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Those things are important as well, but it definitely not what is killing people. Half the world has been Americanized and share your culture, and mental health is a problem no matter where you go. Some places have a better system put in place, but holy shit does it not add up to amount of gun related killings found in the US. You guys are up there with countries like El Salvador, Montenegro and Guatemala. There are almost 10 times more killings related to guns compared to Norway, where we also have a shit mental health system and our culture is Americanized as fuck (50+% of TV is American, we have your music, movies, food etc.). Your argument just doesn't hold water.

Yeah, the shitloads of readily available semi automatic weapons surely don't help.

UglyCasanova wrote:

Chankgeez wrote: part of it is due to our geography. It leaves us kinda isolated/insulated from things.

You're living in the 21st century. That might have been an excuse 70-80 years ago, but not any more.

Not that I disagree with you, but you're living in Norway. In reality things are a little different over here. As advanced as the flow of information may've become, it's yet to trickle down to a good portion of our population.

UglyCasanova wrote:

Chankgeez wrote: … and interpreting our Constitution is an entirely cray cray legal can of worms…

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Write a new one that makes more sense in the 21st century (like Iceland in 2010)

Way easier said than done. The U.S. is way larger and more complicated than Iceland (or Norway).

UglyCasanova wrote:

Chankgeez wrote: … and fully automatic weapons are actually difficult to obtain. The press often mistakes semi-automatic for automatic.

Semi-automatic is still fucked up. Especially in light of how easy they are to obtain and how respectlessly Americans use them.

Well, it stems from a culture of war. Some people don't seem to (or don't wanna) understand that.

Also, American gun culture is still rooted in fightin' Injuns.

Strange Tales wrote:I can't believe I'm posting on the internet about this shit because I avoid it like the plague, but guns aren't the biggest issue here. Things that are more important:

Mental Health Evaluation
Masculinity Culture (Hetero-sexuality, whatever)

Among other things.

The mental health thing is an exercise in logical tautology, I think. I.e. every gun owner is a 'responsible gun owner' right up until they shoot someone... at which point they're a mental health case that should have been identified earlier... but in no way is the fact that they're a gun owner a tip off that they should probably be put under observation for possible mental health problems (beyond wanting to own a gun, which, you know, that shit's fucking stupid IMO YMMV Try the Lamb It's Delicious etc.) because that would be infringing on the rights of 'responsible gun owners,' which is an identification placed on every gun owner right up until they shoot someone...

So, all due respect I'm not sure the Mental Health Evaluation Ring-around-the-Rosie talking point extravaganza is really worth anyone's time or effort in this particular aspect of the conversation.

UglyCasanova wrote: We have your music, movies, food etc.

NORWAY'S GOT OUR FOOD, MAN THE TANKS!

D.o.S. wrote:

UglyCasanova wrote: We have your music, movies, food etc.

NORWAY'S GOT OUR FOOD, MAN THE TANKS!

As long as they don't try to force us to eat this, I think we're OK:

Yea that's fair, shits just fucked up. All of it. It's just like basic education might be the most useful. I had to listen to my family argue about this shit on Sunday and my Brother-in-Law kept on saying he wanted to buy an automatic weapon "for when the Chinese invade" and I can only imagine how popular that opinion is.

I mean you're talking about vast swaths of people who have spent their entire lives being indoctrinated into a belief system fundamentally rooted in constant struggle and all of a sudden you give them all firearms and holy shit there's a whole charge of other people in that place with the funny name who are doing the same thing but they look different than us and I'm sure this is going to end well for all parties involved.

Exactly why I don't like arguing pretty much anything. It starts from a fucked up core that will never change. Basically this:

Actually, I think the mental health aspect is a large part of what's lacking in the gun control equation.

Also, when the Chinese "invade" no gun will be of any help.

I mean if the US Govt wants to fuck your shit up you're not going to get very far with an AR15, either, but those things don't seem to register in contrast to the "It's my gun and I want it nowwww" thing.

Dude, don't you remember Red Dawn?

As a big John Milius fan I try not to.

Which, by the way, this is a great watch:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZswrVALi2M[/youtube]

I think that the 2nd amendment is interpreted way wrong and I don't think it means that we can all have any gun we want. BUT - I think it is really important to look at the constitutionality of keeping guns out of certain hands and not all, because that will almost certainly lead to discrimination in a horrible way.

We don't need semi-automatic weapons. At all. Ever. We do need to talk about masculinity and our culture of violence, as well as mental health, but that is a slow change. If we had just told people to stop smoking, without making it harder to do, that change would have been really slow. If we just talked about drunk driving, without adding consequences, the culture of driving drunk would have changed slowly, if at all.

This issue requires some swift and serious change to save lives, but I don't think the terrorist watch list is the place to start.

Yo what the fuck don't bring two of my favorite pastimes into this we're talking about guns here.



(joking, obvi)