda tends to come from an activist mind.

 

What? That we should allow a 10 year old to take a gun to school?

 

Huh?

No, I'm not a Congressman and neither are you. Us having a discussion about both of these factors as citizens of this country isn't distracting anyone from taking care of either issue.

Other nations are able to engage in serious gun restrictions while still addressing mental health issues. I think we're capable of that too.

 

Illegal in the US



Not Illegal in the US

 

In fairness, nobody chokes on a gun.

 

not sure what that is supposed to prove because why would someone obtain a gun illegally if they can get one legally?

 

Well, for one, it shows you that psychopathic mass murderers were able to get a gun legally. That's kind of troubling.

 

Probably.

But if there was ever an event that shocked people enough to get them to think differently...

...this might be it.

 

These are illegal now too -

 

The tone of discussion also dictates the course of news coverage. If people are getting in heated gun control debates online, or sending letters to their congressmen or standing on the steps of the capital demanding answers or blowing up social media... they'll turn the discourse for the entire country that way.

 

Patton Oswalt nails it:

 

I am not sure gun control will prevent these type of tragedies from happening. Guns are not hard to obtain.

i'm not sure there is a solution.

 

Well

I think we need to pat ourselves on the back as a country for our maturity over the use of guns

Back in our history we used to be bad, so bad our politicians would just shoot our other politicians over disagreements. Yes we as a nation have come a long way for our own personal gun control and thats the way it should be

as far as shootings they are drastically lower than they were in the earlier days of our country and yet that's with a substantial amount of more population which is astounding.

On top of that, until recently when Illionois has finally re-allowe4d handguns- Chicago which hand-guns were outlawed saw a ridiculous rise in shootings attributed to hang guns as soon as soon as they banned them.

 

He's right. It's not a debate. Gun ownership is a constitutional right, and restricting constitutional rights and civil liberties in the name of public safety inevitably leads to a police state. Gun control leads to more gun control. Government snooping leads to more Government snooping. Invasive searches lead to more invasive searches. It never ends. The State always wants more and more and more until you wake up one day and no longer recognize the country you're living in.

 

Yep. It's not. We have the proof that our policies have failed.

That's a nice paranoid fantasy you have going on there.

Meanwhile, in the real world, we want and need reasonable regulations.