Again....But it's never the guns!

[Annik]

The fact is that everything I've suggested is that guns don't kill people; Americans do. Even though countries like Switzerland have alarmingly high gun possession rates, they seem to have far fewer murders with guns than we do; in fact, in 2006 the entire Swiss nation had a total of 34 gun-related homicides. The US? 12,632. Hell, in my home state of Illinois alone there were 625. Hell, in Chicago there were 373.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I think that Americans are being subjected to something like sick-building syndrome, except that it's the entire country, which causes us to be violent instead of sick.

This is what I mean about curing the cancer with cough syrup. It's not the guns, it's the culture. We need to keep better tabs on our mentally ill better and provide more places where people can go about these problems. The stigmas involved with mental health issues need to be worked out (and if we stopped glorifying these shooters by giving them intense media coverage, that would help, too). Furthermore, we need to give more aid to the poor, who are the most likely to commit gun crimes. No, the answer isn't more guns, but it isn't less of them, either (and, as Creed pointed out, you can get a gun off the streets, numbers filed, for less money than it takes to buy a weapon in a store, where they keep records and hopefully do background checks). We need to correct the underlying problems of the violence in the US or it will continue.

[Napoléon]

Perhaps we need two threads for this. One for those who feel the need to mourn and one for the rest of us.

I'm not interested in separating people who want to comment differently, I just find it insulting that someone thinks I'm getting on my soap box when now is in my opinion the most perfect time to demonstrate why gun laws need changing. That's not being callous, or disrespectful, or taking advantage of a tragedy, no, it's a perfectly reasonable thing to do when shit like this happens IMHO.

[Kousbroek]

My 1st thought was there we go again, America with its stupid gun laws but after thinking about it longer i came to realize it isn't an American problem.
Even over here we had a young man walking into a mall and shooting 8 or 9 people before killing himself and guns especially automatic weapons are a big no no in Holland.
Or take this guy for example
"Anders Behring Breivik is the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks. In a sequential bombing and mass shooting on 22 July 2011, he bombed government buildings in Oslo, resulting in eight deaths, then carried out a mass shooting at a camp of the Workers' Youth League (AUF) of the Labour Party on the island of Utøya, where he killed 69 people, mostly teenagers." (wiki)
If some crazy loon is determined to do something horrible like this he/she will do it no matter what i'm afraid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zIjtwsrXfk

[Napoléon]

If some crazy loon is determined to do something horrible like this he/she will do it no matter what i'm afraid.

Nobody is saying they won't. But you can still make it harder for them.

[Kousbroek]

Nobody is saying they won't. But you can still make it harder for them.

Yes sure i agree, and i don't think the 2nd amendment was the smartest thing they ever came up with .
Weapons should never be in civilian hands but that's my personal opinion.
But young people doing things like this is a sign that there is some else wrong i think, but what.. i don't know.

[Shell B]

Derp, Kous, derp.

If weapons had never been in civilian hands, we would all be singing the praises of a Monarchy that believes it is appointed by god. Sometimes I wonder if people just bring home their history books and eat them.

[Kousbroek]

Derp, Kous, derp.

If weapons had never been in civilian hands, we would all be singing the praises of a Monarchy that believes it is appointed by god. Sometimes I wonder if people just bring home their history books and eat them.

I don't see what that has got to do with people having 5 or 8 or 12 or even more weapons in their home, we don't live in 17 something anymore.
And the masses is always stronger than the army, just look at the french or russian revolution.

[Shell B]

It doesn't matter. You said it was a stupid law to write and that civilians never should have had guns. If the government has guns, so should we. A people should always be able to protect itself from tyranny. The framers of the Constitution knew that better than anyone.

[A Theist]

Derp, Kous, derp.

If weapons had never been in civilian hands, we would all be singing the praises of a Monarchy that believes it is appointed by god. Sometimes I wonder if people just bring home their history books and eat them.

I don't see what that has got to do with people having 5 or 8 or 12 or even more weapons in their home, we don't live in 17 something anymore.
And the masses is always stronger than the army, just look at the french or russian revolution.

"And the masses is always stronger than the army, just look at the french or russian revolution."....neither of which were fought without the shedding of much blood...like the French revolution's 10 month long reign of terror in which scores of innocent civilians who were falsely accused of opposing the revolution were publicly guillotined,....and the civilians who were suspected to be opponents to the Russian revolution were executed before a firing squad and buried together in mass graves, innocent or not....if only the civilians had guns to fight back against the revolutions that turned out to be tyrannical and blood thirsty....

[TaraJo]

It doesn't matter. You said it was a stupid law to write and that civilians never should have had guns. If the government has guns, so should we. A people should always be able to protect itself from tyranny. The framers of the Constitution new that better than anyone.

The government also has tanks and nuclear weapons. Should we have those, too?

Also, worth considering, the second amendment was written a long time ago. The guns they had then were primitave muskets, not semi-automatic assault rifles. It's worth considering what the framers would have said if such destructive weapons existed then.

But if we're looking at the constitution, let's take a better look at the second amendment, shall we?

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

I'm not ignoring he part that says the people can keep and bear arms, but I'm wondering why people reject the first part of the amendment which specfically references a well regulated militia. Every time someone tries to regulate guns, the NRA starts screaming "slippery slope!" and talking about how the government is gonna take away all our guns.