US: 30 shot at school, China: 22 knifed at school

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I would love the second amendment repeal its just not going to happen any time soon, we got 4 million NRA members and gunnuts who are only going to give up those guns when taken from their "cold dead hands". My ideas are
- federal law requiring guns be locked up at homes.
-- Inspections to verify the above, and fines for violations (I like to replace fines with taking the guns but that just isn't going to happen with the second amendment)
- all gun owners must have certified gun training or pay a fine.
- all gun owners must pass some kind of psychological exam or pay a fine.
- combine background check for handgun purchase with required psychological exam, extend background checks and psych exams for all guns purchasing.
- ban on "assault weapons" or all clip feed rifles, carbines and sub-machine guns, even if they are locked in semi-automatic mode for civilian purchase, as we saw with this shooting being able to quickly change out 20-30 round clips was really affective at putting multiple rounds in little innocent bodies.
- tax ammunition MORE
-- use the revenue to pay to re-establishing asylums and cheaper/free mental healthcare for the mentally deranged so they can be committed BEFORE they commit crimes.

I think all of the above could be applied without having to repeal the second amendment. I think there is little if any chance any of the above is going to happen. The democrats, the only party that could possible be willing to do anything like the above have stayed the heck away from gun control because its an issue that rallies the republicans, hence democrats had been neutral or even sided with guns rights to keep the issue from gaining traction against them.

 

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Tax is probably the best way to deal with this situation, 10000% tax rate on all weapons starting at an air rifle

 

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A tax that large would probably lead to a gigantic black market for guns overnight, making things much worse. Lets start with baby steps for now and make that tax less then 100%.

 

I don't think anything that would make a real difference is politically possible. And I don't think anything that's politically possible will make a real difference.

 

I said it in the other thread about this, and I'll say it here:

Last I checked, rape, murder, and drugs are illegal... and last I checked, they still happen even with laws against them. You pass laws removing guns, and only the law abiding citizens, who aren't likely to do something like this anyway, would actually turn them in. Criminals will still get them other ways...

What SHOULD be done is to make gun-ownership background checks a bit more substantial. It does annoy me that, in some places, you can literally walk in and walk out with a gun less than half an hour later...

 

Granted.

So what sort of steps shall we take? How long until you run headlong into constitutional issues? All anyone seems capable of are statements to the effect of "Something must be done!" What?

 

Hmmm... Kind of reminiscent of this post. The tax idea is good though. What about the political ramifications? Shall we write an open letter to our congressman?

 

For starters, instead of making inane and arrogant posts, how about doing your job and posting my previous post on this topic? Apparently the glitch that sporadically requires certain posts to be approved prior to posting still vexes the site. And despite two PMs to you requesting that you post my previous post, it has not been done.

I think your post here displays a great deal of cultural insensitivity, naivety, and arrogance. Our American history is our history, not yours. Our culture is our culture. It is not yours. Americans are proud of our history, traditions and culture and rightly so. I think you come off as being very snobby when you speak of American “fixation” with guns. America was born out of a very violent revolution against the very crown you now serve and guns have played an important role in the development of our country. Like it or not, that is the truth, that is reality. By the way, the Wild West is not mythology, it is fact. And settlers needed guns to defend themselves against brigands and animals and to put meat on the table and still are in certain areas of the country.

Additionally, your claim that assault weapons have only one purpose, to kill people is frankly just stupid and bigoted, there are thousands of assault weapons in the hands of private individuals in this country and only a handful have gone out and used them to kill people. Most assault weapons are used for sport and as collector items. Using your “logic” coin and stamp collecting are not purposeful either. Your denials and proclamations don’t change reality.

That is silly. You are using a false dichotomy, yet another error in reasoning and logic with an inflammatory spin. If you had taken the time to really read my first and my second post (the one you failed to approve) you would have known my stance. But since you seem unable to read, for your edification I will rewrite my position. I didn’t take a particular position other than to say that the solution, whatever it is, must be effective.

After each and every shooting incident, we are besieged with a plethora of gun control laws. None of which has succeeded in controlling or even curtailing mass shootings. The solution to the mass shooting problem in the US is not simply controlling weapons. The problem is mass murder. It is not gun control, and the solution is not a simple one. Simply controlling weapons is not, and has not stopped the problem. It has been our experience that just making something illegal doesn’t stop the problem (e.g. the war on drugs, alcohol prohibition, prostitution, etc.).

As I previously and very clearly stated, whatever the solution is, it will be the solution that prevents this kind of thing from happening again. We should not as we have done in the past, pass another set of gun control laws to make us feel good until the next mass shooting. It should be a set of laws and actions that really resolves the problem. And to fix the problem, the solution must be a multifaceted solution and a big part of that solution is in educating the public and making mental healthcare more available and more effective. Just banning weapons is not the solution; it has not worked in the past with weapons, drugs or anything else.

Has it? You are doing a bit of cherry picking here. The United States is not Australia. As previously stated, The United States is a different country with a different history, a different culture, and a different set of laws and a different form of government. What works in Australia, may not work elsewhere. To say as you have done, that it works it Australia therefore it should work in The United States, is either extraordinarily naïve or extraordinarily arrogant or both.

I don’t suppose you have heard of explosives or poisons or bow and arrows?

That was one of my points. As I previously stated, there is nothing in any of the existing gun control laws or any that are currently under discussion that would have prevented this incident from occurring.

Isn’t that what I said? Had you read and posted my second post you should have known that.

Not very often, looking at the last two most recent mass shootings, the shooters were known to have mental and social problems. The shooter in Aurora, Colorado was under psychiatric treatment at his school. And that care ended when he withdrew from the university. In the Newtown incident, the mother did know of her sons mental and social problems, others did. But I think we can assume she didn’t imagine her son would kill not only her but 26 other individuals as well. That is where the education part comes into the solution.

I read an article just yesterday about a couple in Florida who were convicted of second degree murder. The couple had a toddler and a pet python. They treated the snake like a member of the family. One day the snake killed and attempted to eat their child. The parents should have known the threat the python posed to the child, their relatives did, but the parents, to this day, don’t understand the threat the python posed to their child.

I am glad we agree on the state of American healthcare. The good news is it should be getting better.

Well that is your opinion and you are certainly welcome to it. But I don’t see that ever happening. The United States was born in a violent revolution. Guns are an integral part of our history. The solution to the problem of mass murder is not simply prohibition. The solution is must be comprehensive and it must be effective – not just more window dressing.

 

But for many people, this is not enough.

 

Strawman.

The teachings on evolution send the message that love, peace and prosperity are possible only for some, but not for everyone - because some have to suffer or die, so that some others can have love, peace and prosperity; and even those are conditional and temporary at best.

That is the absurdest statement in a long time.

Hence the need for a kind of selectiveness that even many adults cannot master, as evidenced by the fights over what is to be part of the curriculum and what isn't.

Strawman, again, and a personal attack.


Some students certainly are young, immature and impressionable. Telling them that life is a struggle for survival, eat or be eaten, kill or be killed, can result in the kind of activities that society at large condemns, even though they are taught as facts of life.

 

I don't believe I reacted in an "antsy" way to it. I responded to it, I didn't even call you a name. I did, however, point out that the table is incomplete; perhaps it's that you are reacting to. You certainly haven't come up with a retort for it.
My understanding is that more people per capita own guns in Canada as opposed to the USA. That may yet be incorrect, but one thing I am reasonably certain of, having researched it once (several years ago) is that Americans own more guns but more Canadians have guns.

What did this guy have? Two BB guns (yeah, acknowledged), a pistol, a shotgun and a rifle?
That's accounting for five people owning guns. See?
Your table does not show how many people own guns; it only shows how many guns are present in a population.

Nope. It's relevant, but not that relevant. It doesn't make a twenty times kill rate difference. In other words, if guns were the problem, there would be less than 1500 murders by firearm in the USA per year.

You will notice I completely ignored the Swiss statistics. It does rather seem that if someone wants a gun in Switzerland, they can obtain one. They just don't seem to be all that concerned about using them, do they.
Point being, if you're going to introduce statistics to support your point, then at least read them carefully to ensure they actually do.

I already have acknowledged it; I said to Asguard that he wanted a medal for pointing out the bleeding obvious. It is obvious. It's also a knee jerk reaction.
I want depth, not chicken scratchings.
You will not acknowledge that gun control is not a solution. It's a cover-up which will make the mind control advocates sleep a little easier at night... they can pretend there isn't anything wrong, as long as less people get killed.
Scratching the surface and applying band aids isn't going to solve the problem. It will hide it. Society will not change, it will become a little more controlled. Which equates to safety.
And that's all anyone wants, really. To sleep a little sounder. I understand that Asguard, in his role as a paramedic (or whatever) wants less callouts on a Saturday night. But that's all he's doing; making life easier for himself.
What I've noticed is that the majority of these so-called social activists are acting from a very base personal perspective, and have even managed to have convinced themselves otherwise.

Fucking hate altruism. It's bullshit. It's a friggin' cloak.

You're not fixing anything. You're sweeping it under a rug. Perhaps fixing things is just too damned hard.

 

A "well-regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state" does not translate to it being a state militia.
The whole problem with the second amendment is that the first two parts can be quite easily separated from the second. They work together if you make the assumption you have, and they work together for someone making the opposite assumption.
Fact is, you can interpret it one way or the other subjectively. Which, of course, you all do, as fits your need.

So tell me; is your constitution religious gospel or something? Is it that hard to make a few changes?
Why on earth do you lot get so involved in interpretations? Seems to me that if it's that easy to interpret one way or another, changes need to be made to make it clearer.

Got to happen soon, you know. Give it another fifty years and you'll all be like a class of students arguing over what Shakespeare meant.

 

It is, and should be, hard to change. That's how it was designed, so that modification would require general agreement, not a few trying to push Constitutional reform.

But it probably would be changed, were it something that the US citizens, officials, the media, special interest groups, and even gun makers could logically discuss. But it isn't, for many reasons that people have already listed. And that's the biggest problem. Everyone wants the problems with the 2nd Amendment to go away, but they don't want to change things that affect them. And if a bunch of preschool kids getting hunted down and shot doesn't do it, I'm not sure what will. I'm guessing that come January, if we're still talking about it, then maybe there's some hope of a few of those baby steps. But if it's a new year and that's just a footnote you have to search for in Wikipedia, then it'll happen somewhere again next year.

 

I'm just being realistic, chances are nothing what so ever is going to be done about this issue in congress, nothing, nada, zip! Also what I suggested is identical to what you suggested.

 

Yes, I can.
I did.
And I'll stand by it.

50 odd murders in population of which nearly half have guns.
10000 in another popluation which has twice that many guns.

Do you not see it? Really?

Seriously, you people talking about gun control are like the Mindless Bugblatter Beast of Traal.

What, so now you're claiming that there aren't more gun murders in Switzerland because they have no bullets for their guns? Not one? Not a single magazine?

I'll go another step. Is this the reason you think I can't compare Switzerland to the USA? This is the reason the USA has 200 times as many gun deaths?

The knee jerk, Bells, is not in seeing that something needs to be done, but rather what.

You're all also hung up on this "mental issues" thing.
Are you working from the assumption that everyone who goes on a killing spree is insane? Is it really that easy for you?

Actually, you've probably got more chance of being involved in a fatal car accident... even in the USA.

So how about we abolish cars?

All agreed?
Excellent.