Try reading again kid and see if you do a better job the second time. Check to see if I said "get cops" or if I said "increased their security". Having one armed cop in a school with 3000 students is insufficient so they need to increase their security to a point that is acceptable. As to the last bit, of course I choose the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution over the lives of hundreds of people. The illusion of security and freedom are two things at odds with one another, the more freedom you have the less illusion of security you have. I personally choose freedom over the illusion of security and I think anyone who wouldn't is insane. Gotta love how a bit of tragedy brings out the authoritarian in those who "think" with their emotions.
Meh at this point, they need to pass all the negative external costs on to the gun owners. Maybe a 500% tax would be sufficient for financing the security costs.
I'm saying we don't be scared of something just because its in the constitution or seems hard. F'ing elementary school kids were slaughtered, and we shouldn't do the obvious thing because its hard?? Please, if there was profit in removing guns, then it'd be done. There's more profit in selling guns, therefore its not done. That's clear as day. OUr politicians are bought. They were working towards it, but they put a stop to it. Again, though, we have a longer history of guns and its going to be a harder change, so we should just not do it? Yes, that's what I said... I literally gave you an example of the difference get trusting your gut and common sense. Nowhere in any of my posts did I say I or anyone should trust our gut. You've tried to put those words in my mouth. Please stop. Common sense tells me that restrictive gun laws are effective in reducing guns per capita, because it has been in many many cases, and that the 10 year (effectively) assault weapons ban isn't illustrative in whether or not more restrictive gun laws will be helpful... in that (1) it was a limited ban, (2) it was only 10ish years, (3) it wasn't apples to apples. For all I know without the ban, there would have been twice the assault weapon shootings {not saying there would be, just that it's not statistically helpful). Here's super easy common sense. The shooter yesterday wasn't alive when Columbine happened. Had America banned gun ownership the day after Columbine, yesterday's event would not have happened. Really? Have we tried super restrictive gun ownership laws and bans? Um, no, no we haven't. It's a non-starter because of people like you saying its a non-starter. And the NRA. And lobbying. The constitution has been amended many times. Many of those amendments provided changes that would have at one point seemed ludicrous to many people. It's sad, and pathetic, that the response to the question of why we can't change that is just "because", and so we shouldn't try Yes, but England and Australia are very similar culturally overall to America. No country is apples to apples to another. We've got a harder hill to climb... AND?? We just shouldn't?? We should just let kids continue to get slaughtered at schools because "we need our guns" and "how will we protect ourselves??!?!?" We need to stop saying "we can't change this" and just change it and see what happens. If it sucks, change it back. I know, I know... "that's crazy... that can't really happen... let's not do anything! Let's just make sure these guys fill out more forms for mental health!" I can find hundred of charts. They all point to the correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths/homicides, etc. Then provide your own rebuttal stats. Cause as I said, I can find hundreds of charts and stats that support this. Here you go, here's a phd published 29 year study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3828709/ Conclusion: "We observed a robust correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and higher firearm homicide rates. Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides." Here's one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25121817 that concludes "Our findings challenge the argument that gun ownership deters violent crime, in particular, homicides" Here's a whole big article on the issue from factcheck: https://www.factcheck.org/2012/12/gun-rhetoric-vs-gun-facts/ "In 2008, we explored the issue of whether more gun ownership meant more or less gun violence. What we found, and it still holds true, was that some studies had shown a statistical relationship between those factors — areas with a higher prevalence of guns had higher prevalence of gun homicides and homicides in general. But studies haven’t been able to show a causal relationship — that the mere presence of guns, as opposed to other factors, caused the higher rates of gun violence. It’s doubtful, however, that a study could ever beyond-a-doubt prove a causal relationship." I mean I can go on and on with studies, charts, numbers, whatever... Not sure what this means. I guess you're trying to say its a small subset of the population that is the problem. And that may be. But while 13% is a small %, it's still tens of millions of people. We can't just ignore them. No, actually, that narrative apparently IS a good narrative, as its the narrative that is ruling the US on this issue. The reality is, its CAPITAL that drives laws and regulation. And the CAPITAL says keep guns legal and make them easier to buy. Which is why, even when the pro gun folks turn over and over to the "culture" and "mental health" narrative, the STILL don't implement legislation to at least address those issues. In fact they do the opposite, making it EASIER for mentally disturbed people to buy guns. Culture, mental health ABSOLUTELY has something to do with it. And oh by the way, there is a gender thing at play here as well. Something is seemingly wrong with some of America's male youth specifically. There's LOTS of issues at play here. But to say the gun problem isn't because of guns is illogical and dumb.
As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. In America's situation with gun violence, they've been fooled thousands of times. Shame on America.
Good guys can prevent bad guys without guns. We've seen more than enough incidents of cops (good guys) breaking the law and killing supposed bad guys. We've seen more than enough good guys failing to secure their guns only to have children accidentally kill themselves or their friends. But what's more... more guns is statistically proven to not deter crime: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/ Good guys don't need guns. There are plenty of alternatives. https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2013/03/the-correlation-between-guns-and-homicide-rate.html "Now, a clear correlation exists. When the numbers are crunched, they are highly statistically significant (p < 0.0001). Thus, when we consider countries that are similar to the United States, a strong correlation exists between the number of guns per capita and the gun-related homicide rate." Mind you, I prefer the gun deaths chart, since I don't want people dying by suicide, I don't want kids accidentally killing themselves, I don't want cops killing innocent victims or victims that shouldn't at least be shot, and I recognize there are other effective, non-lethal ways for "good guys" to prevent bad things from happening.
This is apples to oranges... but I nonetheless absolutely agree with you. Schools should have much much much more protection. Regardless of view on gun laws/control. And we should make major changes regarding mental health. We should be taking all measures to attack this issue. Instead we take none.
Is this tiny lady carrying military-grade weaponry or an AR-15 in her purse? Is this what you'd tell the high school student getting murdered? What about the first grader? Or is 6 years old too young for gun training, so they're just sacrificial lambs to your tree of liberty?
The thing is, it's not the "obvious thing", it's the emotional thing. You shouldn't conflate the two. It's a non-starter because radical authoritarians who wish to shred the constitution are a very small portion of the population despite what it seems like when people are knee jerking in the immediate wake of a tragedy. No, they aren't. At all. I don't doubt that you can find propaganda from special interest groups, it doesn't advance the conversation though. Culture is the causal factor when it comes to homicide, not how many guns are in a country. That's why when you look at the global results you get fairly odd results that you have to omit when you are trying to prove a causation between gun ownership and homicide. For example, the murder capital of the world is El Salvador which has something like 5 guns per 100 residents and Norway has less than 1 homicide per 100,000 residents but over 30 guns per 100 residents. What it means is that there is a hyper violent subculture popular with a fairly small group of people in the US and that one group commits more than half of the murders of the entire country. That group also owns far fewer guns than the national average. In short, it's not about the type or number of guns present, it's about the culture that promotes violence. I agree it's apples to oranges, I was just trying to think of an unrelated thing that people consider valuable. We wouldn't think twice about what needed to be done if artwork, historical relics, or precious metals were being targeted but for whatever reason when our children are being targeted, we can't seem to figure out that we need to increase security in order to protect them.
I have never owned a gun. We should go back to the laws we had back when I was in school in the '80s when mass shootings rarely happened.
