Spazz wrote:Yea arlos we got a real problem in america but you dont want to be part of the solution you want to act like a typical liberal and talk down to people. Both the Nra blaming the 90s and the lefts blatant disrespect for the second amendment has me not even wanting to take part in the conversation any more. Are culture is rotten to the core the problems arent the guns its us. We dont know how to act towards one another anymore no matter what the issue.
Also it makes me sick to see you apply the if it saves 10% 20 % logic to guns but not everything else. I find that really annoying that your cool with messing with me and my rights and long as it doesnt affect you or something your into. You want to get rid of a class of arms that while it makes a great news story does not make up the bulk of violent crime at all and that irks me. ALso I really do see a ban as a slippery slope that first its assault rifles, then its semi autos next its conceal and carry. All the while saying come on its sensible gun control it will stop murders as the excuse.
You want me to compromise my beliefs and your not going to get there by acting like a twat.I have proposed several real solutions and compromises I would be willing to make but its not good enough for you.
Both sides of this issue need to shut the fuck up. Yes nra its true that not everyone should have a gun and im sorry you guys cant accept that. Yes liberals most gun owners follow the laws and live in peace while owning and collecting many guns. The truth is that our culture has become absolutely rotten to the core and the guns are just another symptom that the train is coming off the tracks. Shooter after shooter just deranged guys that fell through the cracks and no said anything or did anything or noticed anything because we dont give a shit about each other. Ban all the guns you want and good luck on your utopian societies but until people start to care about each other again my money is on problems persisting.
See, no one has, as yet, provided any compelling reason why anyone, outside the military, needs a military caliber weapon. "Because I want one", "because it's neat", etc. hold no weight. I might think owning a SAM battery would be neat, or maybe a dozen large canisters of nerve gas would be cool. Doesn't mean I should be able to have them. Oh, and no, I don't for one second buy the "To defend ourselves from tyranny!" argument as a reason to let people own such weapons. As mentioned before in this thread, Australia banned such weapons, retroactively even, and not only are they now not a despotic state because of the lack of assault weapons in the civilian populace, but they saw a dramatic DROP in gun-related crimes. I posted the link. Did you read the stats? Britain, Sweden, Japan all have far more draconic weapons bans than anything being proposed in the US, and they are not oppressive tyrannies either.
The simple fact is that an assault weapon, like an AK or AR-15, is an instrument designed for one specific purpose: to kill multiple other human beings in a short amount of time. Again, the ONLY difference between a civilian AR-15 and the military version is that the military version has a selector switch to allow for 3-round bursts. Yes, you might be fine owning one. So is the friend of mine that has an AK. Then again, Tony Stewart or another NASCAR driver might well drive drunk better than lots of people drive sober. Does that mean we should legalize drunk driving, just because some subset of the population are capable of doing it safely? Of course not. Likewise, just because you, personally, might not be a danger because you own such a weapon does NOT mean that they should be universally allowed, either.
That's why your other argument just doesn't hold water. Neither alcohol nor tobacco are military grade devices built with the primary purpose of killing people, nor can either substance, by itself, injure or kill large groups of other people. Alcohol especially can have health benefits when used properly. Trying to equate them to firearms simply doesn't work because they are not even remotely the same sort of thing. "One of these things is not like the other...." and all that. Again like I said, someone abusing either one is only hurting themselves, no one else. (Obvious disclaimer: barring drinking and driving, of course, which I obviously don't support legalizing, and again, barring excessive secondhand smoke, which is why I am a big supporter of things like California's ban on smoking in bars and restaurants). If someone misusing firearms could only injure themselves, I wouldn't be in favor of restricting them. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
Now, like I've said before, I could not care less what firearms people own if (and this is a big if), those firearms are STRICTLY kept at a licensed firing range. Period. I don't care how crazy a person is, if they can't take their weapon away from the range, it's not a risk to anyone. Hell, I couldn't care less if you had a full auto M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun, if the only place it ever stays is such a range. Would that be an acceptable compromise for you? You get to own any gun you want, no matter how milspec, but you can't keep it at home, ever. Guns that could be brought home would, just off the top of my head, be shotguns (though not semi-auto ones), hunting rifles and handguns (though with no more than a 10-round magazine).
Obviously, there is more that can be done about things beyond firearms themselves. Just as a first step, we need to close the gun show loophole, immediately. Right now any violent felon or crazy person can go to a gun show and buy all the firearms they like, without ever having to go through the background check that would instantly disqualify them if they tried to buy anywhere else. Also, as you noted, the mental health care system in this country is a disgrace. We used to, 50 years ago, have a big comprehensive network of state-run mental hospitals that kept people like that off the streets, got them care they needed, etc. But, since that's "big government at work", they were done away with. (That's why my parents despised Reagan, actually. When he was Governor of CA, he just arbitrarily closed all the state mental hospitals, literally kicking all of the patients who weren't rich enough to pay for private care out into the street.)
No one thing is going to solve these problems. There are far too many interconnected issues involved here for any one action to fix everything. There are, as I said, numerous things we can do besides restricting the actual firearms themselves. Yet the one absolute commonality between these mass shootings is, obviously, one thing: People used guns to do them. Therefore, SOME kind of restriction on them must be part of the conversation. I am sorry if that personally inconveniences you, but that is not sufficient reason to avoid looking at what we can do about guns themselves to make incidents like Sandy Hook less likely.
No solution is perfect either. No matter what we do, there will be mass attacks in the future. Yet if what we do now, today, can make them less likely, make them less severe, or make them more difficult to carry out, then we have an obligation to try.
-Arlos