Another Gun Thread

[Brian37]

Not the point...

The bottom line no matter the model of firearm, no matter handgun or long gun, we have too much firearm violence.

What will work, is for the companies that make them, to stop fucking marketing them like everyone can be a hero, snack patriot, rape victim survivor. Because that is not the majority of Roy Rogers, Dirty Harry outcomes where the good guy always wins.

-and maybe car manufacturers should stop selling the fantasy that everyone is mario andretti in their new model.  Both are ridiculous fantasies, but what portion of our gun violence problem do you imagine is attributable to a hero complex?  I'm cool with envelope math on this one, your best guess.  

Again. This bullshit about legal, vs illegal. And MOST injuries and deaths, REGARDLESS involve someone the user knows.

Yeah, in the case of guns, themselves.  Still, there are an alarming number of homicides, predominantly concentrated in racially segregated cities with high poverty rates.  Americas gun problem is also americas pervasive institutional racism problem.  Shhhhh, don't tell anyone, lol.

It still remains an issue of access. 

What COULD WORK, is to stop making them like candy and handing them out like candy. Just like the oil industry was forced to remove lead from gas, but cars were still sold. But even given that, we still need to get off of burning fossil fuels. I am sure if humans do not blow ourselves up over bullshit, I can even see firearms existing in the same context.

I'm not sure the car analogy, useful for licensing, insurance, and liability... is workable in this context.  The reasons we removed lead from gas don't translate very well to our gun problem, and fwiw, gun manufacturers have a vested interest in producing newer, safer guns...it's almost as if they want to sell them for more money, or something.  Arguably, the most effective means of reducing gun violence (that's the goal, yes....?) would be a windfall for manufacturers.  Whether that's through a targeted buyback of legacy pistols or a requirement for enhanced security features and the phasing out of "dumb" guns.  

OFC, safer guns and better access laws aren't going to slow down gun death on the whole.  Nor, if we're being brutally honest with ourselves, would fewer guns.  Those sorts of things only prevent "the wrong people" from having easy and reliable access to a serviceable firearm, and they're already in the minority, relegated to cheap used firearms in resale.  Those things that would work to reduce gun violence don't have a one for one exchange in gun death because they're wildly disparate problems.  

Maybe we should figure out why so many people want to die.  Removing those law abiding pass every screen we have citizens access yo firearms would not only represent a fundamental abuse of warrant, it would expose these arguments as a facade while increasing the number of botched attempts and all the misery that follows that.   

My point still remains, we cannot keep doing the same fucking bullshit we have been. Technology changes and so should laws to make us safer.

Well, sure.  What we're trying to figure out, though, is what changes actually would make us safer, right?  Some vague rant about gun manufacturers, how does that make us safer?  Gun violence doesn't have any correlation to gun sales.  None.  The areas in which the highest numbers of guns are sold and owned have the lowest rates of gun violence.  The areas with the lowest rates of sale and ownership have the highest rates of gun violence, with the same firearm often being used by multiple people in the commission of many separate crimes.  Newly manufactured guns don't feature heavily in any states trace data.

Your underlying contention above isn't exactly wrong, you just have the attribution as backwards as it could get.  Yes, it's an access problem.  Access limited by poverty to a specific range of firearms in circumstances that positively reinforce the use of a gun on the one hand, and easier access to a new pistol than mental health services (or happiness, for that matter, lol) on the other.  We'd get more mileage out of anti-poverty and mental health initiatives than any anti-corporate action....and not by a little, by alot.  Gun manufacturers aren't making money off of the guns used in the commission of crimes.  Those have already been liquidated from their stock, legally, and to The Right People™, no less.  Right behind that it's private sale, and while we're at it we could absolutely reduce the number of relevant firearms in circulation, fund law enforcement agencies that handle this shit, and reaffirm our commitment to their authority to do so.   

There's alot that we could do, that could work.  How's bitching about Big Gun been going, thusfar?  Seeing any numbers drop?  Hell, the nutters use you for ad copy and it boosts sales.  The argument you're making isn't helping,  and not just because there's no credible means for it to effect gun death in the first place.  Tighten up, or it's going to be you who kills gun control, not the nuts.

I am so sick of the argument of "this is a complex issue".

No it is not. The reason we have all the firearm violence is because one industry is holding us hostage for nothing but profit.

I am not against firearm ownership. I am against ANY industry putting profits above public safety.