High school shooting in Parkland FL

[Catholic_Lady]

People are always quick to defend their precious little toys with the idea that "Anything can be used as a weapon!"

Then why the fuck doesn't it happen more often?  You know what you don't hear about on the news at least once a week?  People driving into large groups of other people.  You know what you DO hear about on the news at least once a week?  MASS SHOOTINGS.  This includes, funny enough, countries where gun ownership is very low.  Gee, I wonder why the fuck that is?  And that's not to mention that bollards can help prevent car attacks, while they do fuck all to guns.  

You know, I'd feel a lot better about these conversations if people were more honest, and just said "I don't give a fuck about kids getting killed.  I like guns, and I don't care how many kids die, I don't want to give them up to protect a single one of them.  Their deaths are an acceptable price to pay for my toys."

If you want an honest conversation, I don't think demanding what you want to hear is a good start.  In my opinion, you have a pretty poor view of your opposition, and in my experience, people who talk like this, are not really interested in reason or discussion.

I'd like to have an honest conversation.

My position is this:

I think there should be stricter gun laws. Not saying all guns should be banned, of course. But I do think there should be more restriction and regulation for who is allowed to buy them. Anyone with any sort of criminal past on record, or mental illness involving any sort of violent tendencies or suicidal tendencies, should be put on some sort of no gun list. Maybe having to take a gun safety course and a psych evaluation test would be a good idea as well. A referral from your family physician saying you are in good enough mental health and not a threat to self and others. ...I dunno, just throwing some ideas out there.

Also, there should be more restrictions on the types of guns that are legal to own. I don't know anything about guns, but I do know that some can shoot many more rounds in a much shorter time than others. Some have types of bullets that are particularly deadly. There's a reason why we send out ground troops out in machine guns and not little hand guns. I get baring arms and having the right to defend yourself, but there's no reason why a person needs to own a type of gun that is so deadly unless they are going to war.