"BuT gUns doNt kilL PeoPle, PeoPle kilL PeoPle"
Then regulate fucking people's access to guns! It's not that hard.
Problem is, gun are useful.
They protect our children.
They protect our food supply.
They protect our freedom.And people have been killing each other for centuries before guns were invented. Thinking that guns are the reason for death is clearly propaganda. But you all know that. I'm just here to point out what actual reality looks like. Since none of you have ever touched grass.
Guns don't protect children. They're the leading cause of death in children.
I have no idea what you're talking about with protecting food...hunting? Not how most people get their food. Most people get food from a grocery store...where they're increasingly likely to get shot.
If the freedom line was in reference to the military, there's hardly a vet alive who's done that... they're all dead from old age. The only wars we've been fighting were for revenge or resources. I say that as a vet.
If you're talking about protecting us from our government...as far as I know, nobody has even won an armed confrontation with the police or feds over freedoms. Guns made Waco worse. Guns made Ruby Ridge worse. I guess the Bundy's protected their "right" to steal from taxpayers by grazing their cattle on public land without paying for it like they should have. That feels like a less important right than "life" to me personally.
Problem is, gun are useful.
Problem is, people are stupid.
Which is evidenced by both your shitty grammar, and tired argument.
Cars are useful. Cars protect children in many situations. Cars are among the things that majorly contribute to even having a food supply. Cars freedom patriotism eagles liberty-gasm!
Yet it is still possible to have cars serve those functions without giving in to the lobbies that wish to make it mandatory to get paid for shoving a car down the throat of every loony who wants one to hurt others with. Because cars are well regulated to make them as safe as possible.
I have had to say this many times lately, just because something is propaganda, doesn't automatically make it false.
The best propaganda is the truth.
Since you clearly have no idea of how propaganda works.
Since none of you have ever touched grass.
you really are deranged.
Guns don't protect shit. Get that through your fucking melon.
People with weapons protect countries. They're trained and equipped just for that purpose, we call it a military, you bellend. Probably couldn't pass an asvab, obviously you've never been in the mud. Touch grass? JFC...
Fund mental health institutions and make it easier to involuntarily commit people before they buy weapons and go on rampages?
Case after case, you see more red flags than a May Day Parade, but none of it legally actionable or reportable on a background check.
Examples:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvalde_school_shooting
"Ramos' social media acquaintances said he openly abused and killed animals such as cats and would livestream the abuse on Yubo.[132] Other social media acquaintances said that he would also livestream himself on Yubo threatening to kidnap and rape girls who used the app, as well as threatening to commit a school shooting.[131] Ramos' account was reported to Yubo, but no action was taken.[131][133]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkland_high_school_shooting
"The Florida Department of Children and Families investigated him in September 2016 for Snapchat posts in which he cut both his arms and said he planned to buy a gun. At this time, a school resource officer suggested[92] he undergo an involuntary psychiatric examination under the provisions of the Baker Act. Two guidance counselors agreed, but a mental institution did not.[93] State investigators reported he had depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, psychologist Frederick M. Kravitz later testified that Cruz was never diagnosed with autism.[94] In their assessment, they concluded he was "at low risk of harming himself or others".[95] He had previously received mental health treatment, but had not received treatment in the year leading up to the shooting.[96]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Hook_Elementary_School_shooting
"In a 2013 interview, Peter Lanza (Adam's father) said he suspected his son might have also had undiagnosed schizophrenia in addition to his other conditions. Lanza said that family members might have missed signs of the onset of schizophrenia and psychotic behavior during his son's adolescence because they mistakenly attributed his odd behavior and increasing isolation to Asperger syndrome.[155][162][169][170][171] Because of concerns that published accounts of Lanza's autism could result in a backlash against others with the condition, autism advocates campaigned to clarify that autism is a brain-related developmental disorder rather than a mental illness.[172] The violence Lanza demonstrated in the shooting is generally not seen in the autistic population[173] and none of the psychiatrists he saw detected troubling signs of violence in his disposition.[155]
Lanza appears to have had no contact with mental health providers after 2006. The report from the Office of the Child Advocate stated: "In the course of Lanza's entire life, minimal mental health evaluation and treatment (in relation to his apparent need) was obtained. Of the couple of providers that saw him, only one—the Yale Child Study Center—seemed to appreciate the gravity of (his) presentation, his need for extensive mental health and special education supports, and the critical need for medication to ease his obsessive-compulsive symptoms."[165]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Buffalo_shooting
"In June 2021, Gendron had been investigated for threatening other students at his high school by the police in Broome County.[20][60][66] A teacher had asked him about his plans after the school year, to which Gendron responded, "I want to murder and commit suicide."[67] He was referred to a hospital for mental health evaluation and counseling but was released after being held for a day and a half.[20][66][68]
Gendron told police that he was merely joking; however, Gendron later wrote online that this was actually a well-executed bluff.[65][69] He was not charged in connection with the incident since, according to investigators, he had not made a specific enough threat to warrant further action.[66][69] The New York State Police did not seek an order from a state court to remove guns from Gendron's possession.[69][70] The mental health evaluation was not an involuntary commitment, which would have prohibited him from buying guns under federal law.[69]"
Sure; maybe it's also a mental health problem, but it's definitely 100% a gun problem.
Then I ask this: School shootings simply never happened when I was a kid in the 70's and 80's. We had far less regulation*. Any asshole could buy a gun, get it delivered to their doorstep, and they were cheap. Yes, even AR-15s.
This shit all started with Columbine. Want to suicide and go out the most horrific way possible? Shoot up a school!
So no, it's not the guns. Nothing has really changed on that front. So what happened?
* One exception: Conceal carry laws were nothing like today, far more restrictive. I'm leaving that out because criminals and mass murderers hardly give a shit about carrying illegally. Would that stop you if you were intent on murder? Also, at the same time, the laws around transporting guns generally became more restrictive.
make it easier to involuntarily commit people
Yeah, that won't ever be abused by malicious actors.
It really is easier to just regulate firearms (not take them away, mind you, just actually regulate and enforce said regulations), but politicians are too worried about pissing off the "but muh freedums" crowd.
Nah, involuntary psych hold definitely needs lower standards to help address the mental health crisis.
We've got a plan for most homelessness via housing first plans, but for folks that are homeless because they just can't function for themselves we do genuinely need improved involuntary hold infrastructure.
We also need vastly improved care facility infrastructure for people who are docile but for whatever reasons medically or mentally incapable of surviving on their own and who don't have family capable of providing for them.
You know the system's broken when a common threat to coerce or emotionally attack elders is to put them in an elder care facility.
A lot of Americans do actually support some gun control measures. A lot of Americans also don't actually know how insanely hard and effectively the NRA has organized and opposed any remotely reasonable gun control measure. They basically ensure that any hearing on the subject is flooded by their members to oppose it. They just go and many sane Americans don't.
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The ATF has no ability to have searchable records of firearm sales. To run a "trace" they need to use fucking microfilm or manually go through literal shipping containers full of receipts that are scarcely legible due to water damage. Article.
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Measure to impose some reasonable restrictions on the ability to purchase firearms for, say, known domestic abusers: no, because we just don't fucking care.
I'm not American, but I actually support sane firearm ownership. I look at the lunacy over there and I am almost shocked. I really do think, from hearing about this as much as I do, that many Americans support sane measures. But the NRA is a huge problem. It prevents people from even being educated on this issue.
I'm going to get all kinds of negative votes for speaking up here. I'm not attempting to defend the various positions I outline below, just to explain why the gun folks see the current situation as the least bad alternative. If gun people in the US actually had their way the laws would be MUCH more permissive than they already are.
Again, I'm not attempting to defend the various positions, only to lend some context (and in the case of domestic abuse, to correct) the talking points above.
If the second amendment is explicitly designed to allow normal citizens to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, then allowing that same government to compile a registry of gun ownership makes no sense. Registration inevitably leads to confiscation, see Australia and New Zealand for recent examples.
(Note; It's highly suspect that non-military ownership of small arms could effectively fight the US military. Years of attrition in Afghanistan might be the counterpoint here.)
The CDC was examining gun violence statistics in the past, but then ventured outside of the realm of science and into political speech. Most gun people are ok with making science based recommendations determined by facts. But they're worried that a government entity funded for the purpose of science but controlled by unelected anti-gun bureaucrats will push policy based on politics.
(Note: Any gun policy has some base in science, the question is whether the policy controls the science, or whether science leads the way. Counterpoint: national COVID policy was marginally effective at great cost, both in lives lost and economically)
There are measures to keep "known" domestic abusers from purchasing or possessing firearms. If "known" means "convicted" or under indictment, then those folks are legally prohibited from firearm ownership or possession. This was recently confirmed by a notoriously pro-gun Supreme Court in United States v. Rahimi, by an overwhelming 8-1 majority. Even a restraining order for domestic violence is enough to prohibit purchase or possession.
(Note: enforcement of gun confiscation from prohibited persons is spotty at best, but it's arguable that this is a problem with policing as the laws are already on the books. The counterpoint here would be the ability in many states to conduct private party transfers without the involvement of a licenced firearms dealer or the requisite background check)
I am personally against a central firearms data base, but thats for "I dont trust someone like Trump" reasons IE I dont trust some jackboot from causing trouble. But that aside the NRA needs to be dissolved and its leadership drawn and fucken quartered. They have done infinitely more damage to gun rights as a whole than any other organization, combine that with the classism and racism of said oraganization and I can say with compelte certainty that they deserve liquidation.
Fuck the NRA the traitorous Rusky puppets that they are.
I am personally against a central firearms data base
There is already one. They just don't use sorting for now.
but thats for "I dont trust someone like Trump" reasons
It's just flipping a switch. "Someone like Trump" will do it without any problem
The ATF has no ability to have searchable records of firearm sales. To run a "trace" they need to use fucking microfilm or manually go through literal shipping containers full of receipts that are scarcely legible due to water damage. Article.
Can't they just scan them? I'll read article meanwhile.EDIT:
Keyword searches, or sorting by date or any other field, are strictly prohibited.
Th-- wh-- how?!
Right?! I know. It's so needlessly complicated. When I first learned about this my jaw legit dropped.
I'm not even necessarily proposing a registry but this is just fucking ridiculous.
I’m not American,
Then your opinion is irrelevant.
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Yes, it's horrible the gun situation in the US.
But knowing how to stop someone bleeding to death can be useful in other dystopian situations as well. Like industrial accidents from bad management and OSHA/child-labor violations. Or non-gun injuries from abusive adults.
Or just stupid stuff that kids and/or adults do to maim themselves, like avocado knife injuries.
Don't knock the first aid training.
Do go after the guns.
Like industrial accidents from bad management and OSHA/child-labor violations.
Yes, which certainly we'd expect a kindergartener to encounter. /s
If you have a situation in your country where you're regularly expecting kindergartners to perform first aid, you've failed them before you've even kicked off the lesson.
Pakistan did this thing where they banned rifles (and basically anything not a handgun) without extensive permits for all new gun sales. Then they offered to buy all the guns, which a ton of people traded in for some cash, which greatly reduced the amount of firearms owned by the public.
It would work great here except there's a 0% chance the government would want to use money to solve a problem.
Hey, that's not true. If the problem is that billionaires' bank accounts aren't full enough, the government will absolutely run truckloads of freshly-minted bills as fast as they can.
I honestly can't believe they haven't tried to give shooting courses to kindergartners.
Kindergarten? Ridiculous. They gotta be at least 7.
The only way to stop a bad kindergartner with a gun, is with a good kindergartner with a gun.
Now in fun colours!
Republicans, universal gun care and state mandated child control, but only after you've suffered 9 months against your will to bring them into this world if you even survive the experience.
America loves their school shootings. If they didn't, they would've done something about it by now.
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Pro-2A, for all who want to bear arms:
Rock, Flag, and Eagle!:
I can't believe I screwed up a 3 word quote. Well, time to watch that episode again!
Happens to the best of us!
Enjoy the rewatch!
Why did you add a comma between "Arms" and "shall"?
Second Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It is a direct quote from constitution.congress.gov website.
Source: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/
"Australia Had a Mass-Shooting Problem. Here’s How it Stopped" by Wendover Productions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0aGGOK4kAM
It's not Americans; the overwhelming majority of all citizens of all political affiliations want gun control. Like 80 to 90%. The politicians who are in the pocket of the gun lobby are the reason. They absolutely refuse to get anything fucking done and we hate it.
I doubt it's that little given that even lemmy has a fair few gun nuts
Probably has fair few bots, foreign actors looking to stir up shit, and a half dozen corporate shills looking to alter public opinion as well.
Edit: Nevermind. You're right, downvoting guys. You're all definitely humans arguing in good faith on this platform where all i needed to join was to pick a username and password. 😆
They are regulated, but there's a lot of breakdowns in the system. People passing background checks who shouldn't, prior offenders passing background checks because local cops didn't report them to the feds, etc. The DC Navy Yard shooter years back literally had fired a weapon into his neighbor's apartment before and still passed a background check to buy the weapons he committed the shooting with. I also think if you're a parent and you leave your weapon accessible by your children, and they go shoot up their school, you should be held at least partially liable. As somebody who is former military, the civilian population gets away with a hell of a lot with regards to firearms. No federally mandated training standards, concealed carry licenses are haphazard and go state by state, and not all states recognize other states' permits, no federally mandated storage requirements, etc. When I was in the military, if I wanted to go target practice on base with my personal weapons I had to register them with the provost marshal on base, keep the weapons and ammo separate in locked boxes out of my reach while driving to the range, etc. And if one weapon went missing the entire base was locked down; gates closed and nobody in or out until it was located. Civilians get by with way too much.
I think a lot of our problem is loose or missing standards at the federal level, which leaves each individual state to kind of make things up as they go along and not communicate properly with feds when things go wrong.
This is where Finland and Sweden excel. Because they have mandatory military service, everyone with a gun has been trained in all aspects of it's use/care. Finland is one of the top 10 countries with the most firearms per civilian, and yet their rate of firearm deaths is minuscule in comparison to the U.S..
At this rate though, I don't see how any meaningful gun regulation can be passed. The nra stopped universal background checks from being passed after Sandy Hook. I lost faith in republicans since then. They're bad faith actors, that when faced with the prisoners dilemma, choose suicide.
For the lazy US has 3.5x more guns than Finland and 35x more firearm homicides (which, not to nitpick, is not necessarily the same as a firearm death). If us has a 10x reduction in firearm homicides to be more in line with their gun ownership they would go from being ranked 23rd (as of 2019) to 42nd or so, going below countries like Canada (although Canada's gun crime is strongly linked with the us),
new Zealand* and Sweden.I'll also point out though that Finland has stricter gun laws than the states, relavent to this post they have a minimum age of 20 to buy firearms. They need licenses and a justification to carry them around, and there are fairly strict storage rules.
* I realized that 2019 was the Christchurch mass shooting, which brought the rate from 0.2 in 2018 to 1.2 in 2019, so probably not very representative of NZ gun crime.
This is where Finland and Sweden excel. Because they have mandatory military service, everyone with a gun has been trained in all aspects of it's use/care.
Article I Section 8 parts 15 and 16 empower Congress to require such training every member of the militia, and they have indicated that the militia is comprised of every able bodied male citizen, aged 17 to 45. (10 USC 246)
Congress can require training on safe handling. They can require training on the laws governing use of force in self defense and defense of others. They don't need to mandate additional military or militia service to achieve this.
While I believe in common sense gun control I think that one thing people might miss when comparing America to Finland or Sweden is just how brutal America can be.
America is an interesting country, if you can stay on the gainful employment ladder you can have a lot of creature comforts and for a few people they get to go up the ladder and have a really nice life.
That ladder though is dangling over the mouth of a volcano and there are more ways to fall off then anyone wants to admit. There’s also a ton of people just barely hanging on.
Easy access to guns is a problem, but the fact that so many Americans are so crushed by the system we live under that violence and deadly violence are things people routinely turn to is also a massive problem. For a lot of working poor the system can feel a lot like running on a perpetual treadmill stuck at full speed. We retooled our economy towards service and knowledge jobs, a lot of people in that service industry make just enough money to scrape by.
There is not a single state in the nation where minimum wage affords a 2 bedroom apartment
So you have a large number of people that spend the vast majority of their time working difficult jobs rife with customer abuse. They earn just enough money to afford a place to stay and food (and a cellphone so people can sneer at them and say, oh you have a cellphone so you can’t be struggling). Mix that with a big pile of guns and violence is bound to happen.
We can take away the guns but I suspect Americans have the ingenuity to find other ways to do violence against each other.
Why I send my kids off with a Browning M2. We ain’t playing
children are better suited for crew served weapons where teamwork and nimble hands mean faster belt reloads.
We teachers once has a "stop the bleed" training before school started (high school) a few years ago It was very sobering and traumatizing. We haven't repeated it but we had to learn about using tourniquets, packing wounds, and stopping the bleeding after a school mass shooting. I'm sure it led to teacher turnover.
You give us too much credit.
It's all so politicized now its just never going to happen. Half the country will literally lose their minds because they're children who think owning a gun is a god given right
Most don't even care about rights, god or children, it's about owning the libs.
The NRA has spent a LOT of money to ensure this.
Guns don't kill children, I kill children
The only thing that can protect from a child killer, is a child killer killer. The solution is to have more killers. Stop trying to regulate killers.
Who wants to make a trauma triage for tots nonprofit with me? We can gather former military medics to volunteer their time to teach kindergartners how to triage traumatic injuries and gunshot wounds. This could save lives people!
Just imagine, little Timmy could bleed out if we don't teach little Sophia how to properly apply a tourniquet!
repeal the 2nd amendment
We have too many guns, all you will do is take away guns from people that are not going to do anything wrong, and then make tens of millions of law abiding people into criminals.
