Is there a gun problem in the U.S.?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Seattle, Oct 9, 2015.

  1. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    So the laws need some attention.

    Our gun problem appears to include the legal guns.
    You're talking about posting armed guards all over the place, as a necessary answer. You've got a significant problem.
     
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  3. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    When someone/anyone (excepting the police or military) shoots someone else: They are already breaking the law.
    Laws cannot stop people intent on doing other people harm.

    Drugs were outlawed, which stopped all people from doing illegal drugs?
    Why would anyone expect a different outcome from another frivolous law?
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    In most jurisdictions in the USA, it is legal to use a gun to defend yourself against an assailant who clearly intends to kill you or at least cause severe injury. In general you can also use a gun to defend someone else. The laws are about the same if someone breaks into your home while you're there. I'm not sure, but it probably also excuses you if you're in someone else's house during a break-in.

    The problem with the death of Trayvon Martin is that George Zimmerman was the assailant. He accosted Martin, who simply began to defend himself. As it became clear that the younger, stronger man was going to prevail, Zimmerman should have backed off, but instead he shot him.
    But background checks can reduce the number of guns available to people who are not mentally stable.
    It's certainly too late now to attempt to keep guns out of the hands of the wackos. There are already more guns than people in the USA.
     
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  7. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    But it's difficult to commit mass murder with a knife.
     
  8. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Yes it is but most murders aren't mass murders. In our society those are hard to prevent without just adding more security guards in public places.

    It's not ideal but there really is no alternative.
     
  9. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    which is the main difference between the florida SYG law and other states. georgia for example specically states if you start the altercation you can't use the stand your ground law as your defense.
     
  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    I am definitely against most of those "stand you ground" laws. If you life is in (real) danger that's a good reason not "I'm short, he was big and I got afraid when he said boo" or "he was running out the front door with my TV set".
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Don't kid yourself - there are alternatives to that, and people will find them.
     
  12. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Great. I hope they do. For some reason you keep fixating on my comments about needing to use guards in places where mass shootings are likely to occur.

    I'm all for better solutions. I'm even for background checks but background checks wouldn't have stopped any of the mass shootings nor would any of the other suggestions currently being talked about.

    So, until there is a better solution I've mentioned more security just like we use everywhere else that violence has suddenly appeared.
     
  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Background checks could have flagged several of them as having accumulated small arsenals while underemployed, having received psychiatric care for symptoms of poorly managed anger, not having good storage for firearms in the quantity possessed, having large magazine weapons at hand but not belonging to a range of club capable of handling recreational shooting, and so forth.
     
  14. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    if we are allowed to. given people like your self level of interest in that i doubt we will. there is only one proven way to reduce these kinds of things which is reduce the number of guns and make them harder to get.
     
  15. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

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    You're not likely to have that much data to work with. The first dozen or so humans that you kill are likely to take more than one bullet each. After that, you might become as proficient as a deer hunter but every shooter isn't like the cartoonish snipers that you see on TV.
     
  16. Watcher Just another old creaker Registered Senior Member

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    Not sure if there is a problem or not but this much I can tell you - "gun rights" are just another convenient way for the Right to distract their pawns so they don't realize they are being fleeced. This has been going on the US for decades using various similar issues.
     
  17. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    One bullet is a lifetime's supply
     
  18. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    Which end of the barrel?
     
  19. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    In far too many cases, both. Our whole society is just like that.

    Rights have limits defined by the domain of other guaranteed rights. You aren't allowed to drive without a license. Why should other dangerous machinery be any different?
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Another stone on the pile. To repeat: the entire discussion is buried, trashed, by both sides. Anyone who sincerely wants to reduce gun violence in the US is going to have to find another way in, another approach. The attempt to do it by gun control is and has been for years doing much more harm than good.
     
  21. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    we've been over this. this is a lie by pro gun people so they can feel like there not responsible for the harm they cause. the gun control side is completely rational it just gets slandered by people like you. gun control has been shown to reduce gun violence and gun deaths. that you dislike it doesn't change this fact.
     
  22. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    It ain't completely the society. It is still on the individual's response to the vicissitude of life's stressors and disappointments.
    Though single payer mental (and all) health care might go a long way to resolving the issues which the mass murderers seem to harbor.

    I was once run over and hospitalized by a young woman driver who didn't have a license, didn't own the car, and was living on the adc checks.
    Regulations are no guarantee of the desired results.
    And prisons are never a viable solution.
     
  23. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    From a distance of just a few feet today, it was difficult not to overhear a conversation between a pawn shop clerk and a customer (a young man) who very much wished to purchase a gun. The young man proclaimed: "in West Virginia or Virginia, I can buy a gun, but I can't buy one or conceal it in Maryland. The clerk responded that the young man did not pass the background check and so he could not sell him a gun, or else he would lose his license to sell firearms.

    I just wanted to cry (sarcasm). Sure, it's true, you can't buy a gun in Maryland unless you pass a background check and it does not turn up a police record or a history of mental illness. But you can still purchase all the beer, wine and liquor you wish here, AND then, when you are sufficiently drunk, cry into your scotch or whatever over your lack of a gun and ammo and then finish drinking your beverage before passing out.

    But a REAL man wouldn't let this get him down. A real man would construct his own bow and arrow and practice shooting it until he could hit the broad side of a barn (when sober), and then by G-d and the blessing of the holy second amendment, THAT man would be armed. No pawn shops, gun shows, silencers, high capacity semi-automatic magazines, or gun registration laws would stop him from doing so, either, background check or no. Just ask yourselves: What would RAMBO do? Minefield in the front yard using gasoline as an explosive? Sure. And who doesn't love the smell of napalm mixed with silly putty in the morning?

    I love living in Maryland. I was in the pawn shop to see if they had any recent or classic movies on DVD. Haven't been able to find RAMBO, actually, or else I might have suggested it.

    A few of the people I met when I briefly lived in Virginia probably do need guns. So many, in fact, it made me nervous. Guns aren't assholes; PEOPLE are. People who find they can't turn a buck without joining the NRA and/or selling large volumes of firearms to people who need them least, doubly so. They should be treated more like the AMWAY salesmen they really are. Be less of an asshole and sell liquor to alcoholics or something useful to somebody besides yourself and the NRA.
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2015

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