Guns. Good or Bad?

RoughGalaxy · Feb 17, 2018

I'll weigh in with pretty much the same thing I said earlier. As a Canadian. We generally trust our law enforcement services to keep us safe. Hand guns are allowed, but you may never carry them. (you can take them in a locked case to a shooting range, but may never carry them, even on your own property). You can have a shotgun or hunting rifle. (we live in the mountains, so we have to be concerned with bobcats, bears, etc) but no barrel mags, no extended mags or anything that enables you to go rambo in a public space.

Thinking that Murica will never be able to remove guns from people the populous is short sighted at best. It would take a lot of work, but I think it's possible. (quick frankly living in a country where the average joe feels they need to own a firearm, says a lot about the country itself)

A good first step is heavier regulation. Right now it's insanely easy to get a gun. I remember a story about a bank giving away guns to people who opened an account with them... fucking absurd.

To own a gun in canada, you have to take and pass a gun safety course, a background check, go through a waiting period after purchasing a gun before you actually get it, and Register your guns. Is anyone going to tell me that these steps don't make sense?

I know what the pro gun folks will say "oh criminals will get guns anyway, why make it harder for everyone to get guns?" because it makes it harder for the fucking crazies to get guns too. It means fewer stolen guns that end up on the street for criminals to get. it helps reduce access to people who shouldn't have guns.

Ezz · Feb 17, 2018

sum1 said:
Also in 1990 the "Gun-Free School Zones Act" was made law, go look at how many gun shootings happened before and after that act. This act strips people of their basic right to life, and I find it ironic, we protect our politicians, celebrities, and anyone of import with guns, but our children with a sign.

As mentioned before I don't think you guys should have a total ban right away. But make it harder for crazy people to get guns. Have security at schools. Not teachers with guns. People who do that for a living. Politicians and Celebs are not protected by teachers with guns either.
And regarding Trump, what is your stance on this story LINK .

sum1 · Feb 17, 2018

RoughGalaxy said:
A good first step is heavier regulation. Right now it's insanely easy to get a gun. I remember a story about a bank giving away guns to people who opened an account with them... fucking absurd.

FICTION plan and simple fiction, as someone who has bought guns it is not simple or easy, you do have to get background checks and everything, and that story is a just plain fabrication.

Ezz said:
As mentioned before I don't think you guys should have a total ban right away. But make it harder for crazy people to get guns. Have security at schools. Not teachers with guns. People who do that for a living. Politicians and Celebs are not protected by teachers with guns either.
And regarding Trump, what is your stance on this story LINK .

I am down for any security at schools, there are a million ways you could do it. get teachers special licenses, that can be temporally suspended by the school if the school feels it is needed. I would gladly work as an armed guard of a school if they wanted to hire me. My point is that gun free zones are the most likely place to be shot (https://www.redstate.com/brandon_morse/2018/02/15/reminder-fbi-stats-show-98-mass-shootings-occurred-within-gun-free-zones/) as for the bill it was not perfect but the Obama law it was repealing was flawed as well (https://reason.com/blog/2018/02/15/no-trump-did-not-make-it-easier-for-ment)

Also, any American that wants to defend themselves, Springfield is giving away 100 free 911 .380 handguns (if you win it will be shipped to a dealer near you, then you will have to pass a background check) https://wn.nr/HZUh6g

sum1 · Feb 17, 2018

NaffNaffBobFace said:
Define "Good People".

Okay, as the threads previous answers don't seem to have provided satisfaction, I'll try a different tac:

The UK has not had a school mass shooting since Dunblane in 1996, by regulating firearms. Since that time there have been no mass school shootings. But further to that, no one has driven a truck through a classroom. No one has driven a car through a playground, either. No one has blown a class of kids up with explosives. No one has gone on a knife rampage or a sword attack or any of a million other methods where you would kill 20 to 30 people in a minute or two.

Perhaps the psychos in the UK just don't have enough imagination? They've had 22 years to think of something.

7 July 2005 7 July 2005 London bombings London, England 52 700+ A series of coordinated terrorist suicide attacks throughout central London between 08:50-09:47. It was the United Kingdom's worst terrorist incident since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, as well as the country's first ever suicide attack.
2 June 2010 Cumbria shootings Cumbria, England 12 killed 11 wounded A killing spree/murder–suicide.
22 March 2017 2017 Westminster attack London, England 6 killed 49 wounded A vehicle and knife attack.
22 May 2017 Manchester Arena Bombing Manchester, England 23 killed 400+ wounded A terrorist suicide attack.[11]
3 June 2017 June 2017 London Bridge attack London, England 8 killed 48 wounded A vehicle and knife attack.[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Great_Britain

sum1 · Feb 17, 2018

NaffNaffBobFace said:
I don't see any of those incidents involving a school, thankfully. That is the example I used and I used it for a reason: The UK has gone without a school mass shooting for 22 years, In comparison there have been 8 school shootings in the first 7 weeks of this year in America.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/14/school-shootings-in-america-2018-how-many-so-far

We can all play the Stats game but the question remains what are we you going to do about it?

The US has tried doing nothing and that has just resulted in the deaths of another 14 kids.

Yes, the UK has seen some atrocities, however it was not for the want of doing something to try to stop them - if you notice most of the examples you used had the backing, training and influence of organised groups, not lone nutjobs. Can you imagine the number of dearhs of the Westminster attack if they had easy access to ranged weapons like firearms?

We used to have bombs going off on highstreets in the 70's, but those were not the work of one disgruntled postman, but those days are past because there was hard work, on both sides of the conflict, to put an end to it.

You can still pray, you can still give thoughts to the victims, but hey - how about this time trying something?

You may just find by giving a little you might just get a lot.

https://www.snopes.com/2018/02/16/how-many-school-shootings-in-2018/ there were NOT 8 school shootings here are better numbers.

can you imagine the ability for the preservation of life if the public was allowed to defend themselves in Westminster?

And some in America are doing something to stop school shootings, may not be perfect, but it beats the crap out of making everyone a perfect target and victim. http://insider.foxnews.com/2014/08/27/sign-argyle-texas-school-warns-staff-members-are-armed-can-use-any-force-necessary

sum1 · Feb 17, 2018

NaffNaffBobFace said:
You argument in semantics doesn't really help when it goes from 8 with fatalities or serious injuries to 17 firearm related incidents overall. Great numbers, really helps reinforce the fact something needs to be done.

Right... so when armed police arrive and find a shootout are they going to just shoot the baddies or anyone discharging a weapon? Because when Persons A, B and C are shooting at persons D, E and F and they are shooting back, it becomes rather hard to tell which people are the ones you need to stop firing.

In Gun We Trust.

Again - 22 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attacks_related_to_primary_schools just because they are not getting shot does not mean people are not dying.

It's called deterrent when people know they will get shot and killed they don't do it. according to the FBI, 98% of attacks happen in GUN FREE ZONES! but that is beside the point. I have few questions for you, First is human life valuable? Yes (I hope is your answer) and if so, does a human have a right to defend themselves from their valuable life being taken away? yet again I hope the answer is yes, because if not then the life is not of value and you need to go back to question 1. As such do I have a right to defend myself that is not given by any person or government body? and if the people or government did not give me a right that is basic to all humans, then they can not take it away. I will defend my life, the lives of those I love, and those of the innocence, and if I must I will die in that cause and consider it a life well spent. There was a teacher who gave his life defending kids down in Florida, all I wish is that great man had been allowed a gun to stop this attack, save more lives and himself. And I will not be put in the same situation if I can help it. I carry a loaded 1911 everywhere I go and if put in a situation when I can save an innocent life by taking a guilty I will not hesitate, and I will live or die with a clean conscience, and that is a right that all humans have if they choose to use it. It is a RIGHT that one person can not tell another to or not practice.

Old one but a good one

ColdDog · Feb 17, 2018

NaffNaffBobFace said:
The UK has not had a school mass shooting since Dunblane in 1996, by regulating firearms. Since that time there have been no mass school shootings. But further to that, no one has driven a truck through a classroom.

The UK has their own problems, just like America or any other country for that fact.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/terror-uk-timeline-recent-attacks/story?id=47579860

Ok... pound for pound there are more people in the US. In the UK, you've had your incidents... well known or not. What is the population of the UK compared to the US? Let's say 65.64 million (2016) where the US is 325,908,238, (2017) so, let's put on our statics hat... you seem pretty well versed in this activity. You tell me... knowing that the US population is nearly 6x the size of the UK... what is the probability of someone going nuts in the UK vs the US. I do not know why this is rocket science. Also, something that foreigners to the US do not understand... if we let the GB King take away our guns we'd still be under the UK rule... this is a fundamental historical aspect that many US people like me cherish... it comes down to the fact the government will not screw with the population knowing that it is well armed. Many of it see it as a necessary evil... pros outweigh the cons in many peoples minds. By the way... how many people died in WW2?

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history in absolute terms of total casualties. Over 60 million people were killed, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population (est. 2.3 billion). Statistics of military wounded are available for the major combatants. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count ...

How many people did the Chinese kill during the Mao Revolution?
Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years' Mao Zedong, founder of the People's Republic of China, qualifies as the greatest mass murderer in world history, an expert who had unprecedented access to official Communist Party archives said yesterday.

According to a disturbingly pleasant graphic from Information is Beautiful entitled simply 20th Century Death, communism was the leading ideological cause of death between 1900 and 2000. The 94 million that perished in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe easily (and tragically) trump the 28 million that died under fascist regimes during the same period.
https://reason.com/blog/2013/03/13/communism-killed-94m-in-20th-century

During the century measured, more people died as a result of communism than from homicide (58 million) and genocide (30 million) put together. The combined death tolls of WWI (37 million) and WWII (66 million) exceed communism’s total by only 9 million.

Now compare that to a Communist revolution in America... people like me who do not agree would be killed, period... that could be millions of children and adults.

This is why many "old school" educated Americans protect gun rights. Seems like socialists like Hitler and communists like Mao and Stalin validate our need to protect our self from the state.

Every life lost is a tragedy... but the world is not a sane place and I am sure we can both agree.

sum1 · Feb 17, 2018

NaffNaffBobFace said:
Again, we have gone into the loop so lets make it as small as possible.

As I said in my previous post:

"Arming everyone is an exercise in escalation, not a solution:

So the Teacher is armed. It doesn't take an college grade education for a shooter to walk into a classroom and shoot the teacher first, barricade the door to give them long enough to shoot every single kid in the room, 20+ dead, and they have the dead teachers gun and extra ammo to fend off capture too."

Armed teachers are not a defense, they are a prime target and with a hole in the head, they are nothing more than an ammo dump.

so that teacher does not have a right to defend themselves? so the teacher in the next room can't grab their gun and go to the student's aid? you are arguing for a system that does not work. you say no gun deaths in the UK in 22 years, but I proved that state not important because the number of kids killed in schools has not changed. So you are saying let us go from a system that has not worked for almost 30 years to a system that has not worked for over 20 years.

But honestly I am kinda done talking about it, you have made it very clear you are not open to my ideas, and I am not open to yours. so there is really nothing more to be gained from a discourse.

ColdDog · Feb 18, 2018

NaffNaffBobFace said:
Please note - following the use of explosives and the things to be able to make homemade explosives to kill, heavy regulation was introduced to attempt limit the availability of said explosives to those who would want to kill people with them. As a result, it is a lot harder to get hold of explosives to kill people with.

Are you serious? Someone with chemistry 101 could build something bad... last I looked peroxide has not been banned - where the hell do you stop. Again, you are looking at the equation wrong... it is people, not tools... we are never going to have a world without violence as long as people are people. People are NOT robots, yet. A single person makes millions of decisions a day. A person has freewill... and if you take freewill from the human then you have nothing, no art, no math, no innovation, nothing... you just have another animal. Problem is that if bad people take leadership roles and reduce the rest of us to lemmings... that is when genocides and holocausts happen. Gosh... it has been 2000 years since Christ... how many tyrants have we had since that point. The Tyrants of the 20th century make all other tyrants pale in comparison. As the saying goes... "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"

Zookajoe · Feb 18, 2018

It has probably been mentioned earlier, but I did not feel compelled to read all posts:

Guns are neither good, nor bad. They are inanimate objects, that if left untouched will in time turn into a pile of rust, harming nothing.

Guns are not the problem, people are the problem. When people begin to show a callous disdain for human life, when the constant newsfeed of all the woes of the planet begin to numb peoples sensibilities, when people have turned their backs on faith (not religion mind you, faith), then you are going to have occurrences where people do bad things, and bad people do unthinkable things.

You cannot regulate evil.

sum1 · Feb 18, 2018

ColdDog said:
Are you serious? Someone with chemistry 101 could build something bad... last I looked peroxide has not been banned - where the hell do you stop. Again, you are looking at the equation wrong... it is people, not tools... we are never going to have a world without violence as long as people are people. People are NOT robots, yet. A single person makes millions of decisions a day. A person has freewill... and if you take freewill from the human then you have nothing, no art, no math, no innovation, nothing... you just have another animal. Problem is that if bad people take leadership roles and reduce the rest of us to lemmings... that is when genocides and holocausts happen. Gosh... it has been 2000 years since Christ... how many tyrants have we had since that point. The Tyrants of the 20th century make all other tyrants pale in comparison. As the saying goes... "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."- Ben Franklin

Tealwraith · Feb 18, 2018

I have a friend with a violent, disturbed child. She told me that she tried for years to get someone to deal with him before he hurt people, but the laws have been changed in the USA so that mental health care and committing people is very difficult, even in cases with a long history. The violence we see in these shootings is almost always committed by people who had numerous incidences with law enforcement, but our laws are structured, since the early 70's, to favor letting people roam free.

When you have someone who has sworn destruction against a place or group and they hurt themselves or animals in front of witnesses, maybe we should try taking them seriously.

We own guns in the USA as a RIGHT under the constitution, not a privilege like a drivers license. To restrict the ownership of firearms in the USA is to change the fundamental underpinnings of this country by changing the very constitution it is built on. We are not Europe and we do not wish to be Europe. Anyone unhappy with that is free to emigrate to a country more to their liking, we have no iron curtain to stop them.

Perhaps, if the USA didn't have to spend at least a quarter of our budget on the military to make sure Crimea doesn't happen to Europe, we would have more money for programs for the insane.

Bigcracker · Feb 18, 2018

Tealwraith said:
I have a friend with a violent, disturbed child. She told me that she tried for years to get someone to deal with him before he hurt people, but the laws have been changed in the USA so that mental health care and committing people is very difficult, even in cases with a long history. The violence we see in these shootings is almost always committed by people who had numerous incidences with law enforcement, but our laws are structured, since the early 70's, to favor letting people roam free.

When you have someone who has sworn destruction against a place or group and they hurt themselves or animals in front of witnesses, maybe we should try taking them seriously.

We own guns in the USA as a RIGHT under the constitution, not a privilege like a drivers license. To restrict the ownership of firearms in the USA is to change the fundamental underpinnings of this country by changing the very constitution it is built on. We are not Europe and we do not wish to be Europe. Anyone unhappy with that is free to emigrate to a country more to their liking, we have no iron curtain to stop them.

Perhaps, if the USA didn't have to spend at least a quarter of our budget on the military to make sure Crimea doesn't happen to Europe, we would have more money for programs for the insane.

The amendments can be changed and the US has always spent billions on military even before things like Crimea. I will agree with you that mental illness is a big problem in this country but I will say a lot of mental illness goes under or untreated. Not saying you, but we have people in this country that will fight for someones right to own a gun and at the same time protest them for getting things like government assistance being it food, housing or medical treatment. Which is the bigger right to have? I've worked in the South,North and Northeast and in those places I've seen people get a band aid,aspirin and sent packing even though we could treat them. We also can't lock everyone up that gets in our way of life, in the US we love putting people in warehouses being it prison,old folks homes or mental institutions if they become a bother and tend to forget about them and statistically that doesn't work at all and makes things even worst.

sum1 said:
7 July 2005 7 July 2005 London bombings London, England 52 700+ A series of coordinated terrorist suicide attacks throughout central London between 08:50-09:47. It was the United Kingdom's worst terrorist incident since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, as well as the country's first ever suicide attack.
2 June 2010 Cumbria shootings Cumbria, England 12 killed 11 wounded A killing spree/murder–suicide.
22 March 2017 2017 Westminster attack London, England 6 killed 49 wounded A vehicle and knife attack.
22 May 2017 Manchester Arena Bombing Manchester, England 23 killed 400+ wounded A terrorist suicide attack.[11]
3 June 2017 June 2017 London Bridge attack London, England 8 killed 48 wounded A vehicle and knife attack.[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Great_Britain

Las Vegas 58 people dead and 851 injured.Just one of the many gun massacres equal to 12 years of England's worst terrorist attacks combined. Statistics is not in favor of guns if we going by a K/D ratio.....

Passeeo · Feb 18, 2018

There are very few people that should have the ability to end a life with the push of the button.

Never mind the fact that standing at a range and popping a few rounds into a sliding or stationary target with your earmuffs on doesn't mean you can hit a moving target. Tack on the fact that most sane people would react frantically when under fire.

This idea that more guns is a good idea is predicated on the idea that everyone has a "Billy the Kid" complex and has the balls to stand up amongst the flying bullets, and take out the correct shooter with markmanship precision as opposed to some other "Billy the Kid" who is also waving a gun around like he's some kind of hero.

If you are anti gun laws you are in my opinion compliant in these children deaths.

Guns. Good or Bad?

Guns. Good or Bad?

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