The School Shooting in Minneapolis (and the Issue of Gun-Control in the US)

[Leonardo17]

Arewethereyet:
 
There are all sorts of house safety systems now. Unless you live in a very isolated area, the police will probably get to you in 10-20 minutes time maximum. Texas is not South Africa.
 
Even so: You are a sane person. If you are in a risky situation, the government should grant you a permit for a given number of weapons to be used within a definite framework.
 
In the US you cannot have alcohol before the age of 21. But you can get an M-16 at the age of 18 provided that you have the money to pay for it.
 
BrianSoddinBoru4:
 
This is something I have debated a lot in the religion part of this forum. When you read the constitution (or a sacred text) you need to understand the logic behind it. People like T. Jefferson believed that a permanent army would not be necessary in the newly founded United States of America. They thought they local militias would be enough if a new attack on their sovereignty ever happened.
 
+ What they are saying in the second amendment is basically: “You have the right to resist with weapons if the government becomes so corrupt that it has become a method of oppression”.
 
Many other democratic countries are also very open to similar ideas.
 
What is happening now is the NRA willing to keep making money from weapons that in most cases are staying in somebody’s garage without ever being used and occasionally end up in the hands of psychopaths, like the Las Vegas Shooting in 2017:
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
 
In this case the man brought 24 firearms into the hotel without anyone even realizing.
How did this guy manage to acquire so many weapons without anyone realizing. Even the D. Trump shooter last year was some mentally disturbed kid who should be somewhere else doing his teenager stuff instead of playing with assault weapons.
 
- As I said. These are not toys. Think of it like a car. A car is also not a toy. If you want to race it or do dangerous stuff with it, there are special areas for that. Or else, you go to a desert area, do all the crazy stuff you feel like doing. Then, when you are back in the city, you drive safely, you don’t even shout to other people for what they do.
 
So if someone wants to shoot for sports that is fine with me too. I know people with limited income who have a shooting range membership. They go there, be as much “Tango and Cash” as they want. Then they leave the guns there and go on with their normal lives.
 
The NRA fighting regulations in the US is very similar to the trial of tobacco companies in the 1990’s. For those of you who don’t know: Back in those years the main tobacco companies where trying to convince the general public that “there was no proof that linked tobacco consumption to cancer” (which was a complete lie of course). And today, they are trying to stitch to selling E-cigarettes and vaping machines to their customer bases who no longer see cigarette as something trendy or cool.
 
To this I may add that almost all the weapons that are currently in the hands of Haitian gangs are also coming from the USA.
 
So yes: There has to be more regulations and I don’t think it is anti-capitalist to say that. No other country in the developed world has so few regulations on the ownership of lethal weapons by ordinary citizens.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^As I’ve said on this forum many, many times, I’m not particularly so much anti-gun as I am anti-giving firearms to people who manifestly should not have them. The American gun culture has fetishized firearms ownership to the point that guns nuts believe not only that all people should have guns, but that everyone should WANT to have guns. You see this all the time in their rhetoric - if you don’t want to own firearms, you’re some psycho lunatic who is cheering for the downfall of America.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

Your answer is a GSD for protection. Do you think if that church had a bunch of GSDs in it that the killer couldn't have caused the death he caused when he barred the door and shot through the windows?

What, exactly, do you think the dogs would have done?

I don't like having a gun for protection, but that's the world I live in. YMMV

[arewethereyet]

As for the cops getting here in 10-20 minutes - I could get pretty damn dead in that amount of time.  I ain't faster than a speeding bullet.

Texas is home to over 32 million firearms. Although Texas has the highest numbers of guns and gun owners in the U.S., it ranks 14th in gun ownership percentage as it is the second most populous state. Approximately 36% of Texans report owning at least one firearm.

These are the guns that are reported and supposedly held legally.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There are all sorts of house safety systems now. Unless you live in a very isolated area, the police will probably get to you in 10-20 minutes time maximum. Texas is not South Africa.

You don't seem to understand how big and rural many of our states are. 10-20 minutes response time is laughably optimistic where I live -- 45 minutes is more accurate. I keep a 9mm just in case.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

There are all sorts of house safety systems now. Unless you live in a very isolated area, the police will probably get to you in 10-20 minutes time maximum. Texas is not South Africa.

You don't seem to understand how big and rural many of our states are. 10-20 minutes response time is laughably optimistic where I live -- 45 minutes is more accurate. I keep a 9mm just in case.

I have a feeling that gun owners like you are not the problem.

Boru

[Thumpalumpacus]

You don't seem to understand how big and rural many of our states are. 10-20 minutes response time is laughably optimistic where I live -- 45 minutes is more accurate. I keep a 9mm just in case.

I have a feeling that gun owners like you are not the problem.

Boru

I know I'm not. Sound mind, and I keep my gun and clipped ammo separate. I don't shoot it very often, that's my biggest deficiency.

[The Grand Nudger]

 
The NRA fighting regulations in the US is very similar to the trial of tobacco companies in the 1990’s. For those of you who don’t know: Back in those years the main tobacco companies where trying to convince the general public that “there was no proof that linked tobacco consumption to cancer” (which was a complete lie of course). And today, they are trying to stitch to selling E-cigarettes and vaping machines to their customer bases who no longer see cigarette as something trendy or cool.

This is a widely held misconception with legs.  The nra was actually formed by army vets over a century ago to focus on civilian marksmanship and safety in response to the poor performance of union troops on the battlefield during the civil war.  It wouldn't be until 1960's that the nra engaged in anything we could call partisan activity.  They supported increased gun control because black panthers.   By 1968 the us passed the gun control act in order to suppress black gun ownership, which the nra opposed, because the ideology and rhetoric within the black panther movement had infiltrated the nra itself and leadership found it compelling.  In 1977, the nra planned to move out of dc and away from politics entirely, to colorado springs.  They'd build a rec center and focus on conservation and recreational shooting.  That did not happen.  Instead, the revolt in cincinatti happened, an administrative coup and subsequent purge which would leave the nra in more or less the shape it extested from then to today.  Not a gun rights group, or  a gun manufacturers group, but a political organization that maintained guns as a wedge issue in order break into right wing kingmaking for profit.  

Gun manufacturers have a lobby, it's quiet and effective and doesn't give a shit about americans gun rights because the real market is active conflict zones in foreign countries.  That's what they lobby for, that's the profit interest, and they get what they want.
 

To this I may add that almost all the weapons that are currently in the hands of Haitian gangs are also coming from the USA.

-and the straw buyer network is a middleman sucking up profit in what the gun manufacturers would rather handle directly while the nra only believes that we have the right to bare arms to kill people who look like haitians.
 

So yes: There has to be more regulations and I don’t think it is anti-capitalist to say that. No other country in the developed world has so few regulations on the ownership of lethal weapons by ordinary citizens.

As an american, "no other country has the rights you enjoy" isn't the flex it probably seems like to you.  

Here's the thing.  What people believe about america, american gun ownership, americas gun culture, and gun crime in america is 180 degrees at odds with the reality of it.  By the numbers, we're a remarkably safe and responsible people.  The main driver of gun death in the us is suicide.  The main driver of individual shooting death is domestic abuse.  The main driver of mass shooting death is domestic terrorism.  We wouldn't need a single new gun control law to deal with the actual problem, or with the statistical nonentity that people have confused for the real problem.  Hell, a major part of the actual problem that is related to mass shootings and mass shootings at schools and churches doesn't even have a possible legal solution..at least not yet.  Not until the mad king makes it a-okay to deport americans for badthought.  At that point, it's smooth sailing.  We run a nationwide buyback.  Fund mental health to reduce the majority of gun death by suicide.   Make institutional changes about domestic abuse and neglect reporting.  Then, deport all the magats.

OFC, starting with the last thing would make all the previous things easier...and there, right there, is our actual gun problem..not a thing to do with guns, or the amount or breadth of laws about them. They're fucking terrorists. They don't love guns. They hate you. They hate all of us. They hate themselves, they hate their girlfriends and wives, they hate their children. The gun is a means, and not an end. They want them so that they can seize power, and as soon as they have they'll find a need to remove the guns from the people who got them that power because, clearly, those nuts are fucking dangerous.

-For completeness. I'm a recreational shooter. I don't hunt anymore, and the thought of using a gun to defend my home makes me extremely uncomfortable. There's nothing in here worth anyone's life. Still, if guns were more strictly controlled I would not comply. I would probably go out and immediately buy whatever our owners were about to make illegal...because no matter how well intentioned some law may be, the trouble with the us government is that it keeps getting the trumps.

[Fireball]

^ Hear, hear. The NRA used to be about safety and marksmanship. I also shoot recreationally. I shoot Distinguished Expert with light rifle (.22). So does one of my sons. For the record, that's 192/200 on an official A-32 target. I actually shoot 196+ on those targets. That corresponds to 100% into an eye socket of a stationary individual at 50 yards. Hope I never need to use that skill on people. If it didn't feel like incest, we'd sign off each other's awards. Yippee, I'd get to wear a patch!  

I was an NRA Certified Firearms Instructor for rifle and shotgun back when my sons were in the BSA, but I was traveling for work a bunch and missed the renewal date. Did those Merit Badges for Boy Scouts, too.