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"Gun Cult in the US and How to Change It" split from Las Vegas Massacre

Bird_Gunner45 said:
So no, it's not a case of "if I don't like it it should be banned". It's more of a case of "if the law says something it should be enforced".

There comes a point where the actual enforcement of the law itself becomes oppressive, even if the law is a just one. Aka if we start cutting toes off for speeding, I think you would agree that would be oppressive, even if restricting speeds is reasonable.

Everyone's comfort level with how much enforcement they are willing to accept "for the greater good" is going to vary. Personally, I'm quite tired of big brother as it is. I already have to jump through 18 hoops of fire just to do anything with my firearm, I don't need anymore hoops just to use my vehicle.

There is also the law of diminishing returns to consider. And there is also the economic costs of government regulation that our supreme overlords never consider, which of course, hurts the impoverished more so than anyone but definitely doesn't help anyone.
 
Has anyone seen the scare video put out by USAToday about possible AR15 attachnents?

Its epic.
Buttstocks, sights, handguards, trigger,  CHAINSAW BAYONET

https://youtu.be/KydTB_EAdrM
 
FJAG said:
I was going to cite this quote: People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights - Indira Gandhi , but decided that I wouldn't.

Instead when it comes to US gun control I'm somewhat perplexed by the fact that well over 90% of the US public (including Republicans) want some measure of gun control. Further, Many states have various types of gun control in place. It seems to me that the whole gun control issue is just a hot button issue to keep the "Federal" government from doing anything that might in some way put universal measures into effect across the country.

That leaves me with the somewhat jaded viewpoint that the "right to bear arms" debate isn't so much about putting reasonable controls on the right to be a gun owner but about having those controls apply universally within the US. Sometimes there's something good to be said about the "peace, order and good government " clause in our constitution.


:remembrance:

Knowing your background, I will assume you believe that most people want "More gun control". There is a lot of gun control laws in the US, there are Federal laws, State laws, County level and municipal level along with private property proscriptions. Anyone with a CCW permit has to be incredibly aware of the web of laws and regulations and often get caught out by the simple act of dropping off a letter for mailing at a post office or god help you if your flight gets diverted to a restrictive State when you have a legal gun in checked baggage. The NRA and other gun right orgs are backed into a corner, if they give even an inch in the fight the gun control types will smell blood and come back for more, eventually they will take everything. Plus surrendering on an issue may set a legal precedent that will further constrain or erode. While all this is happening gun owners look around and notice that very little gets done about the social issues that lead to most of the problems in the US, so why would they give up anymore than they already have. I routinely hear from many US gunowners that the NRA has no balls and has given up to much already. Try even discussing the NRA very successful gun safety programs with the gun control types and see what reaction you get. I expect if you said that at your next dinner party you get some very anger denouncements by people that have never bothered to even look at them.
 
Saw this in the Las Vegas massacre discussion,

Colin P said:
Rather than fight more almost pointless battles on gun control, work together on mental health issues, social issues and education issues. The overall social improvements will affect all types of homicides, crime, improve the economy, reduce single parent families and be generally good for the country. But then those issues don't fit neatly into the election cycle, so they charge the windmill again.

I will reply here,

I doubt gun culture in America will change anytime soon.

The change I am most aware of came after the Columbine massacre with the introduction of the Rescue Task Force ( RTF ) concept.
 
The painful reality is that more people die in the US because of the social issues that exist than from the guns, solving a number of the social issues will solve a lot of the gun homicide issues. Thanks to the good data collection the US could focus on those regions with the highest number of homicides and actually achieve some success, if they cut the homicides by half in those 2% of the counties that that would prevent roughly 4,000 murders a year.

That action will reduce mass shootings but not eliminating them, looking at all of the factors for each shooting and looking at common themes and requiring full brain autopsy as well for dead/executed shooters might lead to answers that can reduce them as well.   
 
Numerous people have already commented on the proliferation of laws and enforcement, so the only real observation to make about that is to observe where most of the "day to day" gun violence occurs. Embarrassingly for proponents of tougher laws and gun control, places like Chicago have extremely restrictive gun control laws, yet lead the United States in gun crimes and homicides, quite the opposite of what gun control proponents would have you believe.

It is also instructive that this fact is always overlooked by mainstream US media outlets whenever the subject of gun control raises its head. So if gun control has already been demonstrated to fail in practice, then why is it always the go to position whenever an event occurs? (This is largely a rhetorical question, of course).
 
Infanteer said:
Yes, gang violence and drug epidemics are serious problems that kill lots (more) people, but don't use them as red herrings.  The relative likelihood of being killed in a public mass shooting is also immaterial when you consider that there are probably ways to mitigate occurrences, both in frequency and in severity.  Responsible citizens should be asking" why mass killings in the US happen more often and are of a greater magnitude than in other countries?", instead of just offering more thoughts and prayers and buckling down for the next 10-20 people to get mowed down in a public setting.

Maybe they should deal with guns like they dealt with knives in Scotland. Spoiler alert: it's not all about banning knives:

How Scotland reduced knife deaths among young people

The study concluded that Scotland was the most violent country in the developed world. Based on telephone interviews with crime victims conducted between 1991 and 2000, it found that excluding murder, Scots were almost three times as likely to be assaulted as Americans and 30 times more likely than the Japanese.

Between April 2006 and April 2011, 40 children and teenagers were killed in homicides involving a knife in Scotland; between 2011 and 2016, that figure fell to just eight. The decline has been most precipitous in Glasgow, which once had one of the highest murder rates in western Europe. Between 2006 and 2011, 15 children and teenagers were killed with knives in Scotland’s largest city; between April 2011 and April 2016, none were.

The number of people carrying knives also appears to have declined across Scotland. According to figures from Police Scotland, there were 10,110 recorded incidents of handling an offensive weapon in 2006-07, a figure which fell to 3,111 in 2015-16 – a decline of 69% in a decade.

https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2017/dec/03/how-scotland-reduced-knife-deaths-among-young-people

 
The "Ferguson effect" basically shoots that idea in the head, in fact the police in the worst areas are doing the opposite, pulling away from interacting with the public and it has lead to an almost immediate upswing in violence in those areas. There is zero desire to tackle the underlying issues because accusations of racism will be fired at anyone who tries. Blaming the NRA for everything is politically safe.
 
Colin P said:
The "Ferguson effect"

Reply #13
https://milnet.ca/forums/threads/126849/post-1508634.html#msg1508634
 
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