MDDad
Master Eminence Grise
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Post by MDDad on Aug 11, 2019 12:35:02 GMT -8
RSM, your analogies make sense. Unfortunately, I believe a person can find analogies and anecdotes to support almost anything.
The reality is that most mass murderers weren't obvious raving lunatics who would have been institutionalized in bygone days or in other countries. They were guys who were just a little bit off...until the day they were way off. It's likely that very few of them would have been recognized as mentally ill, if indeed they were, and they certainly wouldn't have been put into treatment. I have to believe that we have millions, if not tens of millions, of people just like them walking around today who are mentally or emotionally susceptible to going over the edge, and it behooves us to make it as difficult as possible for them to obtain assault weapons.
Bick asked the question, what has changed in the last 50 years. The answer is, a lot.
50 years ago, we grew up in a family with a mom who played the role of a mom, and a dad who played the role of a dad. There were relatively few families with single parents, and there were almost none with two moms or two dads. That provided a social structure and developmental framework that worked successfully for ten thousand years. Today, much of that is gone.
50 years ago, families went to church on Sunday mornings, and kids learned from their earliest days what was right and what was wrong, and what the rewards and punishments were for doing either. Today, families that go to church together and learn its lessons are an endangered species. I believe if the concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, aren't grounded in religious notions of reward and punishment, they are grounded in nothing at all. And that's what we have today. Right, wrong, good, evil are all subjective and differ from one person to the next.
50 years ago, families ate dinner together and talked about their day. They spent evenings together, they did weekend activities together, and they went on vacations together. Today, family members eat at different times or in different locations. While they eat, rather than talk to each other, they text. And afterward they go their separate ways to play video games or text some more. They are as isolated and alienated from each other as humanly possible.
50 years ago, people had real flesh-and-blood friends. They spent time with them, talked and laughed with them, learned empathy, and how to share joy and grief. Today, many people have only virtual friends, other people that they interact with only with their fingers on a keyboard or their thumbs on a smartphone. They are isolated, lonely, and left to fester in their own sometimes negative emotions.
I think that's what has gotten us to this point, and it would take a social and technological revolution to swing it back to anything resembling what used to be normal. Unfortunately, I can't see it happening.
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davidsf
Master Eminence Grise
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Post by davidsf on Feb 17, 2020 7:38:44 GMT -8
Of course, we’re moving full bore 😳 into election season, so naturally our august politicians are coming out 😳 with their gun control proposals. It’s like they have no other arrows in their quivers, but like clockwork, we can always tell when someone (usually a Democrat) is up for re-election. This one is from The Washington Post
She goes on in her rant telling how great she is for serving in the military and how we should ban AR-15’s ... but what she doesn’t note, anywhere, is the obvious fact that the perpetrators who took those children’s lives (note, she doesn’t use Las Vegas as an example because dead children are a greater manipulation tool than dead adults) had their guns ILLEGALLY. she also doesn’t fill us in as to how the criminals will magically become law-abiding just because she has another law (for them to ignore). |
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SK80
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Post by SK80 on Feb 17, 2020 7:48:12 GMT -8
I still think Americans think and believe the first couple Amendments are important to Liberty and Freedom...., this out of Virginia today where some crazy stuff has been brewing.... Virginia: Gun Ban Bill Defeated!www.nraila.org/articles/20200217/virginia-gun-ban-bill-defeated
"Thanks to Second Amendment supporters around the Commonwealth ceaselessly voicing their opposition to a sweeping gun ban, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-5 to reject House Bill 961 on February 17th. Bloomberg’s House majority in the General Assembly is not going to deliver their most coveted agenda item to their billionaire master." |
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Post by vilepagan on Feb 17, 2020 14:03:03 GMT -8
I predict that will do nothing at all to stop gun violence.
BTW, your "sweeping gun ban" was focused rather narrowly on assault weapons, but good job being dishonest about it.
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Bick
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Post by Bick on Feb 17, 2020 18:02:32 GMT -8
Gun violence reduction is far and away about controlling gangs. Why is there no conversation from the left about that?
Or is that being racist?
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Post by vilepagan on Feb 18, 2020 4:03:36 GMT -8
Wouldn't taking away their guns make them easier to control?
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davidsf
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Post by davidsf on Feb 18, 2020 5:55:03 GMT -8
Gun violence reduction is far and away about controlling gangs. Why is there no conversation from the left about that? Or is that being racist? It depends on with whom you’re arguing. It is only racist if you are speaking to a liberal zealot. see, the big gang, MS-13, are primarily Hispanic and many of their membership (though not all) are here illegally. Democrats, in particular, want the illegals here for various reasons, but cannot separate the illegals who are gang members from those who are legal criminals, so they just don’t talk about them at all. Also, because it doesn’t fit their anti-second amendment narrative. |
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Bick
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Post by Bick on Feb 18, 2020 6:11:01 GMT -8
Wouldn't taking away their guns make them easier to control? What exactly do you propose? |
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Bick
Administrator
Posts: 6,900
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Post by Bick on Feb 18, 2020 6:59:25 GMT -8
Gun violence reduction is far and away about controlling gangs. Why is there no conversation from the left about that? Or is that being racist? It depends on with whom you’re arguing. It is only racist if you are speaking to a liberal zealot. see, the big gang, MS-13, are primarily Hispanic and many of their membership (though not all) are here illegally. Democrats, in particular, want the illegals here for various reasons, but cannot separate the illegals who are gang members from those who are legal criminals, so they just don’t talk about them at all. Also, because it doesn’t fit their anti-second amendment narrative. There's a pretty solid perspective that deportation of immigrant gang members isn't a good idea. This goes back to Reagan and Clinton in dealing with El Salvador. Probably a good separate topic. |
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MDDad
Master Eminence Grise
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Post by MDDad on Feb 18, 2020 10:45:19 GMT -8
Gun violence reduction is far and away about controlling gangs. Why is there no conversation from the left about that? Or is that being racist? As I've tried to point out several times before, the hysteria and media sensationalism over semiautomatic weapons and mass killings are out of all proportion to their impact. In the last five years, 2015-2019, there have been approximately 200,300 deaths from firearms in the United States, with suicides and homicides accounting for the overwhelming majority of them. During that same five-year period, there have been 82 mass shootings, resulting in 526 deaths. That is 0.26% of the total, yet it receives almost all the media hype and the public outrage it causes. And of those 57 mass shootings, only about 2/3 were conducted with semiautomatic weapons. When it comes to firearm deaths in America, the concentration on and fascination with semiautomatic weapons and mass shootings is a media-generated mania with a clear political agenda. |
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Post by vilepagan on Feb 18, 2020 10:55:46 GMT -8
That we start looking at gun control as part of the solution to our national problem of gun violence.
As a young man I was a member of the NRA. Today that organization is so crazy that I wouldn't consider being a member. I don't have a problem with guns. I recently acquired a permit to carry in PA and purchased a new firearm to carry. I hadn't bought a new gun for many years and I was quite surprised at the fact that it was easier to purchase a firearm than it was when I was younger. Less hassle, no waiting period. It distressed me to see so many assault rifles on the wall of the gun store, all just as easy to purchase as the handgun I bought.
Solutions? Well, in Britain you can own guns, but you can't keep them at home. You need to keep them stored at the gun club where you are a member. I think this solution is reasonable for assault rifles and the like here in the US.
ETA: also, we should avoid statements like the following...
"When it comes to firearm deaths in America, the concentration on and fascination with semiautomatic weapons and mass shootings is a media-generated mania with a clear political agenda."
Such statements are not helpful, and only serve to inflame an already divisive subject.
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Bick
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Post by Bick on Feb 18, 2020 11:08:36 GMT -8
Far and away, handguns are used in firearms deaths. MDDad #'s are damn near spot on from what I recall in doing some research on the issue from FBI (I think) generated statistics. How could your solution of storing assault weapons at a gun club make a meaningful difference in the overall problem of gun violence?
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davidsf
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Post by davidsf on Feb 18, 2020 11:29:26 GMT -8
Far and away, handguns are used in firearms deaths. MDDad #'s are damn near spot on from what I recall in doing some research on the issue from FBI (I think) generated statistics. How could your solution of storing assault weapons at a gun club make a meaningful difference in the overall problem of gun violence? The point here is, hand guns, gang shootings, suicides, and even homicides don’t produce the meaningful emotional manipulation that sells newspapers and, thereby, returns votes. they all know...and even vile-boy ignores...the facts that: - Real amateur and professional shooters hate and very seldom even use the scary bump stocks,
- There is no such thing as an “assault” weapon, and
- There is zero correlation between multi-round magazines and gun deaths (but I do love it when they call them “multi-CLIP” magazines).
Further, the people handing out death-by-gun are CRIMINALS ... criminals will not suddenly become law-abiding citizens just because some idiot liberal politician passes a new law. Criminals don’t... you know... OBEY LAWS!
<hard stop>
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Post by vilepagan on Feb 18, 2020 19:12:38 GMT -8
Agreed. If I thought anything meaningful could be done about the number of handguns in the country I'd suggest it...but I'm at a loss there.
It might stop the mass shootings from happening quite so often. I think that's a meaningful enough reason to take some action, and I haven't heard a better suggestion yet.
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Post by vilepagan on Feb 18, 2020 19:19:46 GMT -8
I'll bet they still obey the law of supply and demand.
After a mass shooting in Australia the government there banned assault weapons, even though some people don't think there's any such thing. Following this the price of an AR-15 skyrocketed on the black market in Australia making them much harder to acquire for any potential miscreants. I can't say that's a bad thing.
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