Chief Justice Warren Burger on the second amendment - General

[QUOTE=Revenge282;53141485]You shouldn't have to consider getting rid of guns. You should consider the actual causes of these issues that guns are blamed for. Suicide? Probably wasn't a gun that drove someone to that level of despair. Murder? I doubt the gun was the building factor to that kind of violence and desperation. But the people who want to get rid of guns are no better than the people on the far right who fight for the polar opposite. There are perfectly acceptable and effective measures that exist in between that would keep both sides happy, they just unfortunately require people to actually exert effort to accomplish.[/QUOTE] And if we can implement those in a way so that gun ownership is legal and restricted to sensible groups of people and violence significantly decreases, wonderful! But you don't tend to see gun owners or interest groups like the NRA pushing for such things until they have to because a bunch of kids are corpses now and public opinion won't allow things to stay the same. Until conservatives start to actually push for legislation of this type, they're gonna listen to me complain about a complete lack of action on their part. In addition, I don't think this is a very good argument at all: [QUOTE=Revenge282;53141485]You should consider the actual causes of these issues that guns are blamed for. Suicide? Probably wasn't a gun that drove someone to that level of despair.[/QUOTE] No but it's much harder to wake up in the hospital and regret your attempt when you put a bullet in your skull than if you slit your wrists or down a bunch of pills. [QUOTE=Revenge282;53141485]Murder? I doubt the gun was the building factor to that kind of violence and desperation.[/QUOTE] No, but it makes violent crime significantly more effective. When nations like the UK with significantly stricter gun ownership laws have 4x fewer homicides per capita, the onus is on you to show me that sensible gun legislation short of almost total disarmament can handle that. Failing that, you can't just wring your hands and say, "Well it's a mental health issue, banning guns wouldn't solve it!" Really? Why don't we try it and find out. [QUOTE=Revenge282;53141485]But the people who want to get rid of guns are no better than the people on the far right who fight for the polar opposite.[/QUOTE] Completely disagree. The lives of a bunch of high school kids, or college kids, or random people in the wrong place at the wrong time are a lot more important than someone's ability to own guns. There are plenty of people with reasons to own guns. You're a farmer, you live in an area with dangerous wildlife? Great! Own a gun. You live in a high-crime area? Great! Protect yourself, I won't stop you. I'm just tired of people with what amounts to a gun fetish (not pointing the finger at you, here) pushing the narrative that almost-no private gun ownership is completely unthinkable when plenty of livable nations who are better off than us when it comes to violent crime per capita do it already. Want to talk about how disarming the public would be a massive practical challenge? Great! Totally reasonable point. But that almost never seems to be what I hear. People won't even consider living without their guns. EDIT: Actually, even the complaint that a disarmed public has no practical defense against government tyranny is a-okay to me. I am in favor of revolution through peaceful means wherever possible, but I accept that there are situations in which armed rebellion might be a necessity for the public. I'm just really sick of people whose defense of gun ownership amounts to "I like them and the second amendment exists."

[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;53141508] [QUOTE=Revenge282;53141485] But the people who want to get rid of guns are no better than the people on the far right who fight for the polar opposite.[/QUOTE] Completely disagree. The lives of a bunch of high school kids, or college kids, or random people in the wrong place at the wrong time are a lot more important than someone's ability to own guns. [/QUOTE] The problem with that is this method of attack has done less than nothing towards actually solving the problem and is tantamount to going "fuck it, i tried, thats good enough" cause the only thing that ever happens is people scream at eachother and then the next shooting pops up because nothing productive was actually accomplished.

Also, I don't think the access to guns is necessarily to blame for the number of suicides. Just look at Japan's atrocious suicide rates compared to their gun ownership. That and in the CDC's 2013 report on guns, they found that the success rate for sucide via suffocation and gunshot were roughly the same (Gun shot was .86 iirc, and suffocation was only slightly lower at .80). There's more that goes into suicide than simply access to guns.

[QUOTE=J!NX;53141250]this image is an absolute clusterfuck "god given rights" I'm sick of hearing this, as if god himself said in the bible "thou must hath guns!" "Supreme law, not repealable" Founding fathers themselves wanted the government to be malleable to the times, not be worshiped like an absolute truth like, yes, the bible that we put everywhere as anti-communist propaganda they also didn't want people to selectively skirt around wording[/QUOTE] It doesn't literally mean god gave you the right, it just means it's something that cannot be taken away. Let's use life as an example, you have a god given right to life. That means you cannot be killed for being inconvenient, such as being a basket case or elderly. But even then, some people are killed, such especially heinous criminals. The right to bear arms means the government can't just ban civilians from owning them, but restricted persons can still lose that right if they aren't trusted with it.

To put it more concisely, it is something you're entitled to by default that can't be taken away arbitrarily.

I am a gun owner, I have an AR15 platform. We need tighter checks and broader mental health checks as well as a required course for gun handling. Gun culture doesn't have to be bad, but it is right now and that is thanks to wingnuts like the NRA.