Gun Control Debate thread

[Edge]

Originally Posted by sleev-les

Now you are going into need vs want lol.... I don't need one, but I want one . The mess I go through at work has become second nature and if they did that for guns, I'd have no problem with that. In the end, I'm staying optimistic that our government doesn't go all Hitler due to this event. The next few weeks will tell.

Hey, I want one too dude. But I can live with the fact that it's one less method for people to massacre more people with. It's all relative anyway. I hope if something changes, a compromise you can all be happy with is reached

[sleev-les]

Originally Posted by Edge

Hey, I want one too dude. But I can live with the fact that it's one less method for people to massacre more people with. It's all relative anyway. I hope if something changes, a compromise you can all be happy with is reached

Thats all I'm looking for. Compromise is the best way put it. Seems like a lot lately going on isn't compromise, but more pulling the rug out from under the nation. I'm just hoping this doesn't create more turmoil in the country by some crazy politicians attempt at career advancement at the sacrifice of the people.

[Edge]

Originally Posted by sleev-les

Thats all I'm looking for. Compromise is the best way put it. Seems like a lot lately going on isn't compromise, but more pulling the rug out from under the nation. I'm just hoping this doesn't create more turmoil in the country by some crazy politicians attempt at career advancement at the sacrifice of the people.

Yeah, I'd actually wish we had that over here in the UK.

I'd prefer crazy changes to spineless politicians that enjoy the benefits without getting their hands dirty and benefiting the country. Need to start with sorting out fucking immigration. Our Government pays people to come to this country and not work..

[Bones]

Originally Posted by sleev-les

If there were no guns, the jealous husband can more easily get a knife out of his kitchen.

But he'd have to go and get the knife. And win the foot chase. And the fight. And kill one person...maybe. Not drive over to her parents place and slaughter her whole family. Not get into a running battle with the cops catching innocent bystanders in the cross fire.

And if that's all he could do, then your murder rate would drop significantly as it has elsewhere.

[ThunderChunky]

I can make a bomb out of Clorox and do much more damage than a gun or knife.

[sleev-les]

Originally Posted by Bones

But he'd have to go and get the knife. And win the foot chase. And the fight. And kill one person...maybe. Not drive over to her parents place and slaughter her whole family. Not get into a running battle with the cops catching innocent bystanders in the cross fire.

And if that's all he could do, then your murder rate would drop significantly as it has elsewhere.

Now you are digging for a rebutle bro.... Don't make it out to be so hard to use a knife. Jealous husband can easily overpower a wife and if thats the mission, it will happen, gun or no gun. You are trying to compare Fridays incident over the majority of gun related deaths. You take away the murders guns, he finds another method. He/she doesn't care about the risk. That person only cares about accomplishing the mission. All they need is the surprise which isn't hard to get on their side. That part of society, sad as it may be, will never go away.

I stand by what Edge and I were talking about which I believe we both ended up in agreement. Willing for more controls to be put in place, but complete abolishment isn't the answer.

Originally Posted by ThunderChunky

I can make a bomb out of Clorox and do much more damage than a gun or knife.

This...... There are ways to stick multiple cleaning chemicals together and make a devastating, and VERY easily attainable bomb that any dumbass can make with the help of google. Doesn't take much.

[Bones]

Originally Posted by sleev-les

You take away the murders guns, he finds another method.

In some cases like Timothy McVey, you might be right. In other cases, like the school slasher in China, he attacks 32 and NO ONE DIES! In a high % of "crimes of passion" or "heat of the moment" crimes, they don't find another method, they cool off or sober up. This is actually backed up the crime numbers in the US: "illegal" death rates NOT involving a gun are actually fairly similar per capita to the rest of the world.

I appreciate your sentiments for some level of gun control and I appreciate your desire to retain your 2nd amendment rights. I'm enjoying the discussion regarding the role of guns in American culture vis a vis the 2nd amendment but please don't undermine your argument by trying to say that the murder rate wouldn't change or might increase if you had gun control. There is not one shred of evidence to support this.

MY problem with all of this can be summed up by the following quote:

"One failed attempt at a shoe bomb and we all take our shoes off at the airport. 31 school shootings since Columbine and no change in our regulation of guns."

[sleev-les]

Originally Posted by Bones

In some cases like Timothy McVey, you might be right. In other cases, like the school slasher in China, he attacks 32 and NO ONE DIES! In a high % of "crimes of passion" or "heat of the moment" crimes, they don't find another method, they cool off or sober up. This is actually backed up the crime numbers in the US: "illegal" death rates NOT involving a gun are actually fairly similar per capita to the rest of the world.

I appreciate your sentiments for some level of gun control and I appreciate your desire to retain your 2nd amendment rights. I'm enjoying the discussion regarding the role of guns in American culture vis a vis the 2nd amendment but please don't undermine your argument by trying to say that the murder rate wouldn't change or might increase if you had gun control. There is not one shred of evidence to support this.

MY problem with all of this can be summed up by the following quote:

"One failed attempt at a shoe bomb and we all take our shoes off at the airport. 31 school shootings since Columbine and no change in our regulation of guns."

Originally Posted by Snowolf

Just to play devil's advocate here (I have established that I am not in favor of total gun bans), how then do you explain the fact that in places like Australia and the UK where guns are almost non existent, there are not mass murders being committed with knives and "Clorox bombs"? If what you say is true then there really should be the same per capita murder rate or at least attempted murder as the United States by other means.

Sorry bro but as much as I like my guns, I cannot ignore the fact that in every nation with strict gun control laws and few guns, murder rates drop drastically and we do not see murders by other means increase. The logical conclusion is that gun bans actually do work everywhere they are in place provided it is nationwide.

Trust me, I don't like having to admit this as a proponent of gun possession but I cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence. I hope that we can take a middle ground approach and tighten existing gun control laws and place limits on magazine capacities and possibly just say no more to AR-15 and AK-47 weapons and Glocks with 30 round clips. I would hate to have to give up my Sig P226 and in order to keep it, would gladly jump through hoops and accept 6 round mags instead of my 15 round mags. But, if I knew for a fact that giving it up would guaranty I would never have to see a headline like Friday's again, I would.

Watch what happens when Guns are banned in Australia - YouTube

Heres some info on the Australian gun ban. Seems that crime inflated. Controls ok.. bans will not work. You are trying to justify an event like Fridays as the vast majority. The voice of this country has become the minorities crying vs. the majority of law abiding citizens which seems to count less day after day. To say that banning a gun will eliminate an event like the recent is denial. How about putting proper security measures in place? An officer on the grounds would be a great start. This mass murder is an excuse for lashing out for someones political agenda. Comparing 1 mass murder which is the anomoly vs overall crime involving guns is comparing apples to oranges.

[sleev-les]

Also, for a little history. Below is the worst school massacre in US history

In the end there were 38 children dead at the school, two teachers and four other adults.

I’m not talking about the horrific shooting in Connecticut today. I’m talking about the worst school murder in American history. It took place in Michigan, in 1927. A school board official, enraged at a tax increase to fund school construction, quietly planted explosives in Bath Township Elementary. Then, the day he was finally ready, he set off an inferno. When crowds rushed in to rescue the children, he drove up his shrapnel-filled car and detonated it, too, killing more people, including himself. And then, something we’d find very strange happened.

Nothing.

No cameras were placed at the front of schools. No school guards started making visitors show identification. No Zero Tolerance laws were passed, nor were background checks required of PTA volunteers—all precautions that many American schools instituted in the wake of the Columbine shootings, in 1999. Americans in 1928—and for the next several generations —continued to send their kids to school without any of these measures. They didn’t even drive them there. How did they maintain the kind of confidence my own knees and heart don’t feel as I write this?

They had a distance that has disappeared. A distance that helped them keep the rarity and unpredictability of the tragedy in perspective, granting them parental peace.

“In 1928, the odds are that if people in this country read about this tragedy, they read it several days later, in place that was hard to get to,” explains Art Markman, author of “Smart Thinking” (Perigee Books, 2012). “You couldn’t hop on a plane and be there in an hour. Michigan? If you were living in South Carolina, it would be a three-day drive. It’s almost another country. You’d think, ‘Those crazy people in Michigan,’ same as if a school blows up in one of the breakaway Republics.”

Time and space create distance. But today, those have compressed to zero. The Connecticut shooting comes into our homes–even our hands–instantly, no matter where we live. We see the shattered parents in real time. The President can barely maintain composure. This sorrow isn’t far away, it’s local for every single one of us.

And of course it brings up Columbine. Two horrors, separated by years and miles, are now fused into one. It feels like terrible things are happening to our children all the time, everywhere. Nowhere is safe.

As a result, I expect we will now demand precautions on top of precautions. More guards. More security cameras. More supervision. We will fear more for our kids and let go of them even more reluctantly. Every time we wonder if they can be safe beyond our arms, these shootings will swim into focus.

Will this new layer of fear and security make our children any safer? Probably not, but for a reassuring reason: A tragedy like this is so rare, our kids are already safe. Not perfectly safe. No one ever is. But safe.

That’s a truth the folks in 1928 America understood. We just don’t feel that way now.

Not when there’s no distance between us and the parents in Newtown.

[sleev-les]

Originally Posted by Snowolf

First off, you don't seem to be hearing other viewpoints and just pontificate an agenda. Where did I say I think all guns should be banned? Have I not stated repeatedly than guns have a legitimate role for personal protection? So why dig up a 10 year old NRA produced video clip that almost all Australians have overwhelming cited as a gross misrepresentation of the facts on the ground?

I am not talking about gun bans and if you would stop and actually listen to what others are saying, you would have understood that. The fact of the matter is that in nations with stricter gun laws, we see very few mass shootings. Even in the US, as a result of a nationwide ban of possesion of fully automatic weapons, we have not seen one used in one of these crimes.

Slow down with the pontificating and have a two way dialogue to hear what others are actually saying. I certainly never suggested I support all out gun bans.

Maybe I should have broken that post up since I didn't clearly separate my response to you vs the other poster. i know you have some degree of support for firearm ownership. I think I put out a fair representation stating that tools should be in place to lower risk (agreeing with others viewpoints), but as you state to me, did you not hear that? Mass shootings are still few and you again stated that they still happen, but are few in places even with more strict laws. Banning an assault rifle (hopefully this is clarified) doesn't say mass shootings would be any less. Limiting magazine capacity just means a shooter carries more. Of the millions of assault weapons that are owned in this country, according to the hype, 1 dictates the fate of the rest. I've said it multiple times yet you want to paint a target on my face and say I'm being one way, but I'm looking at the reality of this country and its differing culture that separates us from the rest of the world. We are defnitely a unique breed.