cashfl0w_d0nkey
Bluelight Crew
What do any of these have to do with one another? It seems to me like you're just rattling off your list of negative things to say when the chance to bash the US pops up.
Have you ever even been to the US?
The Big and Senseless Mass Shooting Thread
- Thread starter P.o.T.u.S
- Start date
Have you ever even been to the US?
One Thousand Words
Bluelighter
Of course I have. I'm the crazy motherfucker who shares a beer with gangbangers and gets away with it through wit charm and a winning smile. Ones attitude plays a big part in how much violence one has to witness. I don't walk into a neighbourhood thinking I will pop a cap in a niggas head for looking at me sideways. I've survived living in more violent war zones than exist in America with nothing more than being likeable. It sounds crazy but where I come from even the police don't carry weapons.
Constitution or not, what use is an assault rifle other than to inflict violence? Ditto a hand gun. Weapons for protection ignores the simple solution of ridding your society of anger and hate. Crazy people exist all over the world, yet it seems only in America do you ostracise at the same time as tolerating their hateful rants. Freedom of speech is well and good if the rest of society use this freedom to shout down the idiots who cause you so much pain. Almost every serial shooter has family members and friends who come forward after with reports of hate speech. The rest of the civilise world when face with this sort of threat usually prescribe professional help before they start killing small animals, let alone shooting up their school
I find it sad that rather than change your attitude you would prefer living in a community that needs protecting 24/7
Constitution or not, what use is an assault rifle other than to inflict violence? Ditto a hand gun. Weapons for protection ignores the simple solution of ridding your society of anger and hate. Crazy people exist all over the world, yet it seems only in America do you ostracise at the same time as tolerating their hateful rants. Freedom of speech is well and good if the rest of society use this freedom to shout down the idiots who cause you so much pain. Almost every serial shooter has family members and friends who come forward after with reports of hate speech. The rest of the civilise world when face with this sort of threat usually prescribe professional help before they start killing small animals, let alone shooting up their school
I find it sad that rather than change your attitude you would prefer living in a community that needs protecting 24/7
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
Rainbows, sunshine, and lollipops is the world in which you live. I want a ticket there if I am being honest.
from pewresearch:
it seems a very tiny percentage - just 2% in that feb. '13 study - have a gun for 'constiutional' reasons. should the other 98% be allowed to keep their guns?
lol at the 1% of gun owners who don't even know why they have a gun...
alasdair
socko
Bluelighter
I've always thought a machete or even an short-handled axe would be a good first choice for home defense for the able-bodied. Or even a scalpel...
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
Ridding society of hate and anger is what you consider a simple solution?
Assault rifles are next to impossible to legally acquire in the US. What you think are assault rifles but actually aren't are in fact no different to almost any other semiautomatic rifle. This highlights another problem on the anti-gun side, they know so little about the subject they are trying to regulate, so naturally the resulting policy and laws are nonsensical.
Some people DO need a way to defend themselves. A gun is an effective option that should not be entirely excluded from the entire public society just because politicians are too stupid or fanatical to think of a more moderate compromise. WHAT guns are available has little relevance if you study the statistics, the key is who has the guns. Dangerous and unstable people shouldn't have ANY guns. Sane, safe, trained, rational people won't stop being so no matter what gun you make available.
Yes, that's a GOOD thing. It's not free speech if it's only free for preapproved speech.
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
This might be the silliest thing on this topic you have ever posted. I picture the poll being like a Jay Leno bit asking the idiotic general public simple questions they cant answer.from pewresearch:
it seems a very tiny percentage - just 2% in that feb. '13 study - have a gun for 'constiutional' reasons. should the other 98% be allowed to keep their guns?
lol at the 1% of gun owners who don't even know why they have a gun...
alasdair
What really kills me is when they call a magazine a clip. I had a semi auto browning 270 hunting rifle that was just as deadly as any ar-15 variant. It just didnt look "scary" with its five round magazine and wooden stock. My biggest issue with banning certain classes of weapons is the fact that the slippery slope argument definetly applies. I agree that both sides are to blame with nothing getting done.
i don't see anybody saying it's a simple solution but it's hardly a crime to want to better understand the causes of these issues, is it? i think it's far better than throwing your hands up in the air and saying that the problem is impossible to solve therefore we shouldn't even talk about it...
that's pretty weak, imo. what next? only companies which belch pollution into the atmosphere should be involved in environmental regulation? they know so much about the issue, after all.
causes and symptoms. the ouroboros...
who is arguing to entirely exclude guns from society?
i totally agree. so how do you propose that problem be addressed? suggest the idea of a universal background check (such as those supported by about 74% of americans) and the nra has a fit and says you're trying to repeal the 2nd amendment. remind who it is who's too stupid or fanatical to think of a more moderate compromise?
well, if you had bothered to read the thing instead of just assuming as always, you'd see that the sample was 100% gun owners. lol. droppers thinks gun owners are idiotic! FACT!
alasdair
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
The general public owns guns and plenty are idiots. Most just do not know why the firearm is bestowed upon them. The second amendment is only in place to protect against a tyrannical government. I believe in this principle so much that if someone did break in I would go for my bat instead of my gun.
Droppersneck
Bluelighter
Im glad you find this amusing (I do as well
) but this is essentially what I see when I read mainstream articles about people that are offended by benign things with the ramp up of the political correct movement E.G. what you call "being nice"
so you believe that hunters and people who want guns for 'protection' should not be allowed to own guns? guns should be safely locked away until you are called to action by the commander of your well regulated militia who orders you to march on washington?
seriously, in the past few years your government has lied about weapons of mass destruction to take the country to war, has carried out the most widespread assault on personal privacy in the form of warrant less wire-tapping and the 'patriot' act, has handed over millions of dollars of public money to the ceos and others at banks who broke the law and plunged the country into a massive debt crisis. the list goes on.
what's it actually going to take for all you gun-totin' 'patriots' to actually do something? or are you all talk and no action?
alasdair
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
By all means study the causes, and by all means continue to strive for a better world, but we need a more near future solution that takes into account present day life.
Faulty metaphor, I'm not suggesting gun companies or the NRA draft the solution, I'm suggesting that it's unacceptable for politicians and the committee's that evaluate the proposed gun control laws to have so little understanding of what they're doing. You can't hope to have good policy when it's written by people who know next to nothing about what they're actually legislating. So many gun control programs I've looked into have no end of flaws, inconsistencies, failures and downright stupid provisions.
You will never completely eliminate bad people from our society, there will always be some people in our society in danger, those that decide they want a gun, and are willing to undertake the investment in training and allow themselves to be checked out by the government to determine they pose little risk should be permitted to possess a firearm. As should anyone else meeting similar requirements who needs or desires a firearm for other reasons.
Many people, and many more want to exclude some guns but not others, and I already said why that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Because dangerous and unstable people shouldn't have any guns because all guns are lethal weapons capable of ending the operators or someone else's life in the blink of an eye. Likewise those suitable to possess such a weapon are highly unlikely to pose any increased danger no matter what type of gun they have.
Like I said, both sides need to compromise or nothing productive will happen. The pro-gun and anti-gun sides need to both realize they can't have everything their own way. The pro-gun side must see that becoming qualified to have a weapon must be made more complex, that not everyone is willing or desires to have a gun, and that the right to own a gun must be seen in a new perspective. The anti-gun side must come to accept that gun owners, be it for hunting, protection, sport, recreation, or collecting, should all be permitted to legitimately continue their lawful activities regardless of if they understand the appeal or not, and regardless of if they think guns are somehow inherently bad evil and scary. And also that perfectly rational law abiding firearm owning Americans do not and should not be deprived of their rights.
Personally, my preferred solution, would be to put the 2nd Amendment in the context that it is a right to own a gun unless proven otherwise by the government (which is not that different from the widely supported practice of not allowing felons to own guns). In practice, this is how I would set it up...
All people of the United States shall be presumed to be capable of owning a gun until proven otherwise. In order to purchase a gun, in store or privately, you must have a license, or we could call it something less controversial, like a "proof of upstanding citizen card" or something. To obtain this license will initially require a bit of an investment. You must have never been convicted of a crime involving violence to another, or misuse of a weapon, in your adult life. Never been deemed a threat to others in your adult life by reason of potentially long term mental illness. Take a single basic firearm safety test. And, maybe a session or two with a psychiatrist perhaps who's report would be to determine if you are cognitively functional at an adult level with no indications of violent tendencies involving weapons or current suicidal ideation. Said license will require renewal every 10 years for people over 35, every 1-5 years for ages under that, less if evidence of prior depression is found, if depression found renewal will include another psych visit as part of renewal. Cost of renewal factored in to help offset the cost of the licensing system. Otherwise renewal requires nothing. No longer meeting any of the above criteria, say by conviction, which would have caused failure of license results in either suspension or cancellation of license.
There would be no registration of weapons, however possession of weapon without license to be illegal and punished seriously. All firearms would be permitted to own under this license, however automatic firearms would remain very expensive via tax or something similar as is the case now, few mass shooters or similar maniacs have that kind of money. Silencers/Suppressors fully legal without license (they're only highly regulated because people believe what they see in movies, i'm petty sure they're barely regulated in new zealand and they do just fine with that), No restrictions as to size or appearance. Nor how many guns someone can own. You will also be permitted to apply for a public carry (open or concealed) addendum to your license, which requires the completion of a basic carry and firearm self defense training and safety course.
Likely all current gun owners might be given a license at the start of such a program, maybe tweaked somewhat depending on length of gun ownership.
Now keep in mind, I only have the rough idea in mind, so I might be missing something here or might alter my idea a bit if I were to think it through more, but this is the gist of how I personally would run it if I ran a country. Unfortunately both the pro and anti-gun side today would likely hate it because neither get what they want entirely. They won't compromise.
So yeah, more or less, that's my answer. I think if we did that, mass shootings would drop to virtually zero, a modest reduction in suicide rates, and hopefully a modest and maybe significant reduction in overall crime rates. I've gone through a lot of different countries systems to come up with this idea, adapting it to america's circumstances (obviously the gun control one country uses might not work entirely in the US because of preexisting higher firearm ownership). That's my answer.
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how likely do you think this is? as i see it, they are completely unwilling to move an inch. from my cold, dead hands?
how likely do you think this is? as i see it, most of the mainstream, 'liberal' gun rhetoric is quite accepting of this concept and tries to focus on ideas intended to prevent loonies getting guns.
thanks for the rest of your well-considered response. i tend to agree with much of what you write.
alasdair
One Thousand Words
Bluelighter
You wouldn't make it past customs. Just ask Chris Brown
I'm not taking any ones right to free speech away, I'm saying that majority of good people in society should quit sitting their hands and demand that their voices be heard. Believe it or not the bad people in society are actually a very small minority. It's a sad reflection of your society that allows their voices to be heard over the moral good.
Elsewhere in the world there would be such outrage if 20 school children were shot dead that change would happen. Instead America are so set in their 1950's hysteria that there is more moral outrage that they won't be able to hunt turkeys.
Bunch of all talk pussies to be honest.
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
It has nothing to do with hunting turkeys, or 50s hysteria, and America isn't elsewhere in the world. I don't care about elsewhere in the world, that's elsewhere in the world's problem. You seem to have no idea why the situation is the way it is based on what you're saying.
I don't think either is likely, they both just antagonize each other. And every time the democrats try to do something about gun's, it's an assault weapons ban, which apart from being completely stupid in implementation, was tried before to little effect in the clinton era.
I'm not suggesting Australia's pre-1996 gun culture is analogous to that of the USA; only that many of the seemingly unquestioned orthodoxies of US gun policy are inaccurate.I'm curious about guns in Australia. I could google, but would rather keep it in the thread. Does Australia have a hunting season? For reference, the USA has several firearms game hunting seasons during which millions of rural people go out into the bush and harvest game animals. it's part of the culture there and is one of the reasons people oppose gun laws.
Second, what do ranchers do when, for example, a herd of dingos or wild dogs starts slaughtering their lambs and other livestock? In the US, ranchers lose livestock every year to predators and use firesarms to help protect their animals.
Finally, what about home defense? Australia has some remote regions where this must be an issue. In remote regions of the US where the protection of law enforcement is hours away, many keep firearms for protection. It is in some ways still like the Wild West. Home invasion is an issue, especially for women living alone and the elderly. Locals have been known to stalk and attack women living alone. It is uncommon, but it still happens. In many cases, the attackers are not in it for the robbery but for rape.
Gun laws will change in the US as the population becomes more urban but probably not in our generation.
Even if they are banned, it would take decades before they become uncommon assuming no more are made. Making them in a garage workshop is not taht far-fetched. Somebody with a 3D printer and some shop tools could make something. Somebody with very nice shop tools could make a commercial grade pistol or rifle. Any bored teenager with access to his dad's power tools and a few chemicals could make a powerful zip gun. As a project, even I made a muzzle-loader pirate pistol.
Not mine, but I made something similar when I was 12. In case you're wondering, it did not blow up in my face when I fired it.
Basically nobody in Australia has a gun for 'protection'. People are more likely to keep a cricket bat or something around for that, because no two-bit burgalar in australia is going to be packing heat.
Anyone that can afford an illegal gun in Australia is obviously involved in some lucrative criminal enterprise - thus these guns (which cost a hell of a lot to procure) are generally not used for random shootings, by petty crooks or wannabe gangsters.
Illegal guns are generally owned by real gangsters, which to be honest with you, doesnt have much to do with me as i dont associate with them.
We do have hunters here - my state has banned duck season because many of our waterfowl species are under enough threat from development and habitat destruction that allowing people to shoot them for fun is not justifiable.
Other forms of hunting certainly are practiced in Australia (and other states from mine do have duck season) - but people don't seem to think they need uzis to participate.
It does seem to define "overkill" to use that kind of weapon to hunt an animal, right?
As for "bushmeat" as droppers calls it - we do have animals that are hunted for their meat (namely kangaroos) and for 'recreation' (wild pigs and the like) but many of our native species are protected by law from hunters, which still doesnt stop some people - but in terms of hunting, we don't have a lot of apex predators that are a threat to human life, or even to livestock.
A lot of farmers do have rifles to shoot foxes, feral dogs and the like, but people don't need automatic weapons for that.
We have a very different environment and ecosystem to that of North America, and a lot of threatened species - that because of introduced predators such as cats and foxes, need conservation in order not to die out.
Australia doesn't have the sort of wildlife that people proudly shoot and mount on their walls. Most of our fauna is considered a vital part of the country itself, not something that needs to be shot at and conquered. I fully understand that North America has a number of species of animal that are big, wild and capable of killing humans, and this makes a difference in people's attitudes towards gun ownership; it is a component of the wider culture. I don't think this really plays a big part in the arguments for urban gun ownership, and i'm not really trying to make a point in favour of one outcome or another - by that, i mean that i don't have an opinion about what US legislators should or shouldn't do in regards to firearm restrictions.
I'm simply offering a different perspective in relation to my own experience.
And i'm interested in discussing the issue with my stateside brothers and sisters.
I can see that some people take this personally and get defensive, but i'm not criticising america, americans or claiming my country to be some perfect, idealised place. It isn't. But i appreciate and agree with our restrictive gun laws. I'm not saying they would work in the states, but i'm interested in discussing why that might be the case.
I have a particular interest in this topic because i have immediate family that live in the states, and these massacres bother me a lot.
None of my family (here or in any other country) are gun owners. So forgive me if i don't quite "get it".
That's a very emotional argument. I thought you were all about being "objective", "impartial" and dispassionate?
And no, droppers, we don't have "deer season" because we don't have deer in Australia. Which "only predators" are you referring to?
Perhaps you don't know much about australia at all, mate?
The thing that was like a horror movie was the Port Arthur massacre that led to the gun buyback. You've been watching too much propaganda if that is your understanding of the situation here.
Your snipes about how "easy to control" Australians are seem pretty ironic to me, considering the obvious unease you have in even discussing gun control. The NRA and various other gun lobby advocates have succeeded in making this a virtually taboo subject, or one that is automatically deemed "too hard" - an impasse - so let us never speak of it again.
To me, that is being "controlled".
It is far from utopian to aim for a better, safer society. To claim otherwise is a cop-out. Plus, i am the last person to take some kind of patriotic stand on this; i see australia's faults and flaws as clearly as anyone - this is not "my country is better than yours" - it is simply someone coming from a (slightly) different culture explaining how some of the misconceptions about guns can - and have - been pretty successfully overcome here. I don't love Australia or being Australian - and i sometimes worry about friends and family that live in the US, because to me, gun culture is irrational and absurd.
For those that don't know what i'm talking about, there was a big massacre in Tasmania in 1996 by an aggrieved loner who shot dozens of tourists - families, couples, elderly people and children.
Due to public sentiment, the federal government of the day decided to ban a range of automatic and semiautomatic firearms - which was implemented via a "buyback" scheme, where the government paid people to return their now-banned guns.
Despite anger amongst some gun owners, the government pushed ahead with the plan, and the prime minister even addressed a rally of pro-gun demonstrators (in a bullet-proof vest) to argue his case.
Now, amongst people i know, that prime minister is not remembered fondly - he is pretty unpopular - but the gun buyback was one of his few political acts that is widely viewed as a brave response to what was happening. We havent had a massacre since that day.
I don't know anyone that likes John Howard, but i dont know anyone that disagrees with that policy either.
Disarming the australian public did not lead to "tyranny", disaster or catastrophe.
From what i can see, australia is less of a police state 19 years later than america is now.
Guns arent the answer to stopping tyranny - involvement in the political process is.
On the other hand, nobody seems to know what the anwer to stopping senseless massacres in the USA is.
If i suggested social welfare, and more balanced access to healthcare (particularly mental health care), education and that sort of thing might help, i'd probably get called a "commie" again.
It seems like the only people used as scapegoats in these tragic situations are mentally ill people. "Oh, well, he was crazy. We can't take guns off 'good upstanding citizens'" seems to be the refrain.
Since when did mental illness make you a bad person?
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nuttynutskin
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 15, 2011
- Messages
- 10,732
Guns aren't the problem, it's society. But this has been argued before ad naseum. I don't think anyone's going to change their views.
Escher's Waterfall
Bluelight Crew
I'm on the "society is the problem" page myself.
Guns make it easier to kill people, admittedly, but the gun ownership/homicide correlation is weak from the numbers I've seen (state by state).
Guns make it easier to kill people, admittedly, but the gun ownership/homicide correlation is weak from the numbers I've seen (state by state).
JessFR
Bluelight Crew
You have been lied too spacejunk. I'm an American who's lived a long time in Australia, so I would say I have an unusually in depth knowledge of both countries backgrounds.
Howard's gun control didn't really work, everyone thinks it did, and it did accomplish more than absolute nothing, but it didn't accomplish what most Australians think it did.
I researched the statistics straight from the Australian Bureau of Statistics myself long ago. I wanted to know the truth, and I'm confident I found it.
1. Guns are not illegal in Australia, semiautomatic handguns, much like the kind used in some of the American massacres, particularly Virginia tech. Still can be legally obtained and not just by hunters or security officers.
2. Australians have been lied too. Every time the government has ever put out a press release on the success of the 96 gun control measures, they always talk of "gun-related homicides have dropped", they do this because they can't say "overall homicides have dropped", because they can't, that would be a straight lie rather than a lie of omission. The statistics show quite clearly in regards to both the 96 and 02 gun control legislation that overall rates of homicide and violent crime remain unchanged. Seeing as logically the reduction of your likelyhood of dying is the goal of gun control, gun control has failed in that aim.
It makes no sense to just try and change HOW people die in murders and such, dead is still dead.
3. The gun control laws might have stopped mass shootings, so far anyhow, but in the numbers that make huge headlines, they weren't enormously common to begin with. Last year someone killed 8 children with a knife. If it were with a gun it would be burned in everyones memory, but it isn't because it was a knife. The monash shooting in 02 only killed 2 by comparison, but resulted in even more gun control laws by howard. Many more than that have died in intentionally lit fires on many occasions since then. The way it's portrayed is skewed to give an inaccurate perception.
4. There are some cities in the US, with a lower homicide and murder level than some cities of equivalent size in Australia. Despite enormous differences in gun availability. I mention this because it shows how complex this issue is, and that you don't need to be inherently worried about friends in the US, that's media induced bias making you feel like that.
And finally, to leave you with one positive, 5. It might be the case that the gun control laws of 96 did result in an overall reduction in completed suicide. Was a huge overhaul of potential firearm ownership worth it? I would argue there are many more direct and effective methods to tackle the problem.
You are both welcome and encouraged to look into the facts behind my claims on your own with government provided statistics.
You're right, if you look into statistics of gun availability and violent crime, it varies enormously all over the place. Many of the most violent cities in the US have the most strict gun laws while other more relaxed urban areas have less. If I recall this inconsistency is true on a global level too.
Howard's gun control didn't really work, everyone thinks it did, and it did accomplish more than absolute nothing, but it didn't accomplish what most Australians think it did.
I researched the statistics straight from the Australian Bureau of Statistics myself long ago. I wanted to know the truth, and I'm confident I found it.
1. Guns are not illegal in Australia, semiautomatic handguns, much like the kind used in some of the American massacres, particularly Virginia tech. Still can be legally obtained and not just by hunters or security officers.
2. Australians have been lied too. Every time the government has ever put out a press release on the success of the 96 gun control measures, they always talk of "gun-related homicides have dropped", they do this because they can't say "overall homicides have dropped", because they can't, that would be a straight lie rather than a lie of omission. The statistics show quite clearly in regards to both the 96 and 02 gun control legislation that overall rates of homicide and violent crime remain unchanged. Seeing as logically the reduction of your likelyhood of dying is the goal of gun control, gun control has failed in that aim.
It makes no sense to just try and change HOW people die in murders and such, dead is still dead.
3. The gun control laws might have stopped mass shootings, so far anyhow, but in the numbers that make huge headlines, they weren't enormously common to begin with. Last year someone killed 8 children with a knife. If it were with a gun it would be burned in everyones memory, but it isn't because it was a knife. The monash shooting in 02 only killed 2 by comparison, but resulted in even more gun control laws by howard. Many more than that have died in intentionally lit fires on many occasions since then. The way it's portrayed is skewed to give an inaccurate perception.
4. There are some cities in the US, with a lower homicide and murder level than some cities of equivalent size in Australia. Despite enormous differences in gun availability. I mention this because it shows how complex this issue is, and that you don't need to be inherently worried about friends in the US, that's media induced bias making you feel like that.
And finally, to leave you with one positive, 5. It might be the case that the gun control laws of 96 did result in an overall reduction in completed suicide. Was a huge overhaul of potential firearm ownership worth it? I would argue there are many more direct and effective methods to tackle the problem.
You are both welcome and encouraged to look into the facts behind my claims on your own with government provided statistics.
You're right, if you look into statistics of gun availability and violent crime, it varies enormously all over the place. Many of the most violent cities in the US have the most strict gun laws while other more relaxed urban areas have less. If I recall this inconsistency is true on a global level too.
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