Of course, you don’t reply because you know you posted complete nonsense. You knew it when you made the post. Coward. That’s being polite.
If only the bats were AR-15's and the balls grenades then they could play in peace, right @Space Ghost & @StupidMoniker ? We should celebrate gun culture and every time someone is shot. America! Seriously, if the NRA crowd isn't going to do anything to solve this gun problem other than scream guns don't kill people, guns are going to be banned for real. Americans won't take too much more of this. Read the room.
Guns aren't going to be banned, no matter what your fantasy is. The fact is that there are not that many innocent people shot every year in a country of over 330,000,000 people. Most of the gun violence is between violent gangs. Some gun violence is in domestic violence situations. The rest is a small amount. If you want to reduce gun violence, you should support increased policing in high crime gang neighborhoods, harsher penalties for gang crime, and stronger anti-recidivism statutes. California saw a huge drop in crime (especially violent crime) when things like three strikes passed, but have just recently been seeing crime increase when penalties are being reduced, it is harder to prosecute gang crime, and anti-recidivism laws are being repealed. There used to be a law that for every time you went to prison, any subsequent prison sentence would be increased by a year. So if you had been to prison four times, you get four additional years for the fifth time. That's gone. Hell, the idiots in the California legislature just made the enhancements for personal discharge of a firearm during certain felonies like robbery unenforceable, so instead of a 20 year enhancement, you are limited to 10, even if the criminals are shooting at people. There is a very small group of people driving the majority of violence in America. We should focus on them, not taking rights away from law abiding people because rare tragedies happen.
I find in interesting reading a Libertarian supporting policies that violated civil liberties. It sounds like you are supporting laws that infringed upon the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to maintain the most expansive reading of the second.
I get that you are saying the some odd thousand people murdered by shootings from "law abiding citizens" who aren't in gangs or the inner city is an acceptable amount of gun deaths to you. And it's true they don't make up the majority of gun deaths. But all of them are too many. Too many criminal deaths, too many gang deaths, too many gun suicides, and too many angry idiots shooting kids with guns. The common factor is guns. It's not crime, it's not mental health, it's not anything but guns. You want to keep guns legal, then it's the responsibility of "Law abiding people" to start realizing that guns are indeed dangerous in the hands of unstable people and instead of protecting that, they need to help be part of the solution. Because if all they do is say - "Hey, it's just a small number!!!!" they are going to lose and guns will be banned. Take the temperature of the county, and the percentage of people gettign fed up with the status quo is increasing steadily. If you want to keep guns legal, this argument of yours will fail. You can keep to it, but I'm just telling you that your side is losing the battle of the hearts and minds right now so ya better find a different strategy to persuade people than what you are selling here.
The argument that @StupidMoniker and others make on the numbers is flawed. Yes gun deaths from mass shootings like what we saw is rare when compared to the number of firearms that are out there. There are a lot of things that are rare yet we still spend a lot of time, money and regulation addressing them. For example deaths from plane crashes are very rare when considering how many flights happen. That doesn't mean that we don't have a lot of regulation on air travel and when a plane crash does happen there is a regulatory process that reviews it and many cases proposes changes to regulation to address it. In fact that is why deaths from plane crashes are rare. Another example we've discussed is that deaths from earthquakes are rare because earthquakes that can even take down even a poorly constructed house are relatively rare compared to most humans daily lives. We still have a lot of regulation regarding earthquake construction given that when an earthquake does hit there is a potential for a lot of loss of life.
Could you imagine if 3,000 people died in airline crashes a year in the US? We'd have a massive crisis in aviation on our hands. Yet it's such a small number compared to the number of hundreds of millions who flew in the US.
All that time republicans and libertarians in the NRA pockets fought against even the least restrictive efforts (background checks, waiting periods) favored by the overwhelming majority of Americans and supported by law enforcement... but we are now at a place when more restrictive efforts are both needed and desired by the majority of Americans.
Which laws infringed on the first, fourth, and fifth amendments? Anti-recidivism laws? Gang enhancements? Gun violence enhancements? One wrongful death is too many. One wrongful death from drunk driving is too many, but we don't ban alcohol and cars, we criminalize drunk driving (just like we criminalize shooting at people). There is a reason that people use the numbers of all gun deaths, but the specific examples of random spree killings. The numbers aren't high enough to generate the outrage if you only look at the spree killers and the facts don't generate the right target for outrage if the examples are the more common gang violence. So, the media narrative is always something like "More mass shootings than days so far this year." and then the example of the outlet mall, even though most of the "mass shootings" are gang warfare. I don't see the necessary support for overturning the 2nd Amendment. There are not going to be 2/3 majorities in both houses and 3/4 of states that agree with that.
Drinking is highly regulated, as is driving. Establishments must get a liquor license and are often checked to see if they serve underage drinkers. Also they can lose their license if someone who is intoxicated leaves the bar and gets behind the wheel. Is that fair to alcohol? Afterall alcohol doesn't kill people, people kill people. Furthermore cars are regulated - you have to have a license to drive one which includes a test - both written and driving. Guns don't have this. They don't because the NRA and your side is against any regulation as "hostile". People aren't trying to take your guns away, just trying to get them out of the hands of emotionally unstable people. Why you fight so hard against this is puzzling. The notion that because mass shootings are mostly gang related or not frequent enough to concern you is puzzling. You can reduce gun deaths with a system that screens people for mental health and tracks all guns. Why are you against this is the question? Why push back at stopping mass killings? More and more of these killings are people not in gangs. And so what if they are gangs - that's even more reason to try to stop guns from getting into the wrong hands. Register all guns. No gun sale should be legal without the sale being recorded - this way you can track the last owner of any weapon and hold them accountable. Screen anyone with a gun license for mental health. They just need a psychiatrist and 2 other people to say they are sane. If they can't get that, they don't get a gun. If they can and they commit a violent crime, you can look at how the psychiatrist came to approve them.
The old "car crashes and drunk driving" argument is tired and boring. You (legally) can't buy beer until you're 21. Driving requires being licensed (which requires classes and testing) and the vehicles must be registered and insured. Guns, especially in Texas, do not. It's not in any way comparable until, hopefully some day, it is. It doesn't matter that the actual percentage of Americans who die buy guns is a small #. What does matter is that we are the only civilized nation on earth where this happens with regularity. Why is this ok with you? There was a mass shooting recently somewhere in Europe (I can't remember where but I'm thinking it was somewhere in Eastern Europe). It was the first time that had happened in over 30 years. Over 30 years. It literally hadn't happened since the last time the Cowboys won a Super Bowl. Regardless of where and how and who it happens to in the US, it's way too often.
You are wasting your time arguing with that right winger. He scoffed at the violent Trump insurrectionists, defended the white cop choking a black man to death, & minimizes the killing of innocent children in mass shootings as a small percent. He's in a different mindset than the average American. I put him on my ignore because he is disturbing to me, and certainly not the kind of person I would associate with.
You are wasting your time arguing with that right winger. He scoffed at the violent Trump insurrectionists, defended the white cop choking a black man to death, & minimizes the killing of innocent children in mass shootings as a small percent. He's in a different mindset than the average American. I put him on my ignore because he is disturbing to me, and certainly not the kind of person I would associate with.
Shooting is far more regulated than drinking or driving. Most of the time, if you shoot outside of designated circumstances you are committing a serious felony. Cars just sitting around in your garage are not really regulated at all. I don't have a gun, so I am not particularly concerned about people "taking my guns away". I don't agree with infringing on the rights of law abiding people in an effort to go after a tiny minority of criminals, I would prefer to focus on the criminals. You can reduce violence of all sorts a lot more by focusing on the violent people. I disagree that more and more of these killings are people not in gangs. Those are the killings that get news coverage because you cannot gin up support for gun control because some MS13 thugs killed some Azn Boyz. For most people, that stuff is far away from them and has no effect on their lives. That's why the news focuses on attacks on schools or malls, because it wants people to associate the dangers of gun violence with themselves, not with others. Unfortunately, the history of gun registration has been as a prelude to gun confiscation. We could have encrypted registration that required having the gun to determine the chain of custody, but it would be hard to ensure the government couldn't generate a list of ownership. Even if such a record existed, how would you deal with stolen guns? Wouldn't all the guns in the hands of the bad guys just be reported stolen? You cannot condition people's constitutional rights on some subjective mandatory sign off by a psychiatrist plus 2 other people. It wouldn't matter anyway, because there would be an industry of psychiatrists that pop up to give sign offs with two other people in the office, just like there was for medical mar1juana.
Interesting (but not surprising) that this extremist opinion of yours would lump suicides in with "not innocent" people. From Pew, for 2021: Your ilk have rigged our courts and the Senate for now, but you're inhabiting an increasingly minority opinion in the US. I suppose you've not witnessed much gun violence on innocents in your personal life, and since I wish you no ill, I pray that you never do. But I will assure you such experiences change a person, and that many Americans have had those experiences, where they would not have if they lived almost anywhere else.
Suicide is actually becoming more accepted as a legitimate activity. Canada actually has government provided suicide. I would personally view suicide as a completely separate issue from gun violence, and none of the gun control measures talked about like registration and "closing the gun show loophole" would have any bearing on suicide. It is a complete red herring. I also don't think you should take people's rights away because someone might use that right to commit suicide. Would you outlaw belts and razors and sleeping pills as well? In my personal life, I haven't witnessed any gun violence. In my professional life, plenty. Yes, although that is pretty meaningless. No one is pregnant until they are. Everyone has to pee until they don't. It is always dark until it isn't. Most murderers (especially of strangers) are not previously law-abiding citizens.
