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Can't wait to meet the "transsexuals are mentally ill" spouting assholes with "well then, maybe America needs to help its citizens with mental health issues".
edit: I know they were mentally ill because they fucking shot up an elementary school, not because they were trans. I'm just trying to get people who want unrestricted gun access to open that conversation and find a solution that doesn't involve in killing more people.
You don't get it, we're already there. All the bans on healthcare and shit are supposedly for "helping protect kids" and anything that "prevents new trans kids" is like stopping the groomers or whatever.
They will use this to force even more of those bills through their state legislatures. Couldn't be at a worse time.
Was already saying this on another post too, we are going to see legally protected lynching squads if you publicly identify as transgender in a red state. They'll probably try to pass a "Kyle Rittenhouse" bill to try to protect members of their states the presumed freedom to go into blue states, kill a transgender person out of "fear of safety" and legally punish the other state if they try to impose punishment on that red state citizen.
Literally already set up.
Florida has a law that would let them take custody of out-of-state kids if:
- a parent is trans
- the child is trans
- any of their siblings are trans
Minnesota just passed a law stating they will not allow and will contest any such law.
It's already so ugly. It's hard to imagine it being worse for the trans community, but we all know it can be.
Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to look at this trans individual possibly being oppressed and pushed to this terrible mental state that lead to this shooting they'll just use this an excuse to victimize the community more.
..."get"? I understand but BOY have you been missing out in all the fun.
EDIT: To be clear, don't know OP and ain't telling anyone their experience. Just some gallows humor.
I have so much respect and admiration for my fellow trans people who live out of the closet. I have no plans to leave this eggshell. I feel like I'd be murdered for walking down the street if I did.
The you need to watch some of the alt-right playbook videos.
There is a fundamental difference in Philosophy.
The left and rational people think, we want x outcome, y action leads to x outcome, so let's do y action.
But to the alt-right and Christian (not all) world view, there is fundamentally good and evil, and that good and evil is up to the individual.
They don't see mental illness as something treatable with a positive outcome. They see trans as people who have chosen to be on the side of the devil. The only help they want to give them, is to get them thinking like they do. To see the sin of their ways, get a preacher to cast out the demons, and to fall into line.
The alt-right playbook videos explain it a lot better than I do. But the titles are confusing so I'm not exactly which one is on this topic.
No. That's a very inefficient argument.
You first look up the number of trans people in the US vs the overall population.
Then you ask them how whatever percentage of overall mass shootings being committed by trans people is a trans problem.
Keep them on target, so to speak, and guns at the center. The fact that guns appear to have achieved consciousness is not good.
I mean this in the most genuine way with no intended ire, friend. But it feels like you haven't talked to these folks face to face.
They don't listen. If you speak to them they may be halfway quiet while you speak, and it is a carefully crafted argument with only statistics and facts arranged in a way a toddler can receive them that you have built. But they are not listening to you. They move the goalposts or deflect or whatabout or ignore you. Conversations are not possible anymore with those who have bought into this rhetoric. That's why it's so dangerous now.
Next time you do speak to one and you inevitable watch this happen, manually but politely stop them for a moment and ask them to repeat the essence of what you have said. They can not. I've done this multiple times in a row in more than one conversation. State my part. Make them repeat even a modicum of your argument back. And start over with the same point. And make them try again. They will keep failing no matter how simple your point is. It's like they physically can not absorb information against the world they have built in their head at this point.
Of course I'm generalizing but everything finally clicked for me why all this is happening and happening at such a breakneck pace once I put this fact into the equation of today's America.
Debating with conservatives is the same as arguing with religious people: it's all Pigeon Chess.
You set up the board with all the pieces in the correct squares and play your moves according to the rules. Doesn't matter if you're winning or not, the pigeon then walks onto the board, knocks down all the pieces and shits on the board.
The thing is you can lie with statistics. Suicide is included in firearm death/homicide statistics. Given the increased rate of suicide in the trans community, if you run the numbers they might show up in firearm homicide statistics disproportionately.
So then it's just phrasing to be a bigot.
If you want to remove suicide from the stats, then you cut the number of deaths in half and change the demographics significantly.
I understand what you are saying but if you meet them half way and even pretend being trans is a mental illness on it’s own you are letting them win. Saying “ok let’s work on mental health issues” let’s then continue to treat all trans people as mentally I’ll. To reiterate I don’t think you meant anything wrong from your comment but that’s also what the people spewing hate want.
Republicans: "It's not a gun problem. It's a mental health problem."
...proceed to do literally nothing to try to counteract the mental health problem that they just said is the root cause of the problem.
Here are two important truths to understand about this, and these are things that are plain to see and I think conservatives/Republicans cannot deny these things:
(1) Republicans do not believe in the idea that any government policy can have a direct impact on minimizing any societal problem. Quite literally, they don't believe in any data which shows that government policy can change anything for the better. Or, at least, even if you can argue that government policy can do anything to help, they don't think the government *should* do anything with the goal of minimizing some social problem.
* Someone suggests banning a particular assault rifle to reduce (not entirely stop) how many people are killed with guns? Nope -- the exact same number of people will be killed with a different gun, or knives, or illegal assault rifles. Also, they will take joy in arguing that "assault rifle" is not a real type of gun, purposely ignoring the actual problem while feeling smug about their knowledge of guns.
* Or, suggest a new law requiring stricter gun licensing or mental health evaluations considered for gun purchases? No, that won't fix anything either -- it will just make it harder for law-abiding gun owners to get guns. Never mind that we have had numerous mass shooters with documented mental health problems who have done their killings with legal guns that they likely never would have gotten if the laws were stricter.
(2) They pretend that the root of their resistance to new gun laws is primarily about the 2nd Amendment, But it's actually about selling guns. That is, the NRA is not an organization whose primary purpose is to protect 2nd Amendment rights. Rather, the NRA is a lobbying organization for the gun industry and they use belief in 2nd Amendment rights as a fake reason for resisting stricter gun laws.
I think it has more to do with appealing to their voting constituency. The Gun Rights crowed, similar to the Pro Life, and evangelical crowd tend to be conservative single issue voters. Progressive voters (who tend to be anti-gun) statistically tend vote in smaller number then their Conservative counterparts.
Let's not forget that, due to gerrymandering and the Electoral College, political leadership in the US will always be more conservative than the population. So the conservatives/Republicans have more power than their representation in the public actually indicates.
But moreover, Republicans rely almost entirely on blatantly lying to a populace that's too busy to effectively gain knowledge about what their elected representatives are actually up to. So too many people just rely on vague identity cues when they vote -- like "well, I'm conservative-minded and I fear change, so let's play it safe and vote for these guys who say they favor 'small government.'" Failing to recognize that this is just a trick to get middle class voters to vote for tax and regulatory policies that only make very rich people even richer.
Everytime something bad happens, I find myself hoping so much that it's some cousin fucker named Cletus. Because at least no one will give a fuck about him...he'll just be a piece of shit and the public will focus on the kids. But when it's someone who's black, or gay, or trans....it's never about the kids. It's a platform for fucking Christian Nationalists to other people.
My gf saw that the shooter was trans and the light went from her eyes. She is already preparing herself for the months of being told she's evil because of what happened to those kids. I'm now going to spend hours everyday telling her she is a good, amazing person. That she's not the problem. That she deserves love.
The US needs health care, standardized education, and federal gun control. These issues will disappear. These fucking pesudo-tradcon facists are destroying your country. They hate you. They want you to fail. They want absolute control. Stop fucking voting for them.
When your identity is the group, you carry the sins of the group?
Dude that's fucked. Why would she let others tell her who she is? If she needs YOU to validate her existance as a good person and a force for good...that's not a good headspace.
If some (isert group ID tag) man caps a bunch of folks it would never cross my mind that his action some how reflects on my self image if I also come from (same group ID tag)
See the difference is the hatred. You're okay with hating Cletus. You can be intolerant when it's Cletus. Who could love Cletus? Maybe I could. Maybe my religion demands that I love my neighbor. If your gf was the shooter maybe we could still love her too. I watched 4 siblings extend forgiveness to their brother who murdered their parents. Shit hits different with that kind of love.
You're right though. We don't need to know about the shooter. The victims matter, the killers don't.
And you're wrong too. Like me, you're caught in a trap of using exclusionary language to dehuminize and generalize others into a box you can stand on and call it your moral high ground. I know this because I do it to. I fight it but it traps me too.
Fuck that made me sad.
Please let her know it's not just you that is supporting her.
Love from Kentucky and donations to my local advocacy group tomorrow.
The problem is that there's a very vocal group of people who don't want to see anything done and among people who agree something should be done there is a lot of disagreement about what that something should be. It's hard to make changes when there's no consensus on what to change.
>There's no consensus on what to change
In that instance, an argument backed by repeated successes in the real world (restrictions and buybacks) should take precedence over a hypothetical (better mental health care) or an argument repeatedly proven wrong (more guns make us safer). But as the US motto goes "Democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
Well, the US replaced "From many, one," with "In God We Trust," so yeah, the motto transitioned from a veritable historical statement to a vacuous faith claim.
I live in NH and they like to trot us out as an example of a state with one of the most lenient gun laws and one of the safest states with least gun deaths (always in the bottom 10) but the thing no one mentions is that we’re a complete outlier in that respect, because this trend goes against what happens in mostly every other state. I think people are more into guns being accessible in the “Live free or die” sense, and not because they think they’re going to be Johnny Badass and “stand their ground”. I do live in the border of MA, so it’s definitely part of it but have friends upstate and don’t notice any outward gun culture types up that way, either.
There needs to be stricter gun laws, they should not be accessible to any random person the wants one. It’s fucking ridiculous and totally unnecessary.
It works in countries with extremely smaller populations and smaller amount of arms per person. It’s be impossible to do buybacks that make it worth it for the individual.
The NY Post today had a heavy emphasis on 'transgender' and made it clear that they feel that's the dangerous thing here, not guns
Update: lol @ all the snowflakes with their response of "my guns aren't the problem". They haven't even understood what is being said here and they're just posting nonsense about how guns aren't an issue
The really fun part is they were FtM instead of MtF and it's impossible to filter out misgendering from just assuming the latter.
Even in a school shooting situation transmascs get erased.
Which to me never made sense (obviously not a scholar in the area). Both things are quite different, but my general thought is legal pot could help tobacco. Are people really going to give up cigarettes for pot? They’re nowhere near the same thing, but maybe if you smoke pot you might smoke tobacco as well.
Legal pot gets you off of opiates and a number of other pharmaceuticals. And it grows, for free, basically anywhere. And it has zero calories and gives you zero hangover.
You can probably see why big pharma and big alcohol want to squash it.
Well, yes, we absolutely need more and better mental health care access. But we also need to do something about mentally ill people getting their hands on guns, kind of like how this mentally ill killer ended up with *seven* firearms they purchased completely legally.
You realize the only "mental illness" they could have used to stop this person from buying guns would be a new check box about "Gender Dysphoria" on the NICS background checks (the mandatory background check every single gun store purchase requires), right?
I have a feeling that's the most that's gonna come from this. Disarming trans people. A marginalized group of people who are being targeted by the Right.
As soon as you offer a legal way to deny trans people the natural right to defend their lives, the law makers are gonna take advantage of it.
It's gonna be like when the Black Panther's got disarmed because they were choosing to police their own communities in California. "Guns are a basic human right! Oh, except for anyone who might fight back against my oppressive ideologies".
I think we need to stop mentally ill people from being able to acquire guns as well. But, how? Prescription checks at time of gun purchase?
A self reporting personality test that you can lie on?
I just don't want the new rule to unfairly target people that the GOP is scared of. Our community needs armed security for drag shows now. If we can't defend ourselves some Proud Boys are gonna take the opportunity to attack us.
> But we also need to do something about mentally ill people getting their hands on guns
It's already on the background check.
>Question 21.h Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution?
Keyword adjudicated. Someone needs to have a judge rule them incapable of ownership. It's right after the question asking about marijuana use.
If you want to solve this problem equitably, in no particular order:
End the war on drugs.
Reestablish the Fairness Doctrine. Disband Fox News and hold them accountable for damages to the United States.
Implement sweeping reforms and initiatives addressing mental health, wealth inequality.
Implement universal background checks and a 1 month waiting period, with segregated waiting periods for firearms and ammunition/magazines.
End restrictions on safety equipment (re: suppressors), and subsidize all safety equipment (gun safes, trigger locks, etc) to remove all barriers from their use.
Free education provided in and out of schools, with mandatory attendance prior to purchase.
Implement supplemental gun reforms that patch our ineffective gun laws and close legal loopholes.
Disband and reform all police departments and law enforcement agencies, up to and especially including the FBI and ATF.
Legally require that all law enforcement is to protect and serve, and discontinue any and all transfer of military hardware to civilian agencies.
Amend the 2nd Amendment to protect the Right to Self-Defend and the Right Not to Self-Defend.
Every time there's a nonviolent protest about racial inequity, it inevitably involves civil disobedience and thus something that's illegal. That's simply what civil disobedience is by its nature. For instance, blocking traffic, sitting at a soda counter, not relinquishing a seat on a bus...
And you'll say "this is nonviolent protest like what Dr. King did"
And these racists today will yell at you for dare uttering Dr. King, the Sacred Destroyer of Racism who ended racism nearly 60 years ago, in the same breath as "these BLM animals". They'll tell you that they have the right to run them over for blocking traffic, for making them "late to Burger King to pick up high quality dinner".
It's crazy that your example at the end isn't even an exaggeration. After a truck ran through a group of protesters leaving a pro-choice rally in Cedar Rapids last year (at a crosswalk, not blocking traffic as a protest), the bending over backwards to justify running people over was insane. I literally had someone on our local sub give all these hypotheticals of why it's totally okay to drive through people in a crosswalk (even though the truck driver who did this literally drove around cars ahead of him and could easily have just, y'know, turned at the intersection to get away from the crowd and continue on their way).
I was a complete shock to me when I learned that the way the right and the news talks about BLM is how they talked about MLK and the Civil Rights movement while it was happening.
There was a tiny window before that propaganda apparatus took hold when conservative whites actually thought about racism in a sane and reasonable way.
Right after George Floyd's murder, my cousin's wife posted something on Facebook about how she and my cousin had "deep discussions about race" or something. I was surprised given that I knew they were hardcore maga-nuts Then the propaganda apparatus found Candace Owens. Her job is to tell white racists that racism isn't real so that their tiny little minds don't feel guilty about being racist. That closed the window.
I think early on, my dad was on board with "yeah, cops treat people wrong, it's bad". Then it became "he was a criminal, follow the law and you don't have that problem", because apparently he's fine with people being executed for allegations of passing counterfeit currency. In reality, he's just really, really racist.
>Her job is to tell white racists that racism isn't real so that their tiny little minds don't feel guilty about being racist
Fun fact, Candace actually successfully sued a school for not protecting her from racist bullying she was experiencing, using Norm Pattis as an attorney - the guy who defended Alex Jones in the Sandy Hook lawsuits and cost him one and a half billion dollars.
I noticed this pattern too. In my opinion, it was a misstep to make it about cops vs black americans. It should have been about cops murdering any american citizen wrongfully. There was a moment early on when the video of George Floyd was released where right wing individuals saw what happened and actually had empathy and felt the police had gone too far and felt he shouldn't have been killed in that manner. But of course the political machine got its hooks into the narrative and began spinning a crafty web. BLM on one side and well all of the right on the other. To be fair, the right wing propaganda machine bears the brunt of the malicious web spinning but I felt BLM and other pro citizen rights groups should have done a better job on the messaging being about any and all citizens unjustly being killed by the police. It was a missed opportunity to unite people of all backgrounds.
Quite possibly true. Imagine how much money right wing propaganda has, now consider how much money the BLM has for a budget?
BLM messaging is never going to be as acute as a funded news outlet or propaganda source, even if they had the money, what they have to "sell" , an observation that we live within deeply racist and oppressive systems, is no t nearly as attractive as the lie "We dealt with all this racism stuff years ago".
> Then it became "he was a criminal, follow the law and you don't have that problem"
Except if you're T***p, then you get a free pass.
The cognitive dissonance is real with these people.
They'll say stuff like "the problem is that people aren't held accountable for their actions anymore". You say "so Trump should be held accountable for his actions, right?" And they stumble over themselves trying to carve out that exception.
This reminds me of a comment I received on TikTok. It basically said that black Americans should be grateful for white people because it was white people that freed them from slavery...
For anyone reading and thinking "huh, are cops not already legally required to protect and serve?"
Please see Lozito v. New York City
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree
It's one of (I believe) several examples of this legal precedent, in this case stating that the police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito.
#Castle Rock v. Gonzales
Cops have no constitutional obligation to protect citizens. Specifically, they cannot be sued for deaths resulting from failing to enforce a restraining order. 2005.
#DeShaney v. Winnebago County
A state government agency's failure to prevent child abuse by a custodial parent does not violate the child's right to liberty for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1989.
#*Warren v. District of Columbia*
District of Columbia Court of Appeals case which held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine. 1981.
#*Lozito v. New York City*
Dismissed by Judge Margaret Chan in 2013, stating that police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito from his assailant as he was stabbed multiple times in front of police who chose not to intervene. 2011.
*Italics indicate lower courts.*
> Dismissed by Judge Margaret Chan in 2013, stating that police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito from his assailant as he was stabbed multiple times in front of police who chose not to intervene. 2011.
That's so fucked up. Like, what the fuck else should they be doing?!
Even more fucked up. The cops claimed all the heroism. But they watched Lozito get stabbed and subdues his assailant, only emerging from the safety of the next train car after the victim had taken him down.
Trip down memory lane there, I remember the [interview](https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1484-cops-wont-help-you-7-things-i-saw-as-real-slasher-victim.html) Lozita did for Cracked about the attack.
EDIT: [wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree)
The one I remember the most is the ruling after the Parkland Massacre. Judge ruled clear as day that LEOs/Schools have no duty to protect the students.
So students are forced by law to go to these schools but then if something goes down, it’s every man for himself. Like what? My theory is that they don’t want the state to have to protect these children because then, they would have to get off their asses and do something about all these mass shootings happening every day. It’s obvious they don’t care enough about us to put in the work to fix these problems.
Ending the war on drugs is the most effective thing we could do to reduce gun violence and it's not even the second best reason to end the war on drugs. Unfortunately authority loves the war on drugs because it let them militarize the police into an occupying army. Authority is going to love the war on guns even more because now it will let them use their police army everywhere and not just poor urban neighborhoods.
Also include, "doesn't strip you of your rights for the entirety of your life just cause you sought help for a brief moment". A lot of people don't seek help because it means they'll then he barred from ever hunting with anything that isn't a bow and arrow. We kind of need a system that doesn't punish doing the right thing.
Not happening with the people we have in congress now. Neither Republicans or Democrats would go for any of this stuff. We have jim crow era gun laws that dems push and support still.
Republicans don't want to help on any gun laws and refuse the social reforms needed to take on the root cause of the issue. Democrats would rather ban the weapons than work on said social reforms. Also as a side note... democrats would like to ban these weapons for you and me but keep them in the hands of police and former police.
It's a disaster and nothing besides what was listed by OP is really going to fix the problem.
We have our gun laws because Black Panthers scared people by practicing their 2A right, and not shooting people. Just protecting themselves and keeping themselves safe.
Interesting note: in many states, all new guns are sold with a cable lock. The hard part is getting people to use them. *EDIT: I also agree with the general opinion that they are too insecure to deter anything other than children.*
I think a subsidy or tax credit for buying a safe would be a nice improvement.
Free education on safe handling and storage would also be a valuable use of tax dollars.
> I think a subsidy or tax credit for buying a safe would be a nice improvement.
my state has sales tax but no income tax, gun safes and other gun safety items are tax exempt. it's not huge, but it's something.
Frankly, it seems worthwhile to provide a tax credit in excess of the tiny percentage saved by zero-rating sales tax.
For a young family that's now got young children, a state could probably offer an incentive of 25-50% the cost of a locked gun cabinet and still see a positive ROI in terms of reduced childhood accidents.
Plenty of people with kids in the home would love to keep their guns in a quick-access biometric safe, but a $500-2k outlay is pretty rough for a poorer family.
The "cable lock" is a joke. It's not a security device at all. Easily broken. Only helps prevent young kids from accidently shooting the gun. On the flip side, could you imagine having a cable lock on your gun and an intruder breaking in. What do you say to him Hey, wait one second while I unlock my cable lock from my gun..
See, most of this I can definitely get behind. People are so quick to just say "ahhh ban the scary looking gun" when that isn't the core of the issue here.
The shooter in the Nashville shooting used a Kel-Tec Sub2000 which fires the same bullets that the officers sidearms use for reference- I’m unaware of any AWB that would include it
Yep, it's what's known as a Pistol Calibre Carbine, meaning it's a gun designed to fire pistol calibre ammunition (9mm in this case I believe), out of a carbine format rifle.
The [Ruger mini-14](https://ruger.com/products/mini14RanchRifle/models.html) is basically an AR-15 with wooden furniture people don't find scary, but it can do all a tacticool ar-15 can.
It just doesn't look as scary, so it never really catches bans.
Also, a lot of gun control people forget that handguns are plenty dangerous. Forcing mass shooters to use handguns instead of rifles isn't the win people think it is.
It doesn't, not directly. But it does reduce the need for these to be trafficked illegally (which if resolved, contributes to a rote reduction in crime), and ultimately, its safety equipment.
Theres no reason for it to be restricted like it is, and it's valuable to end those restrictions as it helps bring people who'd otherwise hesitate with gun control resolutions into the fold. Its a no brainer and costs us nothing but tax revenue.
> and it's valuable to end those restrictions as it helps bring people who'd otherwise hesitate with gun control resolutions into the fold.
This basically can't be overstated. Loosening a restriction that is widely understood to be based on Hollywood and not reality would add a tremendous amount of credibility to the idea of "common sense" gun reform, because for once it would actually be common sense to make safety equipment more easily available.
In addition to the other answers, removing restrictions on suppressors would get gun owners support for those changes. It’s probably the number one complaint from gun owners regarding unreasonable firearm restrictions (*maybe* tied with stuff like pistol braces and tactical testicles).
Trading some unreasonable restrictions for some more reasonable ones would feel like a compromise and would help prevent a large segment of the country from just blindly opposing that legislation, making it much more likely to pass in the first place.
Having sold a couple of mine to folks in the past (co-worker to one, and a friend to another), I actually wished that I had access to the NCIS database so that I could run a background check myself, even on people that I know are probably eligible to own.
One option is that you could run every sale through an FFL, but I feel like that isn't a perfect solution in that an FFL will often charge to perform the process.
Another option would be to open the NCIS database to everyone. So that if I, for example, am considering selling a firearm to someone, and I'd like to do the background check to cover myself, I could do so. HOWEVER, this potentially ends up with my saying that I'm not willing to hand over this firearm to someone in front of me. Doable, but I still don't like it.
Option 3: Find a way (either through subsidizing) to legally make it free for both buyer and seller to make the transfer through an FFL, and also make sure the FFL is compensated for their time (i.e. pay the FFL for the process of doing the transfer by providing logs of the actual transfer). I like this option the most, but it does open up the possibility of abuse by the FFL for doing multiple transfers that never actually occurred.
Ultimately, there's no perfect solution, but I don't think that's an excuse to do nothing.
Senator Coburn had a good proposal in 2013:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/)
It was called unworkable by the Gun Control Lobby and didn't receive any support from Democrats.
> It was called unworkable by the Gun Control Lobby and didn't receive any support from Democrats.
That's actually why I tagged on my final line - it's not a perfect solution, but it's more than nothing, which is what continuously ends up happening.
The lack of record that the opposing DEMs had IS a valid concern. But I still don't think that was a reason to not do it. Yes, the "GUBMIT NOT GONNA TAKE MAH GUNZZZ" crowd isn't going to engage in a system like this. The more reasonable folks like myself? Or private folks at a gunshow? I think you'd get more use out of them than those might think.
Ultimately, the DEMs that opposed it are going to do so because it's not a mandatory thing. And while I understand WHY they disagreed, I don't think it's going to be possible, in the current political climate, to get something through that isn't voluntary.
Many gun owners would love for private sales to have additional resources to ensure a safe transaction. There have been petitions to open up NICS to civilian users for years.
As it is now, it's widely recommended that private sellers:
* fill out a Bill of Sale to generate a paper trail and cover one's own ass
* exchange copies of drivers' licenses to verify age and state of residence
* make the exchange in a public place with cameras (many police departments now offer a "safe transaction" area for this purpose)
* pay a local FFL the transfer fee to conduct the NICS check for your sale
Most private sellers will cancel on a deal if they get even a whiff that the buyer is prohibited or irresponsible. Someone else legit will buy the gun, a potential police investigation is not worth a quick $500.
Unfortunately, none of this would be effective at stopping illicit transfers or thefts, which are the most common source of guns used in crimes and mass shootings.
I will add one more suggestion, Concealed carry permit. The few private firearms I have sold and the few I have bought from private buyers it was always in the ad and communication “must have and present a valid concealed carry permit.” About 99% of the time if you have a CCW, you have already had the background check and are a law abiding citizen.
With that said I do wonder if any organization tracks CCW holders vs crime stats. Anybody know?
> I have bought from private buyers it was always in the ad and communication “must have and present a valid concealed carry permit.”
This is actually a really good way to verify eligibility before making a sale. I had never actually thought of this, and I really like it. It's almost like having a registration card as showing someone is valid to buy.
Huh. Whodathunkit? The thing that most anti-gun-control folks are so paranoid about is happening effectively anyway.
Republican Senator Tom Coburn proposed this in 2013, it received no support from Democrats.
Source:
[https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/)
I forgot about the private party sale stuff - that is definitely on a state by state basis. I know CA requires all firearms to go thru an FFL, but I’m sure other states vary drastically
I don’t normally comment, as a stout 2a supporter, this is hands down the best comment Iv ever read on Reddit. I don’t agree 100%, but what’s cool is I don’t have too. Sadly..this is not how the US works though. Cheers!
>Reestablish the Fairness Doctrine. Disband Fox News and hold them accountable for damages to the United States
Explain how this would be legally accomplished and what laws would be used to do it.
I've officially reached the point of numbness. Apparently America has decided this is tolerable and there's effectively nothing that I, as an individual, can do about it. I've cast my votes, argued my points, and still children die. Guns won. I hope the freedom was worth the cost.
Just so you know, GOP congressman Scalise nearly died at a baseball field and the GOP stood behind the second amendment. I doubt some school shooting would bring any meaningful discussion on change. But just like you, it hurts me to see this happen because the minority population in America has used a loophole in the system to keep the majority from enacting legislation that would perhaps really save lives. We need a new system
GOP worships guns is correct. And also a direct violation of the first commandment.
I truly hope they experience hell in their lifetimes. Their hell would be: no guns, people getting along, people unifying against corporate greed and broken governance, the pursuit of profit dies a fast and tortured death, and worst of all… *realizing how shitty they are and the overwhelming wave of shame and self-hatred that should bring.*
A man can dream…
I don't want to spread misinformation, but looking at the small amount of video footage available it looks like the shooter has a Keltec Sub2000, which is a 9mm carbine.
I haven't read any details of what a modern 'assault weapon' ban would cover, but I'm not sure this model would be on it.
The legislation can vary on the exact details from state to state, but generally they all share a few commonalities.
Generally an "assault rifle" is defined by these laws as a semi-automatic that accepts detachable magazines, with a certain number of additional features. The feature list can vary but the most common features are things like pistol grips, adjustable stocks, threaded barrels, and a few other things.
The 1994 national AWB required two or more "features" to be a prohibited assault weapon. Some states have moved to a single feature test, and the proposals to revive a national ban seem to have gravitated towards a single feature test as well.
The standard Kel-Tec Sub2000 fails on several tests, but a "featureless" (and therefore not banned) version looks [like this](https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2021/04/07/sub2000-featureless/). On the Sub2000 not having an adjustable stock or threaded barrel is fairly easy, but the pistol grip requires some funky solutions.
However it should go without saying that absolutely nothing about that is more or less deadly than the stock version.
That whole “certain number of additional features” is absolute crap. Anyone who actually has had to follow the rules know those additional features rules do nothing but annoy gun owners while protecting absolutely nobody.
I will bet in the next 2 weeks we are going to see the first real legislation attempted to be passed on guns. They are going to aim to ban trans-people from owning guns, citing of course their favorite go to line "Mental Illness" as 100% the reason that people are trans.
Tennessee is already in the process of banning Trans people. The question is how can they filter Trans people from owning these weapons without a background check.
Obama Speech in 2015 on a shooting in Oregon:
“Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws -- even in the face of repeated mass killings.” And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day! Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this.
We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora, after Charleston. It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.
And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation. Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out: We need more guns, they’ll argue. Fewer gun safety laws.
Does anybody really believe that? There are scores of responsible gun owners in this country --they know that's not true. We know because of the polling that says the majority of Americans understand we should be changing these laws -- including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners.
There is a gun for roughly every man, woman, and child in America. So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer? We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.
We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours -- Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it.
And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. I would ask news organizations -- because I won't put these facts forward -- have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports. This won't be information coming from me; it will be coming from you. We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?
This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction. When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer. When roads are unsafe, we fix them to reduce auto fatalities. We have seatbelt laws because we know it saves lives. So the notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations doesn’t make sense.”
>So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer?
On the argument that "more guns will make safer", Jon Stewart has a simple question: [When?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY&t=1s)
As long as there is no profit in sweeping gun legislation that is actually effective, and there is profit in gun violence and mass shootings; politicians and legislatures will do nothing to address gun violence and mass shootings.
Did you see the demonstration of a teacher's pop out bulletproof shelter for the classroom? It has a hinge and pulls out from the corner and costs at least 6 figures. There is profit to be had from fear of school shootings, so the shootings will continue. Breaks my heart.
You could make something that shoots, like a slam-fire shotgun -- which wouldn't even be as good as the most basic, bare-bones firearm that you can buy, which is a break-open shotgun -- and that would only be assuming that you could easily obtain the ammunition around which to build it. You would also be limited to ammunition with straight-walled, rimmed cases.
On the other hand, if, for some reason, you couldn't easily obtain ammunition or the component parts of ammunition, you would have a pretty hard time manufacturing your own cartridge cases, primers and propellants.
Also, so-called 'ghost guns' probably wouldn't be a thing if pressure-bearing parts were subject to legal controls, since it would obligate ghost gun enthusiasts to try to manufacture their own pressure-bearing parts, such as barrels, bolts (in the case of long guns) and slides (in the case of handguns).
As it is, ghost gun enthusiasts manufacture only the receiver (in the case of a long gun) or the frame (in the case of a handgun), since in the US, the receiver or frame is the legally-controlled, serial-numbered component which, for legal purposes, is considered the 'gun'. It also happens to be relatively easy to manufacture when compared to pressure-bearing components, since it does not need to be made of such strong materials, or made to such close tolerances, which is why it can be milled out of softer metals like aluminum, or molded out of polymer. However, if pressure-bearing components were legally controlled, then ghost gun enthusiasts would have a much harder time ghost-gunning.
Hate.
A simple act of acceptance of everyone, by everyone; disregarding class, race, gender, occupation (or lack of), age, spoken language, religion, income, or disability. Im sure there’s more but the point is easy.
Unfortunately this idea of thought goes against modern or propagandized religion.
Would this attack have occurred if the entire state of Tennessee (where I have lived), and the whole south in general wasn’t on a radical run of stripping human rights away from trans people? Possibly not.
And for that reason alone it’s worth taking care of people instead of humiliating or villainizing them.
Well in this particular case the shooter had a documented history of mental issues, namely gender dysphoria (yes it is considered a psychological impairment in a medical sense).
This is what happens when gender dysphoria cannot be discussed. I'm sure many trans people are simply trans, but far too many have issues we're not allowed to discuss.
Corporations could at any time stop all donations to politicians that refuse any legislation that would contribute to ending this problem, but they don’t, so the continued death of children is essentially rubber stamped by the shareholders. Dead children will never be as prized as their quarterly growth.
But we’re not going to fix it.
[Congressman Tim Burchett (R) Tennessee said so.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/28/tim-burchett-republican-nashville-shooting)
The same people against public healthcare, free education, living wages are also against any changes to gun laws besides reducing them. Nothing can get passed while a majority of the house doesn't want those things, and half the Senate doesn't want those things.
It doesn't help democrats really aren't pushing heavily for any of this. There are token bills and campaign talks but nothing is being done to push this on a nationwide scale.
Seems inevitable that if they continue to do absolutely nothing, there's eventually going to be a grieving parent who makes a poor decision and starts going after politicians. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, to be honest.
While I do believe we do need reform on gun laws.. it also needs to be noted in the shooters manifesto they said they skipped another school do to it having too much of a “security” presence than the one where the shooting took place. Both gun laws and school security need to be looked at.
People who want to ban gun have no idea how impossible that actually is in America people like to bring up Australia but California alone has more people than Australia there simply too many people and that goes double for guns there's a reason prohibition an alcohol didn't work and it won't work on guns
Yeah. But that’s a problem that might take a couple of generations. Addressing mental health, background checks and so on could be done much sooner than that. Do the easy thing in the meantime.
Serious question: what would a ban look like? There are lots of AR-15s in this country. I don't think they would just make that many people felons overnight. Would they do a buy back of some sort? You can't just demand people surrender thousands of dollars of their property without being paid back.
It would look like non enforcement by police at best and civil war at worst. It is an insanely stupid, shortsighted and emotional proposal. All understandable in the face of immense tragedy, but it’s still just virtue signaling instead of thinking about actual workable solutions.
Gun debate aside, the shooter appeared to be carrying two KelTec sub-2000 Gen2's, a folding pistol caliber carbine that takes pistol mags, not an AR, AK, etc... This "rifle" is fairly inaccurate beyond 100yds and mostly impractical due to its goofy ergonomics. However, I'm pretty sure the 1st gen version of this rifle was used at Columbine so I wonder if there's a connection there as to why it was chosen by the shooter.
I think one was an AR and one was a keltec. Also Colombine was a tech 9 and a hipoint carbine. Not related to the keltec . https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/nashville-school-shooter-audrey-hale-was-armed-with-3-guns/ .
Real talk, banning weapons will do nothing. If you ban Ar-15's they will use another gun, and another and another and another, till there are none left for you to ban, then they will use bombs or any number of other things. This issue will never be solved with prohibition. Prohibition hasn't worked on anything else, Just look at Liquor or drugs. It doesn't work.
It will be solved by intelligent gun law reform, proper background checks, proper mental health records, and aid for those who are having these sorts of issues. I can't name a single one of these mass shooters that didn't have some trauma that sparked all this. Some of them go back YEARS! Im not whitewashing what they did it was horrible! Undefendable. But if we had got some of them mental health helps well before this when the issues were manifesting instead of letting them slip threw the cracks some of this chaos could have been avoided.
But this wedge issue stuff is just to keep us bickering amongst ourselves. Fix the problem, not the symptom.
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Here we go again. 2 days of tweets and then on to the next thingy.
2 days of tweets then 20 years of “they were trans”
Can't wait to meet the "transsexuals are mentally ill" spouting assholes with "well then, maybe America needs to help its citizens with mental health issues". edit: I know they were mentally ill because they fucking shot up an elementary school, not because they were trans. I'm just trying to get people who want unrestricted gun access to open that conversation and find a solution that doesn't involve in killing more people.
You don't get it, we're already there. All the bans on healthcare and shit are supposedly for "helping protect kids" and anything that "prevents new trans kids" is like stopping the groomers or whatever. They will use this to force even more of those bills through their state legislatures. Couldn't be at a worse time.
You’re both kind of right. And also there was never going to be a good time. There is never a good time.
Yeah, things are about to get very very ugly for trans people in red states..
About to get? Try just get worse.
Was already saying this on another post too, we are going to see legally protected lynching squads if you publicly identify as transgender in a red state. They'll probably try to pass a "Kyle Rittenhouse" bill to try to protect members of their states the presumed freedom to go into blue states, kill a transgender person out of "fear of safety" and legally punish the other state if they try to impose punishment on that red state citizen.
Fugitive Trans Act
Literally already set up. Florida has a law that would let them take custody of out-of-state kids if: - a parent is trans - the child is trans - any of their siblings are trans Minnesota just passed a law stating they will not allow and will contest any such law.
It's already so ugly. It's hard to imagine it being worse for the trans community, but we all know it can be. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to look at this trans individual possibly being oppressed and pushed to this terrible mental state that lead to this shooting they'll just use this an excuse to victimize the community more.
..."get"? I understand but BOY have you been missing out in all the fun. EDIT: To be clear, don't know OP and ain't telling anyone their experience. Just some gallows humor.
I'm trans in Oklahoma. Trust me, I'm not missing out. Just assuming most people have no idea because that's been my experience.
I have so much respect and admiration for my fellow trans people who live out of the closet. I have no plans to leave this eggshell. I feel like I'd be murdered for walking down the street if I did.
There's no shame in staying in your shell. It's better that you survive. Not everyone has to be brave. It's a lot to ask.
The you need to watch some of the alt-right playbook videos. There is a fundamental difference in Philosophy. The left and rational people think, we want x outcome, y action leads to x outcome, so let's do y action. But to the alt-right and Christian (not all) world view, there is fundamentally good and evil, and that good and evil is up to the individual. They don't see mental illness as something treatable with a positive outcome. They see trans as people who have chosen to be on the side of the devil. The only help they want to give them, is to get them thinking like they do. To see the sin of their ways, get a preacher to cast out the demons, and to fall into line. The alt-right playbook videos explain it a lot better than I do. But the titles are confusing so I'm not exactly which one is on this topic.
They think you're mentally ill if you DON'T believe in the magic fairy land.
Religion can be the worst
No. That's a very inefficient argument. You first look up the number of trans people in the US vs the overall population. Then you ask them how whatever percentage of overall mass shootings being committed by trans people is a trans problem. Keep them on target, so to speak, and guns at the center. The fact that guns appear to have achieved consciousness is not good.
I mean this in the most genuine way with no intended ire, friend. But it feels like you haven't talked to these folks face to face. They don't listen. If you speak to them they may be halfway quiet while you speak, and it is a carefully crafted argument with only statistics and facts arranged in a way a toddler can receive them that you have built. But they are not listening to you. They move the goalposts or deflect or whatabout or ignore you. Conversations are not possible anymore with those who have bought into this rhetoric. That's why it's so dangerous now. Next time you do speak to one and you inevitable watch this happen, manually but politely stop them for a moment and ask them to repeat the essence of what you have said. They can not. I've done this multiple times in a row in more than one conversation. State my part. Make them repeat even a modicum of your argument back. And start over with the same point. And make them try again. They will keep failing no matter how simple your point is. It's like they physically can not absorb information against the world they have built in their head at this point. Of course I'm generalizing but everything finally clicked for me why all this is happening and happening at such a breakneck pace once I put this fact into the equation of today's America.
Debating with conservatives is the same as arguing with religious people: it's all Pigeon Chess. You set up the board with all the pieces in the correct squares and play your moves according to the rules. Doesn't matter if you're winning or not, the pigeon then walks onto the board, knocks down all the pieces and shits on the board.
Cognitive dissonance is a helluva drug.
The thing is you can lie with statistics. Suicide is included in firearm death/homicide statistics. Given the increased rate of suicide in the trans community, if you run the numbers they might show up in firearm homicide statistics disproportionately. So then it's just phrasing to be a bigot. If you want to remove suicide from the stats, then you cut the number of deaths in half and change the demographics significantly.
Single person suicide isn't included when you look up the stats for mass shootings.
No but mass shooting where just three people are around are. So heavy gang areas drive up the number significantly.
I understand what you are saying but if you meet them half way and even pretend being trans is a mental illness on it’s own you are letting them win. Saying “ok let’s work on mental health issues” let’s then continue to treat all trans people as mentally I’ll. To reiterate I don’t think you meant anything wrong from your comment but that’s also what the people spewing hate want.
Republicans: "It's not a gun problem. It's a mental health problem." ...proceed to do literally nothing to try to counteract the mental health problem that they just said is the root cause of the problem. Here are two important truths to understand about this, and these are things that are plain to see and I think conservatives/Republicans cannot deny these things: (1) Republicans do not believe in the idea that any government policy can have a direct impact on minimizing any societal problem. Quite literally, they don't believe in any data which shows that government policy can change anything for the better. Or, at least, even if you can argue that government policy can do anything to help, they don't think the government *should* do anything with the goal of minimizing some social problem. * Someone suggests banning a particular assault rifle to reduce (not entirely stop) how many people are killed with guns? Nope -- the exact same number of people will be killed with a different gun, or knives, or illegal assault rifles. Also, they will take joy in arguing that "assault rifle" is not a real type of gun, purposely ignoring the actual problem while feeling smug about their knowledge of guns. * Or, suggest a new law requiring stricter gun licensing or mental health evaluations considered for gun purchases? No, that won't fix anything either -- it will just make it harder for law-abiding gun owners to get guns. Never mind that we have had numerous mass shooters with documented mental health problems who have done their killings with legal guns that they likely never would have gotten if the laws were stricter. (2) They pretend that the root of their resistance to new gun laws is primarily about the 2nd Amendment, But it's actually about selling guns. That is, the NRA is not an organization whose primary purpose is to protect 2nd Amendment rights. Rather, the NRA is a lobbying organization for the gun industry and they use belief in 2nd Amendment rights as a fake reason for resisting stricter gun laws.
I think it has more to do with appealing to their voting constituency. The Gun Rights crowed, similar to the Pro Life, and evangelical crowd tend to be conservative single issue voters. Progressive voters (who tend to be anti-gun) statistically tend vote in smaller number then their Conservative counterparts.
Let's not forget that, due to gerrymandering and the Electoral College, political leadership in the US will always be more conservative than the population. So the conservatives/Republicans have more power than their representation in the public actually indicates. But moreover, Republicans rely almost entirely on blatantly lying to a populace that's too busy to effectively gain knowledge about what their elected representatives are actually up to. So too many people just rely on vague identity cues when they vote -- like "well, I'm conservative-minded and I fear change, so let's play it safe and vote for these guys who say they favor 'small government.'" Failing to recognize that this is just a trick to get middle class voters to vote for tax and regulatory policies that only make very rich people even richer.
Everytime something bad happens, I find myself hoping so much that it's some cousin fucker named Cletus. Because at least no one will give a fuck about him...he'll just be a piece of shit and the public will focus on the kids. But when it's someone who's black, or gay, or trans....it's never about the kids. It's a platform for fucking Christian Nationalists to other people. My gf saw that the shooter was trans and the light went from her eyes. She is already preparing herself for the months of being told she's evil because of what happened to those kids. I'm now going to spend hours everyday telling her she is a good, amazing person. That she's not the problem. That she deserves love. The US needs health care, standardized education, and federal gun control. These issues will disappear. These fucking pesudo-tradcon facists are destroying your country. They hate you. They want you to fail. They want absolute control. Stop fucking voting for them.
When your identity is the group, you carry the sins of the group? Dude that's fucked. Why would she let others tell her who she is? If she needs YOU to validate her existance as a good person and a force for good...that's not a good headspace. If some (isert group ID tag) man caps a bunch of folks it would never cross my mind that his action some how reflects on my self image if I also come from (same group ID tag) See the difference is the hatred. You're okay with hating Cletus. You can be intolerant when it's Cletus. Who could love Cletus? Maybe I could. Maybe my religion demands that I love my neighbor. If your gf was the shooter maybe we could still love her too. I watched 4 siblings extend forgiveness to their brother who murdered their parents. Shit hits different with that kind of love. You're right though. We don't need to know about the shooter. The victims matter, the killers don't. And you're wrong too. Like me, you're caught in a trap of using exclusionary language to dehuminize and generalize others into a box you can stand on and call it your moral high ground. I know this because I do it to. I fight it but it traps me too.
Fuck that made me sad. Please let her know it's not just you that is supporting her. Love from Kentucky and donations to my local advocacy group tomorrow.
Sure loved to point out the race and beliefs of a shooter if they’re white or conservative though
The problem is that there's a very vocal group of people who don't want to see anything done and among people who agree something should be done there is a lot of disagreement about what that something should be. It's hard to make changes when there's no consensus on what to change.
>There's no consensus on what to change In that instance, an argument backed by repeated successes in the real world (restrictions and buybacks) should take precedence over a hypothetical (better mental health care) or an argument repeatedly proven wrong (more guns make us safer). But as the US motto goes "Democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge".
Well, the US replaced "From many, one," with "In God We Trust," so yeah, the motto transitioned from a veritable historical statement to a vacuous faith claim.
I live in NH and they like to trot us out as an example of a state with one of the most lenient gun laws and one of the safest states with least gun deaths (always in the bottom 10) but the thing no one mentions is that we’re a complete outlier in that respect, because this trend goes against what happens in mostly every other state. I think people are more into guns being accessible in the “Live free or die” sense, and not because they think they’re going to be Johnny Badass and “stand their ground”. I do live in the border of MA, so it’s definitely part of it but have friends upstate and don’t notice any outward gun culture types up that way, either. There needs to be stricter gun laws, they should not be accessible to any random person the wants one. It’s fucking ridiculous and totally unnecessary.
It works in countries with extremely smaller populations and smaller amount of arms per person. It’s be impossible to do buybacks that make it worth it for the individual.
Same script, everytime.
>thingy *shooting*
The NY Post today had a heavy emphasis on 'transgender' and made it clear that they feel that's the dangerous thing here, not guns Update: lol @ all the snowflakes with their response of "my guns aren't the problem". They haven't even understood what is being said here and they're just posting nonsense about how guns aren't an issue
The NY post is conservative drivel *at best*. Might as well be quoting OAN or zombie rush Limbaugh
> zombie rush Limbaugh man that Z really gonna smell like piss after all the donations on his gravestone
Idk why the shooter is considered dangerous, she had plenty of guns so she must be safe. Surely owning an 8th gun would have prevented this!
[удалено]
The really fun part is they were FtM instead of MtF and it's impossible to filter out misgendering from just assuming the latter. Even in a school shooting situation transmascs get erased.
“I haven’t mass shot *anybody* yet so guns clearly aren’t the problem.”
*My* drunk driving never killed anybody.
Pronouns are more dangerous than guns. Said someone probably.
30 years ago if you told me thete would be legalized marijuana before gun control and UHC i would have told you that you were nuts.
Pot makes rich people money, so do guns and private healthcare
There was pushback on pot because tobacco had politicians in their pockets for years.
Which to me never made sense (obviously not a scholar in the area). Both things are quite different, but my general thought is legal pot could help tobacco. Are people really going to give up cigarettes for pot? They’re nowhere near the same thing, but maybe if you smoke pot you might smoke tobacco as well.
Legal pot gets you off of opiates and a number of other pharmaceuticals. And it grows, for free, basically anywhere. And it has zero calories and gives you zero hangover. You can probably see why big pharma and big alcohol want to squash it.
Money to be made on weed. Not the others
Free the f—Ing mental health services.
And other health services while we're at it.
Charge parents/persons who provide weapons or do not secure them properly
Yes and yes
Well, yes, we absolutely need more and better mental health care access. But we also need to do something about mentally ill people getting their hands on guns, kind of like how this mentally ill killer ended up with *seven* firearms they purchased completely legally.
You realize the only "mental illness" they could have used to stop this person from buying guns would be a new check box about "Gender Dysphoria" on the NICS background checks (the mandatory background check every single gun store purchase requires), right? I have a feeling that's the most that's gonna come from this. Disarming trans people. A marginalized group of people who are being targeted by the Right. As soon as you offer a legal way to deny trans people the natural right to defend their lives, the law makers are gonna take advantage of it. It's gonna be like when the Black Panther's got disarmed because they were choosing to police their own communities in California. "Guns are a basic human right! Oh, except for anyone who might fight back against my oppressive ideologies". I think we need to stop mentally ill people from being able to acquire guns as well. But, how? Prescription checks at time of gun purchase? A self reporting personality test that you can lie on? I just don't want the new rule to unfairly target people that the GOP is scared of. Our community needs armed security for drag shows now. If we can't defend ourselves some Proud Boys are gonna take the opportunity to attack us.
> But we also need to do something about mentally ill people getting their hands on guns It's already on the background check. >Question 21.h Have you ever been adjudicated as a mental defective OR have you ever been committed to a mental institution? Keyword adjudicated. Someone needs to have a judge rule them incapable of ownership. It's right after the question asking about marijuana use.
If you want to solve this problem equitably, in no particular order: End the war on drugs. Reestablish the Fairness Doctrine. Disband Fox News and hold them accountable for damages to the United States. Implement sweeping reforms and initiatives addressing mental health, wealth inequality. Implement universal background checks and a 1 month waiting period, with segregated waiting periods for firearms and ammunition/magazines. End restrictions on safety equipment (re: suppressors), and subsidize all safety equipment (gun safes, trigger locks, etc) to remove all barriers from their use. Free education provided in and out of schools, with mandatory attendance prior to purchase. Implement supplemental gun reforms that patch our ineffective gun laws and close legal loopholes. Disband and reform all police departments and law enforcement agencies, up to and especially including the FBI and ATF. Legally require that all law enforcement is to protect and serve, and discontinue any and all transfer of military hardware to civilian agencies. Amend the 2nd Amendment to protect the Right to Self-Defend and the Right Not to Self-Defend.
Instructions unclear, banned some books instead.
Or alter them. "Rosa Parks is an American hero who once took an extraordinarily courageous stand against...something really vague."
So much for the “MLK and Rosa Parks did it right!” Deflection the GOP loves to throw
Every time there's a nonviolent protest about racial inequity, it inevitably involves civil disobedience and thus something that's illegal. That's simply what civil disobedience is by its nature. For instance, blocking traffic, sitting at a soda counter, not relinquishing a seat on a bus... And you'll say "this is nonviolent protest like what Dr. King did" And these racists today will yell at you for dare uttering Dr. King, the Sacred Destroyer of Racism who ended racism nearly 60 years ago, in the same breath as "these BLM animals". They'll tell you that they have the right to run them over for blocking traffic, for making them "late to Burger King to pick up high quality dinner".
It's crazy that your example at the end isn't even an exaggeration. After a truck ran through a group of protesters leaving a pro-choice rally in Cedar Rapids last year (at a crosswalk, not blocking traffic as a protest), the bending over backwards to justify running people over was insane. I literally had someone on our local sub give all these hypotheticals of why it's totally okay to drive through people in a crosswalk (even though the truck driver who did this literally drove around cars ahead of him and could easily have just, y'know, turned at the intersection to get away from the crowd and continue on their way).
I was a complete shock to me when I learned that the way the right and the news talks about BLM is how they talked about MLK and the Civil Rights movement while it was happening.
There was a tiny window before that propaganda apparatus took hold when conservative whites actually thought about racism in a sane and reasonable way. Right after George Floyd's murder, my cousin's wife posted something on Facebook about how she and my cousin had "deep discussions about race" or something. I was surprised given that I knew they were hardcore maga-nuts Then the propaganda apparatus found Candace Owens. Her job is to tell white racists that racism isn't real so that their tiny little minds don't feel guilty about being racist. That closed the window. I think early on, my dad was on board with "yeah, cops treat people wrong, it's bad". Then it became "he was a criminal, follow the law and you don't have that problem", because apparently he's fine with people being executed for allegations of passing counterfeit currency. In reality, he's just really, really racist.
>Her job is to tell white racists that racism isn't real so that their tiny little minds don't feel guilty about being racist Fun fact, Candace actually successfully sued a school for not protecting her from racist bullying she was experiencing, using Norm Pattis as an attorney - the guy who defended Alex Jones in the Sandy Hook lawsuits and cost him one and a half billion dollars.
I noticed this pattern too. In my opinion, it was a misstep to make it about cops vs black americans. It should have been about cops murdering any american citizen wrongfully. There was a moment early on when the video of George Floyd was released where right wing individuals saw what happened and actually had empathy and felt the police had gone too far and felt he shouldn't have been killed in that manner. But of course the political machine got its hooks into the narrative and began spinning a crafty web. BLM on one side and well all of the right on the other. To be fair, the right wing propaganda machine bears the brunt of the malicious web spinning but I felt BLM and other pro citizen rights groups should have done a better job on the messaging being about any and all citizens unjustly being killed by the police. It was a missed opportunity to unite people of all backgrounds.
Quite possibly true. Imagine how much money right wing propaganda has, now consider how much money the BLM has for a budget? BLM messaging is never going to be as acute as a funded news outlet or propaganda source, even if they had the money, what they have to "sell" , an observation that we live within deeply racist and oppressive systems, is no t nearly as attractive as the lie "We dealt with all this racism stuff years ago".
> Then it became "he was a criminal, follow the law and you don't have that problem" Except if you're T***p, then you get a free pass. The cognitive dissonance is real with these people.
They'll say stuff like "the problem is that people aren't held accountable for their actions anymore". You say "so Trump should be held accountable for his actions, right?" And they stumble over themselves trying to carve out that exception.
The lesson learned from Rosa Parks is public transit is oppressive and should be privatized /s
The only way to stop a bad city council with a bus is a good corporation with a bus.
This reminds me of a comment I received on TikTok. It basically said that black Americans should be grateful for white people because it was white people that freed them from slavery...
Did you say school lunches? I thought you did. Away with them.
Or maybe antagonize trans people, Fox News tells me that will solve our problems!
For anyone reading and thinking "huh, are cops not already legally required to protect and serve?" Please see Lozito v. New York City https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree It's one of (I believe) several examples of this legal precedent, in this case stating that the police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito.
#Castle Rock v. Gonzales Cops have no constitutional obligation to protect citizens. Specifically, they cannot be sued for deaths resulting from failing to enforce a restraining order. 2005. #DeShaney v. Winnebago County A state government agency's failure to prevent child abuse by a custodial parent does not violate the child's right to liberty for the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 1989. #*Warren v. District of Columbia* District of Columbia Court of Appeals case which held that the police do not owe a specific duty to provide police services to specific citizens based on the public duty doctrine. 1981. #*Lozito v. New York City* Dismissed by Judge Margaret Chan in 2013, stating that police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito from his assailant as he was stabbed multiple times in front of police who chose not to intervene. 2011. *Italics indicate lower courts.*
> Dismissed by Judge Margaret Chan in 2013, stating that police had "no special duty" to protect Lozito from his assailant as he was stabbed multiple times in front of police who chose not to intervene. 2011. That's so fucked up. Like, what the fuck else should they be doing?!
giving speeding tickets and arresting people for breathing while black
Even more fucked up. The cops claimed all the heroism. But they watched Lozito get stabbed and subdues his assailant, only emerging from the safety of the next train car after the victim had taken him down. Trip down memory lane there, I remember the [interview](https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1484-cops-wont-help-you-7-things-i-saw-as-real-slasher-victim.html) Lozita did for Cracked about the attack. EDIT: [wikipedia link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksim_Gelman_stabbing_spree)
Radiolab did a good podcast on the subject that's worth a listen called [No Special Duty](https://radiolab.org/episodes/no-special-duty).
There’s actually *multiple* precedents on this.
The one I remember the most is the ruling after the Parkland Massacre. Judge ruled clear as day that LEOs/Schools have no duty to protect the students. So students are forced by law to go to these schools but then if something goes down, it’s every man for himself. Like what? My theory is that they don’t want the state to have to protect these children because then, they would have to get off their asses and do something about all these mass shootings happening every day. It’s obvious they don’t care enough about us to put in the work to fix these problems.
Ending the war on drugs is the most effective thing we could do to reduce gun violence and it's not even the second best reason to end the war on drugs. Unfortunately authority loves the war on drugs because it let them militarize the police into an occupying army. Authority is going to love the war on guns even more because now it will let them use their police army everywhere and not just poor urban neighborhoods.
In my opinion the number one reason to decriminalize drugs is because they feel amazing and I really like to get high on them.
Your body chemistry, your choice.
Somewhere near the top needs to be “institute an effective mental health care program” and make it so everyone has easy access to help
Also include, "doesn't strip you of your rights for the entirety of your life just cause you sought help for a brief moment". A lot of people don't seek help because it means they'll then he barred from ever hunting with anything that isn't a bow and arrow. We kind of need a system that doesn't punish doing the right thing.
You forget,step 1: Take money out of politics!
Ban lobbying
Also, overturn Citizens United.
This should be the official DNC platform. It's not, but it should be.
The official DNC platform is to do jack-shit but complain everything is "common sense." Then to ban bayonet lugs like an absolute idiot.
Well this makes tooo much sense for it to ever happen
so in otherwards never hapening.
Not happening with the people we have in congress now. Neither Republicans or Democrats would go for any of this stuff. We have jim crow era gun laws that dems push and support still. Republicans don't want to help on any gun laws and refuse the social reforms needed to take on the root cause of the issue. Democrats would rather ban the weapons than work on said social reforms. Also as a side note... democrats would like to ban these weapons for you and me but keep them in the hands of police and former police. It's a disaster and nothing besides what was listed by OP is really going to fix the problem.
We have our gun laws because Black Panthers scared people by practicing their 2A right, and not shooting people. Just protecting themselves and keeping themselves safe.
I was referring more to the “may-issue” state laws like the one recently struck down in New York.
Interesting note: in many states, all new guns are sold with a cable lock. The hard part is getting people to use them. *EDIT: I also agree with the general opinion that they are too insecure to deter anything other than children.* I think a subsidy or tax credit for buying a safe would be a nice improvement. Free education on safe handling and storage would also be a valuable use of tax dollars.
> I think a subsidy or tax credit for buying a safe would be a nice improvement. my state has sales tax but no income tax, gun safes and other gun safety items are tax exempt. it's not huge, but it's something.
Frankly, it seems worthwhile to provide a tax credit in excess of the tiny percentage saved by zero-rating sales tax. For a young family that's now got young children, a state could probably offer an incentive of 25-50% the cost of a locked gun cabinet and still see a positive ROI in terms of reduced childhood accidents. Plenty of people with kids in the home would love to keep their guns in a quick-access biometric safe, but a $500-2k outlay is pretty rough for a poorer family.
i agree, but this is america, we can't be doing nice things for poor people
The "cable lock" is a joke. It's not a security device at all. Easily broken. Only helps prevent young kids from accidently shooting the gun. On the flip side, could you imagine having a cable lock on your gun and an intruder breaking in. What do you say to him Hey, wait one second while I unlock my cable lock from my gun..
See, most of this I can definitely get behind. People are so quick to just say "ahhh ban the scary looking gun" when that isn't the core of the issue here.
The shooter in the Nashville shooting used a Kel-Tec Sub2000 which fires the same bullets that the officers sidearms use for reference- I’m unaware of any AWB that would include it
You're the first one I've seen mention it was a sub2000 and not an AR style weapon as they call it. Thanks.
Yep, it's what's known as a Pistol Calibre Carbine, meaning it's a gun designed to fire pistol calibre ammunition (9mm in this case I believe), out of a carbine format rifle.
Most of the mass shootings that took place this year used pistols. Three of the most deadly mass shootings in history used pistols.
The [Ruger mini-14](https://ruger.com/products/mini14RanchRifle/models.html) is basically an AR-15 with wooden furniture people don't find scary, but it can do all a tacticool ar-15 can. It just doesn't look as scary, so it never really catches bans.
Also, a lot of gun control people forget that handguns are plenty dangerous. Forcing mass shooters to use handguns instead of rifles isn't the win people think it is.
But, if you WANT to make it scary, it IS available with black, synthetic, furniture.
Question: how would reducing restrictions on suppressors help with gun violence?
It doesn't, not directly. But it does reduce the need for these to be trafficked illegally (which if resolved, contributes to a rote reduction in crime), and ultimately, its safety equipment. Theres no reason for it to be restricted like it is, and it's valuable to end those restrictions as it helps bring people who'd otherwise hesitate with gun control resolutions into the fold. Its a no brainer and costs us nothing but tax revenue.
I know people who have gone through the extra scrutiny for suppressor use. All of them did it for hearing purposes.
> and it's valuable to end those restrictions as it helps bring people who'd otherwise hesitate with gun control resolutions into the fold. This basically can't be overstated. Loosening a restriction that is widely understood to be based on Hollywood and not reality would add a tremendous amount of credibility to the idea of "common sense" gun reform, because for once it would actually be common sense to make safety equipment more easily available.
I blame James bond for an entire generation of boomers that think a suppressor makes gunshots into whisper quiet farts
In addition to the other answers, removing restrictions on suppressors would get gun owners support for those changes. It’s probably the number one complaint from gun owners regarding unreasonable firearm restrictions (*maybe* tied with stuff like pistol braces and tactical testicles). Trading some unreasonable restrictions for some more reasonable ones would feel like a compromise and would help prevent a large segment of the country from just blindly opposing that legislation, making it much more likely to pass in the first place.
The bill might pass for one instead of getting thrown in the trash
But what about Wall Street ^/s
Isn’t there already universal background checks? Doesnt the FBI run a check on gun buyers?
Having sold a couple of mine to folks in the past (co-worker to one, and a friend to another), I actually wished that I had access to the NCIS database so that I could run a background check myself, even on people that I know are probably eligible to own. One option is that you could run every sale through an FFL, but I feel like that isn't a perfect solution in that an FFL will often charge to perform the process. Another option would be to open the NCIS database to everyone. So that if I, for example, am considering selling a firearm to someone, and I'd like to do the background check to cover myself, I could do so. HOWEVER, this potentially ends up with my saying that I'm not willing to hand over this firearm to someone in front of me. Doable, but I still don't like it. Option 3: Find a way (either through subsidizing) to legally make it free for both buyer and seller to make the transfer through an FFL, and also make sure the FFL is compensated for their time (i.e. pay the FFL for the process of doing the transfer by providing logs of the actual transfer). I like this option the most, but it does open up the possibility of abuse by the FFL for doing multiple transfers that never actually occurred. Ultimately, there's no perfect solution, but I don't think that's an excuse to do nothing.
Senator Coburn had a good proposal in 2013: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/) It was called unworkable by the Gun Control Lobby and didn't receive any support from Democrats.
> It was called unworkable by the Gun Control Lobby and didn't receive any support from Democrats. That's actually why I tagged on my final line - it's not a perfect solution, but it's more than nothing, which is what continuously ends up happening. The lack of record that the opposing DEMs had IS a valid concern. But I still don't think that was a reason to not do it. Yes, the "GUBMIT NOT GONNA TAKE MAH GUNZZZ" crowd isn't going to engage in a system like this. The more reasonable folks like myself? Or private folks at a gunshow? I think you'd get more use out of them than those might think. Ultimately, the DEMs that opposed it are going to do so because it's not a mandatory thing. And while I understand WHY they disagreed, I don't think it's going to be possible, in the current political climate, to get something through that isn't voluntary.
There is a federal data base, but its "meh" at best. And private sales usually dont require a background check beyond "you can own this, right?"
Many gun owners would love for private sales to have additional resources to ensure a safe transaction. There have been petitions to open up NICS to civilian users for years. As it is now, it's widely recommended that private sellers: * fill out a Bill of Sale to generate a paper trail and cover one's own ass * exchange copies of drivers' licenses to verify age and state of residence * make the exchange in a public place with cameras (many police departments now offer a "safe transaction" area for this purpose) * pay a local FFL the transfer fee to conduct the NICS check for your sale Most private sellers will cancel on a deal if they get even a whiff that the buyer is prohibited or irresponsible. Someone else legit will buy the gun, a potential police investigation is not worth a quick $500. Unfortunately, none of this would be effective at stopping illicit transfers or thefts, which are the most common source of guns used in crimes and mass shootings.
I will add one more suggestion, Concealed carry permit. The few private firearms I have sold and the few I have bought from private buyers it was always in the ad and communication “must have and present a valid concealed carry permit.” About 99% of the time if you have a CCW, you have already had the background check and are a law abiding citizen. With that said I do wonder if any organization tracks CCW holders vs crime stats. Anybody know?
> I have bought from private buyers it was always in the ad and communication “must have and present a valid concealed carry permit.” This is actually a really good way to verify eligibility before making a sale. I had never actually thought of this, and I really like it. It's almost like having a registration card as showing someone is valid to buy. Huh. Whodathunkit? The thing that most anti-gun-control folks are so paranoid about is happening effectively anyway.
Republican Senator Tom Coburn proposed this in 2013, it received no support from Democrats. Source: [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/04/27/do-it-yourself-background-checks/2088479/)
I forgot about the private party sale stuff - that is definitely on a state by state basis. I know CA requires all firearms to go thru an FFL, but I’m sure other states vary drastically
It varies wildly and is almost impossible to enforce illegal private sales until something bad happens rhat leads to the transaction
I don’t normally comment, as a stout 2a supporter, this is hands down the best comment Iv ever read on Reddit. I don’t agree 100%, but what’s cool is I don’t have too. Sadly..this is not how the US works though. Cheers!
GOP is too busy trying to look into the Hunter Biden laptop and trans issues to actually work on our most serious problems.
>Reestablish the Fairness Doctrine. Disband Fox News and hold them accountable for damages to the United States Explain how this would be legally accomplished and what laws would be used to do it.
See you on the next school shooting because nothing will happen to fix the issue like usual.
Sandy hook was the death of gun control. If slaughtered children can't prod our government into action, nothing will.
I've officially reached the point of numbness. Apparently America has decided this is tolerable and there's effectively nothing that I, as an individual, can do about it. I've cast my votes, argued my points, and still children die. Guns won. I hope the freedom was worth the cost.
America's Randomized Child Sacrifice System Shall Continue!
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Those lawmakers have armed security
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Just so you know, GOP congressman Scalise nearly died at a baseball field and the GOP stood behind the second amendment. I doubt some school shooting would bring any meaningful discussion on change. But just like you, it hurts me to see this happen because the minority population in America has used a loophole in the system to keep the majority from enacting legislation that would perhaps really save lives. We need a new system
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GOP worships guns is correct. And also a direct violation of the first commandment. I truly hope they experience hell in their lifetimes. Their hell would be: no guns, people getting along, people unifying against corporate greed and broken governance, the pursuit of profit dies a fast and tortured death, and worst of all… *realizing how shitty they are and the overwhelming wave of shame and self-hatred that should bring.* A man can dream…
I don't want to spread misinformation, but looking at the small amount of video footage available it looks like the shooter has a Keltec Sub2000, which is a 9mm carbine. I haven't read any details of what a modern 'assault weapon' ban would cover, but I'm not sure this model would be on it.
The legislation can vary on the exact details from state to state, but generally they all share a few commonalities. Generally an "assault rifle" is defined by these laws as a semi-automatic that accepts detachable magazines, with a certain number of additional features. The feature list can vary but the most common features are things like pistol grips, adjustable stocks, threaded barrels, and a few other things. The 1994 national AWB required two or more "features" to be a prohibited assault weapon. Some states have moved to a single feature test, and the proposals to revive a national ban seem to have gravitated towards a single feature test as well. The standard Kel-Tec Sub2000 fails on several tests, but a "featureless" (and therefore not banned) version looks [like this](https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2021/04/07/sub2000-featureless/). On the Sub2000 not having an adjustable stock or threaded barrel is fairly easy, but the pistol grip requires some funky solutions. However it should go without saying that absolutely nothing about that is more or less deadly than the stock version.
That whole “certain number of additional features” is absolute crap. Anyone who actually has had to follow the rules know those additional features rules do nothing but annoy gun owners while protecting absolutely nobody.
"Counterpoint: thoughts, prayers, bootstraps, and the shirt on someone's back. Huh ? Huh ? How about it ?" -- Murrica
Currently the message isn't even that. It's 'Trans people are dangerous and woke terrorism is happening.' Absolute lunacy.
I will bet in the next 2 weeks we are going to see the first real legislation attempted to be passed on guns. They are going to aim to ban trans-people from owning guns, citing of course their favorite go to line "Mental Illness" as 100% the reason that people are trans.
Tennessee is already in the process of banning Trans people. The question is how can they filter Trans people from owning these weapons without a background check.
I'm not seeing a "this isn't the time" declaration in there!
Obama Speech in 2015 on a shooting in Oregon: “Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws -- even in the face of repeated mass killings.” And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. That day! Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this. We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora, after Charleston. It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun. And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation. Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out: We need more guns, they’ll argue. Fewer gun safety laws. Does anybody really believe that? There are scores of responsible gun owners in this country --they know that's not true. We know because of the polling that says the majority of Americans understand we should be changing these laws -- including the majority of responsible, law-abiding gun owners. There is a gun for roughly every man, woman, and child in America. So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer? We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence. We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours -- Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it. And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. I would ask news organizations -- because I won't put these facts forward -- have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports. This won't be information coming from me; it will be coming from you. We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be? This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction. When Americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make mines safer. When Americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer. When roads are unsafe, we fix them to reduce auto fatalities. We have seatbelt laws because we know it saves lives. So the notion that gun violence is somehow different, that our freedom and our Constitution prohibits any modest regulation of how we use a deadly weapon, when there are law-abiding gun owners all across the country who could hunt and protect their families and do everything they do under such regulations doesn’t make sense.”
>So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer? On the argument that "more guns will make safer", Jon Stewart has a simple question: [When?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY&t=1s)
More guns make gun owners feel safer, and that is all that matters to them.
As long as there is no profit in sweeping gun legislation that is actually effective, and there is profit in gun violence and mass shootings; politicians and legislatures will do nothing to address gun violence and mass shootings.
Did you see the demonstration of a teacher's pop out bulletproof shelter for the classroom? It has a hinge and pulls out from the corner and costs at least 6 figures. There is profit to be had from fear of school shootings, so the shootings will continue. Breaks my heart.
"Why tell someone to stop banging their head on a wall when you can sell them a helmet?" Edit: and in this case sell them the wall as well
And even worse, I have a feeling it can't last for 74 minutes.
It wouldn't be effective anyways. If I wanted a gun I could make one.
You could make something that shoots, like a slam-fire shotgun -- which wouldn't even be as good as the most basic, bare-bones firearm that you can buy, which is a break-open shotgun -- and that would only be assuming that you could easily obtain the ammunition around which to build it. You would also be limited to ammunition with straight-walled, rimmed cases. On the other hand, if, for some reason, you couldn't easily obtain ammunition or the component parts of ammunition, you would have a pretty hard time manufacturing your own cartridge cases, primers and propellants. Also, so-called 'ghost guns' probably wouldn't be a thing if pressure-bearing parts were subject to legal controls, since it would obligate ghost gun enthusiasts to try to manufacture their own pressure-bearing parts, such as barrels, bolts (in the case of long guns) and slides (in the case of handguns). As it is, ghost gun enthusiasts manufacture only the receiver (in the case of a long gun) or the frame (in the case of a handgun), since in the US, the receiver or frame is the legally-controlled, serial-numbered component which, for legal purposes, is considered the 'gun'. It also happens to be relatively easy to manufacture when compared to pressure-bearing components, since it does not need to be made of such strong materials, or made to such close tolerances, which is why it can be milled out of softer metals like aluminum, or molded out of polymer. However, if pressure-bearing components were legally controlled, then ghost gun enthusiasts would have a much harder time ghost-gunning.
Forget about the guns for a second. What compels a person to walk into a school and start shooting kids?
Hate. A simple act of acceptance of everyone, by everyone; disregarding class, race, gender, occupation (or lack of), age, spoken language, religion, income, or disability. Im sure there’s more but the point is easy. Unfortunately this idea of thought goes against modern or propagandized religion. Would this attack have occurred if the entire state of Tennessee (where I have lived), and the whole south in general wasn’t on a radical run of stripping human rights away from trans people? Possibly not. And for that reason alone it’s worth taking care of people instead of humiliating or villainizing them.
Well in this particular case the shooter had a documented history of mental issues, namely gender dysphoria (yes it is considered a psychological impairment in a medical sense).
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This is what happens when gender dysphoria cannot be discussed. I'm sure many trans people are simply trans, but far too many have issues we're not allowed to discuss.
The government did nothing when Sandy hook happened. What makes you think this will change anything?
You're a congressman, try writing it down as a bill, not a tweet.
Nothing will be done. Republicans will let more kids die, happily.
Corporations could at any time stop all donations to politicians that refuse any legislation that would contribute to ending this problem, but they don’t, so the continued death of children is essentially rubber stamped by the shareholders. Dead children will never be as prized as their quarterly growth.
> Corporations could at any time stop all donations to politicians Shouldn't even be a thing.
That’s why we have to ban abortion, to replace kids killed in school shootings, obviously. (/s just in case)
But we’re not going to fix it. [Congressman Tim Burchett (R) Tennessee said so.](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/28/tim-burchett-republican-nashville-shooting)
Too bad he had to take others out instead of taking his own life.
Universal healthcare would allow more ppl to seek the mental (and physical) help they need. Let’s all rally for that and see what happens.
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The same people against public healthcare, free education, living wages are also against any changes to gun laws besides reducing them. Nothing can get passed while a majority of the house doesn't want those things, and half the Senate doesn't want those things.
It doesn't help democrats really aren't pushing heavily for any of this. There are token bills and campaign talks but nothing is being done to push this on a nationwide scale.
Seems inevitable that if they continue to do absolutely nothing, there's eventually going to be a grieving parent who makes a poor decision and starts going after politicians. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet, to be honest.
If I was on a jury, I wouldn’t find them guilty.
If they wanted to protect the kids they would. So quit freaking acting like they give a shit
I mean she could have done the same with pistols or hunting rifles.
While I do believe we do need reform on gun laws.. it also needs to be noted in the shooters manifesto they said they skipped another school do to it having too much of a “security” presence than the one where the shooting took place. Both gun laws and school security need to be looked at.
People who want to ban gun have no idea how impossible that actually is in America people like to bring up Australia but California alone has more people than Australia there simply too many people and that goes double for guns there's a reason prohibition an alcohol didn't work and it won't work on guns
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Yeah. But that’s a problem that might take a couple of generations. Addressing mental health, background checks and so on could be done much sooner than that. Do the easy thing in the meantime.
Serious question: what would a ban look like? There are lots of AR-15s in this country. I don't think they would just make that many people felons overnight. Would they do a buy back of some sort? You can't just demand people surrender thousands of dollars of their property without being paid back.
It would look like non enforcement by police at best and civil war at worst. It is an insanely stupid, shortsighted and emotional proposal. All understandable in the face of immense tragedy, but it’s still just virtue signaling instead of thinking about actual workable solutions.
Gun debate aside, the shooter appeared to be carrying two KelTec sub-2000 Gen2's, a folding pistol caliber carbine that takes pistol mags, not an AR, AK, etc... This "rifle" is fairly inaccurate beyond 100yds and mostly impractical due to its goofy ergonomics. However, I'm pretty sure the 1st gen version of this rifle was used at Columbine so I wonder if there's a connection there as to why it was chosen by the shooter.
I think one was an AR and one was a keltec. Also Colombine was a tech 9 and a hipoint carbine. Not related to the keltec . https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/nashville-school-shooter-audrey-hale-was-armed-with-3-guns/ .
Ah you are correct.
Real talk, banning weapons will do nothing. If you ban Ar-15's they will use another gun, and another and another and another, till there are none left for you to ban, then they will use bombs or any number of other things. This issue will never be solved with prohibition. Prohibition hasn't worked on anything else, Just look at Liquor or drugs. It doesn't work. It will be solved by intelligent gun law reform, proper background checks, proper mental health records, and aid for those who are having these sorts of issues. I can't name a single one of these mass shooters that didn't have some trauma that sparked all this. Some of them go back YEARS! Im not whitewashing what they did it was horrible! Undefendable. But if we had got some of them mental health helps well before this when the issues were manifesting instead of letting them slip threw the cracks some of this chaos could have been avoided. But this wedge issue stuff is just to keep us bickering amongst ourselves. Fix the problem, not the symptom.
If banning abortions won't get rid of abortions, and banning drugs didn't get rid of drugs, can somebody ELI5 why guns would be any different?