[Politics] Guns in the US

[m@goo]

The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun is a good boy with a gun...

 

[Blue Valkyrie]

Absolutely no society needs to allow citizens to buy military assault weapons.

 

[A1X]

Because if they didn't allow guns how would white people be able to kill innocent black people so easily?

 

[B-right-on]

Even if they banned all guns today, there's literally millions them in private hands. More guns than people in fact.

You pass a law 'guns are illegal'. So how would you enforce it? How many people would hide their guns? How many 'honest' citizens would then be attacked or shot because they didn't have a gun where the bad guy did.

Ban guns is easy to say, but next to impossible to actually do.

Assault rifles however are a start. Can ban them in private hands no problem.

 

[METALMICKY]

Going off at a slight tangent I would love to know what the levels of road rage incidents are in the US? I ask on the basis that here it's going to only range from some ranting and gesticulating and just occasionally fisticuffs. However, in the US are they better behaved with the knowledge that any other driver might just whip a gun out of the glove box?

 

[Scappa]

Because if they didn't allow guns how would white people be able to kill innocent black people so easily?

By joining the Police, obvs



The ultimate irony, of course is the correlation between the pro-lifers and the gun lobby. All life is precious... until it leaves the womb, at which point it's every man woman and child for themselves.

 

[Doonhamer7]

I read somewhere since JFK was shot more Americans have died by guns (including suicide) internally than the USA has lost in wars since the Civil War.

I’ve had real strong arguments with American colleagues (admittedly mainly in Texas) on this and you can’t win, it’s like it’s been indoctrinated into them.

 

[faoileán]

Ummm because they still have a huge hunting culture where they choose to hunt their own food.

What in Chicago?

 

[brighton_tom]

All logic says to remove peoples rights to own a gun, but a lot of Americans have an attitude of 'you cant tell me what to do' even if its something logical and with positive reasoning like wearing a mask in a pandemic, which in relevance to gun ownership means they kick off at the thought of them being taken away. Any potential president then knows that they will 100% not win the vote if they have anti gun policies, which means the whole circus just goes on and on....

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

By joining the Police, obvs



The ultimate irony, of course is the correlation between the pro-lifers and the gun lobby. All life is precious... until it leaves the womb, at which point it's every man woman and child for themselves.

Two scariest things in America are religion and guns.

Praise the lord and pass the ammunition

 

[lawros left foot]

America will never become gun free.

They, as a society have decided that the annual death toll from firearms is acceptable. It’s like our Government has decided that the infection rate from Covid is now acceptable. It doesn’t mean it’s right, but, it won’t change. If an horrific event like Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre doesn’t change the mindset, nothing will.
After Dunblane, handguns in this country were banned, we have one of the lowest death rates from firearms in the World.

6 year old children being slaughtered was unacceptable here.

 

[Brovion]

Ummm because they still have a huge hunting culture where they choose to hunt their own food.

"Hand me my gun Pa, I'm off down the 7-Eleven to shoot me a tin of beans!"

 

[usernamed]

The right to bear arms is enshrined in their constitution, the idea being that any government can become a tyranny if its people don’t have access to the same weapons as its military/law enforcement.

I would argue that all this has done, is ensure that American law enforcement is tooled up like an army in order to keep the peace. The various USPDs seem to be trained like militias, with “active shooter in a school” being part of their training programs.

I’d have thought far better to restrict access to weapons for all, and have better checks and balances on when weapons were issued to law enforcement, then arm everyone indiscriminately. The only people who win in an arms race, are weapons manufacturers.

The current policy enables minor neighbourly disagreements to turn into “family of four found dead in their home”.

People drink, they take drugs, even straight they lose their temper and become irrationally angry. Having a lethal weapon permanently in their pocket rarely improves the outcome, and remorse after the fact is poor compensation for those affected by such crime.

 

[GT49er]

Couldn't this thread just be merged with 'The Age of Stupidity' one?

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

America will never become gun free.

They, as a society have decided that the annual death toll from firearms is acceptable. It’s like our Government has decided that the infection rate from Covid is now acceptable. It doesn’t mean it’s right, but, it won’t change. If an horrific event like Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre doesn’t change the mindset, nothing will.
After Dunblane, handguns in this country were banned, we have one of the lowest death rates from firearms in the World.

6 year old children being slaughtered was unacceptable here.

This is very true. The Sandy Hook tragedy would indeed have been a turning point in most other countries but in the States the second amendment trumps all other considerations.

It is clear that change will never come at a Presidential or Federal level but individual States can make a difference with their legislation. New York has some of the toughest gun legislation but it obviously did not stop what happened at Buffalo. Their lawmakers are looking at further tightening of existing laws

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/17/nyregion/gun-laws-buffalo-albany.html

 

[Simster]

If it’s about the total deaths of the poor you’re concerned about, then surely your question should be why are thousands more Brazilians killed by guns than Americans……….or, if it was per capita of population then it would El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela……….on this metric the US isn’t even in the top 10 of gun deaths.

Are Latin American lives irrelevant in the debates relating to gun deaths……….or is it just more fashionable to pontificate about the US?

Life is cheap in those countries, unfortunately. Brazil's gun problems bare no resemblance to those of any nation in the wealthy developed first world - everyone knows this. Drug cartels control the favelas and use guns in turf wars and to deter the police from entering, and the police are not to be trusted anyway as they have a history of murdering street kids - so even the decent people in favelas who want nothing to do with drugs will nevertheless happily arm themselves against the police.

Back to the US - what I find distasteful about the situation in the US is that gun stores are on street corners in poor, black neighbourhoods. Affluent middle class suburbs, not so much. Funny that. I wonder what the appetite would be for firearm law changes if more affluent people were directly affected by shootings, rather than just hearing of another school being shot up by a madman 1,000 miles away?

 

[Marshy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rR9IaXH1M0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UFyNy-rw4

sums it up nicely.

 

[Hugo Rune]

America will never become gun free.

They, as a society have decided that the annual death toll from firearms is acceptable. It’s like our Government has decided that the infection rate from Covid is now acceptable. It doesn’t mean it’s right, but, it won’t change. If an horrific event like Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre doesn’t change the mindset, nothing will.
After Dunblane, handguns in this country were banned, we have one of the lowest death rates from firearms in the World.

6 year old children being slaughtered was unacceptable here.

And now in Texas.

Widespread gun ownership profoundly enables the possibility of these horrific tragedies.

Sadly, thousands and thousands more children could be murdered but they’d not change their laws because the people with power in that country respect their own right to own a firearm more than they respect the rights of those poor poor murdered children to be protected by their law makers from psychos with guns.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

must be able to protect against the King trying to retake the colony.

This -

They are the richest country in the world. If they want to let their kids risk being killed by a spotty drugged up teenager who can't get a ****, or some bloke who has just lost his own kids through divorce, who want some sort of weird revenge, and that is OK because the constitution guarantees the right to a gun, and they think that's all fine, **** 'em.

The bereaved always want something done after the fact, but few of them want gun control. Well, nothing stronger than the control Johnson set to allow him to have a pardee. That sort of control. Gun control for murderers but not for me. Yes, that will work

 

[Pevenseagull]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tkD4xSqNVII

In remembrance of the brave school children who laid down their lives to protect angry Brad's right to own an assault rifle.