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soooooo i was raised with guns, my fam has always been about all the guns, all the time.

but.

like.

people get shot ALL the hell up.

and just now with one that is super illegal to have.

so mebbe.... if we can't stop this insanity with restricting which guns people can have...... they might.... all.... need to go away?

Australia seemed to nail it down pretty well after one mass shooting?

behndy wrote:soooooo i was raised with guns, my fam has always been about all the guns, all the time.

but.

like.

people get shot ALL the hell up.

and just now with one that is super illegal to have.

so mebbe.... if we can't stop this insanity with restricting which guns people can have...... they might.... all.... need to go away?

Australia seemed to nail it down pretty well after one mass shooting?

I'll present a counter to that, courtesy one of the anti-gun (ironically) 538 folks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

Basically, gun bans aren't the solution either.

Beyond that, like I've told folks in places..."if you weren't willing to let your kids die in Iraq, are you willing to send them to die in Montana?"

Banning breaks the social contract to a point that it's over at that point, and I don't want to forecast the outcome to be blunt.

I should add that Mr. Crazy (I take away the shooter's name in things like this, because they don't deserve the fame) had a pilot's license and millions of dollars.

Fly down to Mexico or Central America, load up the plane with a few guns, repeat. Boom. Same result.

Or load up the plane with gas and whatever explosives he could scrounge and crash it into the crowd at the show. Huge death toll there too.

But the mass shooting are, and always have been, blips that grab attention - horrible, but...not really addressible by bans.

If you have that kind of money and ill intent, you'll do horrible shit.

I lived through the Chicago total ban the first twenty-six years of my life. It was as effective as the drug ban.

yeah. i mean. i still grapple with All Or Nothing but.....

i have read countless reports of how useless statistically an armed citizen is for averting gun based tragedy (not enough training/experience with a stressful situation) or how they make matters worse, and this vile piece of shit having enough money to circumvent any laws is...... such a statistical anomaly that this exact type of evil fuck may never arise again.

but.

except for hunters (and i.... am not a fan of hunting animals), or people that live in such rural areas that they have animal attacks to worry about, i don't know how many guns most people need.

things that make me doubtful about guns - isn't it pretty much the US, out of countries not having armed conflict/wars within their borders, that has so many gun related deaths no? Australia and the UK do not?

and its NOT just mass shootings. they're the worst at a single time, but.... i mean. where i live? always shootings. always.

just feels like if we haven't evolved as a society by this point where we can have all the guns and not kill each other constantly, might be time to change things drastically?

behndy wrote:yeah. i mean. i still grapple with All Or Nothing but.....

Most of your points are addressed in the article I linked, btw.

i have read countless reports of how useless statistically an armed citizen is for averting gun based tragedy (not enough training/experience with a stressful situation) or how they make matters worse, and this vile piece of shit having enough money to circumvent any laws is...... such a statistical anomaly that this exact type of evil fuck may never arise again.

There's regular accounts of armed citizens saving themselves, their fellow citizens, and protecting their families. You just have to look for the coverage - it's not in the agenda-laden media that's frankly, as you likely have noted, is always pushing one side.

except for hunters (and i.... am not a fan of hunting animals), or people that live in such rural areas that they have animal attacks to worry about, i don't know how many guns most people need.

There's not a quota on our other rights. I hate to go for sloganeering, but "It's a Bill of Rights, not a Bill of Needs" does apply here.

things that make me doubtful about guns - isn't it pretty much the US, out of countries not having armed conflict/wars within their borders, that has so many gun related deaths no? Australia and the UK do not?

Comparing statistics across countries is problematic. What a murder is, how it's counted, when it's counted, etc varies substantially from country to country to a point that it's not a direct number thing.

Also, the blunt truth is that we have a subset of our population willing to shoot each other for money and desperation and whatever. They'll be just as willing to knife each other, or...as my life during the bans proved....they'll still shoot each other. People willing to kill don't obey laws. The only people who pay for the changes in the law at that point..are...the law-abiding.

and its NOT just mass shootings. they're the worst at a single time, but.... i mean. where i live? always shootings. always.

Are those guns legal? Are they going to be magically turned in by suddenly law-abiding dogooders? I think not.

just feels like if we haven't evolved as a society by this point where we can have all the guns and not kill each other constantly, might be time to change things drastically?

Taking them away won't change human nature.

UK has knife bans now, since the gun bans didn't stop the violence. Now they're throwing acid in each other's face, et cetera.

People can and will be violent, and when one looks at the statistics, if we're going to make any real change, it's not going to be by taking them from Mr. or Mrs. Citizen.

It's going to be by stopping the violence, however that is managed, in the areas of urban blight tha make up so much of it.

boop boop. i did read the article. like i said, this is the first time i've ever thought we might not deserve this right (i hear you on right vs need, but we have changed parts of the constitution as our society has changed), whiiiiich is a wildly different situation gun composition wise than it was when written. so i haven't done near enough research to intelligently discuss most of your arguments.

no, i don't think people that are using guns for already criminal activities are going to be dissuaded by more laws, and restricting what types of guns one can own isn't all of the solution. but more strict sentencing for gun related violence? actually making people stay in for their whole sentence?

dunno. lis, torn.

but something has to change.

behndy wrote:boop boop. i did read the article. like i said, this is the first time i've ever thought we might not deserve this right (i hear you on right vs need, but we have changed parts of the constitution as our society has changed), whiiiiich is a wildly different situation gun composition wise than it was when written. so i haven't done near enough research to intelligently discuss most of your arguments.

That's the thing, if it needs changing, then the means are there if there's the will. Realistically, there's not. Those of us on the "from my dead hands" side haven't forgotten previous bans and attempts to take them away, and in the event that they are, all mine will vanish in a freak cripple boating accident soon before the deadline. Nobody's going to be lining up to turn anything is the thing.

no, i don't think people that are using guns for already criminal activities are going to be dissuaded by more laws,

Then any laws aimed at folks are going to hit the wrong target, and attempts to do so just harden us to the no compromise, period that it's become now.

and restricting what types of guns one can own isn't all of the solution. but more strict sentencing for gun related violence? actually making people stay in for their whole sentence?

Actual sentencing meaning what it is, I don't object to.

That said, deterrence doesn't stop those who are young and invulnerable and who are surrounded by folks who have done time, are doing time, and assume they'll be doing more.

but something has to change.

Mourn the dead (I have a friend who lost a cousin in Vegas), and learn from the mistakes, and go from there.

Truth is that there are millions of these weapons in private hands (and three hundred million other ones or more) and they don't expire, go bad, or vanish with the passage of time.

The '94 ban just taught those of us who lived through it as owners to buy up like maniacs as soon as it was feasible to do so - the joke is that folks went from owning a couple to owning dozens or more, simply because to us "Never again" applies to the silliness of the Clinton years too.

For perspective, I know multiple owners with literally hundreds of high-end semiautomatics and thousands upon thousands of magazines and tens of thousands of ammo. They aren't hugely wealthy, they've just focused on acquiring the stuff and making sure they never were without again.

Sad truth that is not mentioned much: they are also the same folks whom one does not want to make into criminals overnight. They're patient, determined, and prepared.

I should note that think of it like effects pedals (and similar pricing to a lot of the stuff folks here like) - a baseline AR15 these days costs what a Strymon pedal does, new.

Now imagine pedalboards (guns) of the determined who are certain that the day will come when they're told they cannot have any more.

rfurtkamp wrote:I should add that Mr. Crazy (I take away the shooter's name in things like this, because they don't deserve the fame) had a pilot's license and millions of dollars.

Fly down to Mexico or Central America, load up the plane with a few guns, repeat. Boom. Same result.

Or load up the plane with gas and whatever explosives he could scrounge and crash it into the crowd at the show. Huge death toll there too.

But the mass shooting are, and always have been, blips that grab attention - horrible, but...not really addressible by bans.

If you have that kind of money and ill intent, you'll do horrible shit.

I lived through the Chicago total ban the first twenty-six years of my life. It was as effective as the drug ban.

From another forum, but sums up my thoughts nicely:

It's really bizarre that people hold this mindset, like would-be killers are never discouraged, rushed or careless, and always have easy access to anything they could want. It seems like a surrender of any collective responsibility to prevent attacks by framing them as completely inevitable, and it's not a mindset I've seen applied to any other violent crime.

I've told this story before but I have personal experience with exactly the scenario you're saying would never happen. Some jerk (stronger language not permitted) decided he wanted to shoot up my college campus in 2006. He was unable to purchase a gun due to existing regulations (police never made it clear which). He wrote in his diary that he had given up trying to get a gun, and a crumpled gun permit application was found in the trash in his apartment. He decided to try and run people over with an SUV instead, and failed miserably, killing no one and fracturing one person's arm.

I had friends near the failed attack. If he goes after the same crowd with firearms, people would've almost certainly died. People, maybe people I know, are alive today because a sick individual was discouraged by even the relatively minor barriers the government put between him and a gun.

Also the argument against a law because it lacks a 100% success rate is an argument against laws in general.

That's the thing, it's not a normal law we're talking about here.

We're talking about destroying an enumerated right for dubious results, a literal breaking of one of the social compacts that has been around since before the nation was founded. Free citizens have the right to keep and bear arms, subjects do not.

"You guys can't vote anymore because Trump" doesn't fly either.

Enthusiasm gap on this one is going to be with the people who have a right to lose, same as it was with gay marriage (those who want them are far more vociferous in pursuit of same), abortion (same), et cetera.

Maniacs with guns, horrible as they are, are not a significant amount of the murders in the US. That's reserved for pockets of urban blight where the locals have condoned it in one way or another for decades.

Have to be brief as I'm at work, but:

Fighting to keep a right from being taken away is not the same as fighting to get a right in the first place. But obviously you don't want to frame it that way because it puts you in more unsavoury company as far as easy comparisons go.

Hilariously(and apropos of nothing), most of the writings from the time of the founding refer to the second amendment as a way for citizens to support the government, not defend themselves against it. That's a much newer, much more paranoid idea.

Once you have it, you don't let it go. Once established, good luck getting it taken away.

I didn't as a young man because of the folly of Chicago.

I won't ever let it go.

rfurtkamp wrote:Once you have it, you don't let it go. Once established, good luck getting it taken away.

I didn't as a young man because of the folly of Chicago.

I won't ever let it go.

Sure, but surely you can see how that comes across as very infantile and reflexive -- even if it's a constitutional right. And it doesn't seem to provide much help in in the way of illustrating an actual solution to much of anything.

D.o.S. wrote: Sure, but surely you can see how that comes across as very infantile and reflexive -- even if it's a constitutional right. And it doesn't seem to provide much help in in the way of illustrating an actual solution to much of anything.

There isn't a solution for shootings of this type.

The schmuck had millions of dollars, private planes, and the ability to fly across the boarder.

If he'd wanted to acquire hardware, he could have gotten it.

Same with anybody else willing to commit murder and devote resources to it.

We have over three hundred million guns. They're not going away, even with a total ban, assuming folks agreed to it. Nor do they vanish from the world, nor do homebuilt items and 3D-printed stuff cease to be. There are billions of guns in the world at this point.

Reflexive, yes. It's the proper response at this point, since the reflex is to always call for a ban without indicating how it will actually make a difference (it won't!).