Again, you misunderstand what I'm saying and that's exactly the same response I was expecting. I didn't say or even imply that because we can't stop evil that we shouldn't try. You're reading wrong on purpose. I meant, other methods, OTHER laws maybe will work. Gun laws in America specifically has historically done nothing to curb crime or prevent further violence.Fuzzy Necromancer wrote:Excalibur...you covered a lot of ground in that post, and I'm trying to figure out where to start.
Let me start with the simplest point: Why bother to just reduce the number of people killed if we can't stop the actual violence itself?
Because that means LESS senseless deaths. There will perhaps always be violence, cruelty, and evil, but if we can do something to REDUCE the power of people to do evil, we should at least think about doing it. Because yes, some people still die, but if I can make it so that some sick puppy takes out only 10 people instead of 20? That's ten more mother's sons, brother's sisters, and people who might do great things who can go home and live to tell the tale.
I'm going to ask it again. Why is gun control the ONLY issue where people say "Well, because we can't COMPLETELY eradicate it with laws, we shouldn't even try!"?
If you want to hammer it home of how many might NOT die, that's the point. We don't think about "oh it could have been worse" if it didn't happen. We'd just accept it that it didn't happen and move on about. That's how we think. See, you're letting emotions dictate how you think because the exact number of dead doesn't change the fact that a crime took place. It doesn't make it worse than it already is. It should not be used to dictate change because there was more or less.
And to be very specific about this event, there were thousands of people and the guy only managed to killed 59 and injured a few hundred despite having superior firepower from an elevated position 300 feet up at least and then shooting at an angle at a range that actually is almost outside the effective range of his weapons, which were made even more inaccurate because they were equipped with devices that negates accuracy? That alone should be a miracle.
The fact that you call it the way you think it is very erroneously "armor-piercing rounds and AK47s" means you're not a gun owner, you don't know the first thing about weapons and the why. And if you are, you are seriously misinformed, because all rifle calibers in some way can defeat certain types of body armor regardless. I own an AK, I own an AR and you don't see me or my circle of friends going around mass shooting. I defend my home with a rifle and so does a lot of people and when compared to the actual numbers (since you are so inclined to believe higher numbers makes the difference), compared to the millions of gun owners in America, the amount of illegal things done with legally own guns are so far below, you'd be more likely to get killed by a drunk driver and yet no one blames the beer and the car when that happens.Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: Don't pretend this is impossible. Other countries HAVE made a real change, that saved lots of lives. Don't tell me "it's not good enough so everyone should be able to keep armor-piercing rounds and AK47s." Did the examples I listed just bounce of your head? Japan, Australia, and the UK have had ZERO mass shootings in the past decade, while we have them so often that even the jokes about their recurrence are cliches!
That seems to be the main thrust of your argument.
And really? You bring up Australia? I guess you haven't heard of the Sydney Siege, the Hunt family murders and thought not a shooting, the Melbourne car attack that happened this year and let's not forget the UK, the acid attack capital of the world. The last time we had a bombing in America was in Boston 4 years ago. The last one the UK got was last month not soon after 2 almost at the same time this year alone. The US gets these sensationalized murders called mass shootings once in a blue moon and the UK gets so many acid attacks, there are instructional videos for women on how to apply their makeup after an attack, where the mayor of London practically has accepted terrorist attacks as part of living there yet America hasn't gotten anything remotely called a terrorist attack since Last year and even then, the media still refuse to call it a terrorist attack for awhile. They still won't agree to calling the Pulse club shooting one, and blamed the gun for that one as well.
As for Japan. You cannot compare Japan to the Unite States. A country with almost 100% of the same ethnic race without the diversity and history of America, it's literally a foreign country with nothing the same in terms of people and culture. With the UK and Aus, they have a direct history with America to draw some comparisons, but still not the same country with the same developments, diversity or even the same founding to independence. You shouldn't actually compare different methods or different countries. Just because Canada and the US speak similar languages does not make us the same country. The population of the US is more than 10 times of Canada with a higher density, so an incredible concentration of different types of people in major cities will lead to very different and even more frequent amount of crimes but even the stats will tell you how mas shootings only account for less than a percent of all crimes that involves the use of guns, legally obtained or otherwise. As I've pointed out before, the numbers don't matter, because if that were case, we'd be clamoring about a typical weekend in Chicago that involved gang related violence.
You serious? If I'm reading your statement, you're denying that mental illness is actually a thing that affects countless people every day, and even causing some to do horrible things to themselves and those around them? And that so far, every single "mass shooter" and from new reports even the Vegas one display some form of mental illness from investigations from prescribed drugs to a history of mental illness? Which one of the passed mass shooters actually said either of those things?Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: Point two, shooters being "crazy".
No, they are not.
There is no body of evidence to suggest that mast shooters are more mentally ill than the rest of us. Mentally ill people are, statistically, more likely to be shot than to be shooters. You talk about ignoring the causes? I can give you a laundry list. Sometimes the shooters are nice enough to spout the reasons themselves, like "women can get away with being sluts" or "impending racial holy war".
Because if what you're implying is true, every single one of us is a ticking time bomb of death waiting to happen. Only held back by the laws of society and readily access to firearms. As if those thing enable us. That's stupid excuse for people's behavior.
I've never once said America was really great. We live in a flawed country with a flawed system but with problems that can be fixed only if we do it right and passing feel good laws and stupid laws that are fueled by knee jerk reactions without understanding the problem isn't one of them.Fuzzy Necromancer wrote: And...you think we, because we live in the great land of America, all have it easy?
Easy for some. Hard for most. In some cities, for some people, at some rungs of the latter, the USA IS a third-world nation. Ask the people of Flint, Michigan if they have it easy. Suffering is not the exclusive province of sad-eyed foreign orphans in charity ads.
Speaking personally, I am suffering, and I can tell you about it in detail if you'd like.
Do you think we really feel safe? You talk of cops? There's a pretty large portion of this society that gets MORE scared when the cops show up, that WISH the cops won't show up because they will immediately escalate things from bad to worse. There are people who panic inside every time they get pulled over for a ticket, because they've seen the news videos where somebody just like them gets murdered when a cop panics at their unarmed self and empties his magazine into their face, then reloads and empties it again, and said cop is now on desk duty or paid leave.
From your description of this nation, you are either woefully ignorant, or willfully ignorant, of what life is like for millions upon millions of people living in this country.
The Flint water crisis as you pointed out is a problem because the government has failed to do something about it. And you want to entrust that same government voted by you and I to handle our civil rights correctly nowadays without even looking deeper at the problem other than face value?
Oh yes, if you look at say Detroit (which hilariously is the direct reason why Flint, Michigan got a water problem), Gary Indiana, South Central LA, and a LOT of Reservations, America does seem like a 3rd world country because the system is run by a bunch of morons and voted for by naive people to wish away our problems and then go about our lives like nothing affects us personally. You want the very government that has allowed companies with a history of safety violations to build pipelines through rivers that could affect millions of lives if one bursts to dictate our personal safety when politicians walk around with armed guards, many with the very automatic weapons you seemed to despise. It must be nice for Clinton to spout her nonsense when she's got Secret Service guarding her and her family around the clock with machineguns underneath their nice coats.
And how you're the one being ignorant woefully and coming into this discussion unprepared when you didn't even read my statements entirely. The only time I even mentioned about cops was when they are never around when you need them and like you said, when they do come, they are so incompetent, they're more likely to shoot the crowd of people than the criminals they're chasing.
I've known people who were attacked, mugged, raped, homes invaded in the middle of the night by an entire gang and you know what they've never told me? "I glad I didn't have a gun powerful enough to take them all down" You know what they actually said? "I feel lucky I still have more bullets left in my gun just in case there's more out there."
I don't think my neighborhood has gotten so bad that I need a Assault Rifle and air support to cover me when I go grocery shopping (unless I live in the South Side of Chicago - that's half a joke), but I do carry a gun for protection and so do a lot of friends and love ones I know.
That's why I continue to support our constitutional rights to have arms. Weapons of any type to defend ourselves within reasons as defined by the situation we may come across. Do I really need a grenade launcher? No, I don't plan on fighting a tank. Do I really need a machine gun? Not really, it's fun to have though, but in a self defense situation, I'm legally accountable for every bullet that I fire. But guess what? All those answers are my choice based on my knowledge, experience with firearms and self defense training, which I highly encourage others to get.
We're all living our lives mostly differently but yet the ignorant ones are the ones always crying out for the same misunderstood bullshit every time without even truly thinking about it.
