Obama praises Australia's, UK's gun laws following mass shooting
400 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Singo;48805930]Obama using a mass shooting to push his agenda once again.[/QUOTE]
Yeah God damn Obama pushing his saving people's lives agenda.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;48816003]But whatever crime that remains could still be committed with a gun, and crimes that involve guns tend to end badly compared to crimes that involve knives, for example. If we can keep guns out of the hands of criminals at the cost of some inconvenience to gun owners, don't you think that is worth it?[/QUOTE]
They can't keep guns out of the hands of criminals, though, legislation has persistently done fuckall to keep guns out of the hands of criminals since the major restrictions starting in the mid seventies
The places with the most restrictive gun laws are the places that have the worst amounts of gun crime, including mass shootings, I've already brought up the few cities that are the United States' leaders in firearms violence and the major contributors to the statistics, they're almost all in states with the heaviest restrictions
The US already has tons of firearms related legislation, a whole morass of rules, regulations, and restrictions, that people like to pretend doesn't exist, there's already a hefty barrier towards legally acquiring a firearm, and more and more legislation keeps getting passed, it's been getting passed since for [I]decades[/I] and it has so far had questionable impact at best
I'm almost certain I've mentioned the disturbingly thriving black market arms trade somewhere in here already
There are already a [I]massive[/I] amount of guns in circulation. It's not just hundreds of thousands, like you had in Australia, it's hundreds of [b]millions[/b], and that's just [I]legal[/I] guns, and even if you somehow do manage to implement the Australian style legislation with compulsory buybacks and heavy crackdowns on what can and can't be owned, it's going to do buggerall to help with the problem, it's going to be a band-aid on a compound fracture, because not only is it such a vastly different situation in nearly every conceivable way, the reasons [I]why[/I] it's a problem are so much more complex and nuanced than just 'There are guns there'
I can't be arsed to find a way to fluidly segue into them, but [url=http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/does-strict-gun-legislation-reduce-violent-crime-in-latam]this[/url] and [url=http://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2012/08/30/explaining-high-murder-rates-in-latin-america-its-not-drugs/]this[/url] provide some interesting reading on the subject
-actually i changed my mind about this post-
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;48816003]If we can keep guns out of the hands of criminals at the cost of some inconvenience to gun owners, don't you think that is worth it?[/QUOTE]
Absolutely, but the proposals I've seen wouldn't do that. They range from no effect on criminals with some inconvenience to gun owners (assault weapons bans) to some effect on criminals while effectively criminalizing gun owners (total bans). With as many guns as we have in this country already, new restrictions disproportionately affect law-abiding owners far more than they affect criminals.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;48814562]Should we stop all research into ALS then? Toxoplasmosis? HIV/AIDS? Cystic fibrosis? I mean, those don't really kill that many people, I guess they're not worth bothering with.
What an asinine line of logic.[/QUOTE]
That's not what I said. You're making a straw man argument.
-Obama wants US gunlaws to be like Australia's
-this happens
[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/australian-police-sydney-shooting-linked-terrorism-004125839.html[/URL]
[QUOTE=SpotEnemyBoat;48820634]-Obama wants US gunlaws to be like Australia's
-this happens
[URL]http://news.yahoo.com/australian-police-sydney-shooting-linked-terrorism-004125839.html[/URL][/QUOTE]
The first such non-domestic/non-gang shooting since the Sydney siege last year; more than ten months ago. How many shootings at schools alone, putting aside other shootings such as of the Virginian journalists, has happened in the U.S. since last year?
Our laws don't make shootings impossible to carry out. But they greatly minimise the propensity of them occurring.
The moral of the story is that people can still get guns no matter if your try to pass draconian laws.
[QUOTE=SpotEnemyBoat;48821326]The moral of the story is that people can still get guns no matter if your try to pass draconian laws.[/QUOTE]
No one's saying that gun laws will entirely eradicate gun crime you muppet.
"moral of the story" lol
[QUOTE=Antdawg;48821151]The first such non-domestic/non-gang shooting since the Sydney siege last year; more than ten months ago. How many shootings at schools alone, putting aside other shootings such as of the Virginian journalists, has happened in the U.S. since last year?[/QUOTE]
1. I like how you're removing statistically far more significant (even in the US, by a gigantic margin) types of "gun violence" (shit word)
2. Whereas our 'mass shootings' with firearms is more prevalent, so is our defensive uses of firearms. By an absolutely astronomical amount, it outpaces all murder with firearms. All murder entirely, actually.
3. You can say types of killings are reduced, but aus has never been a prime example for gun bans = less crime/murder on the whole. Whatever assertions made in this thread, your rates of crime and murder remain consistent year to year, before and after the bans.
If you want to say banning all firearms would reduce mass shootings, fine. Even I will state it's obvious that they will be reduced. You can say mass murder incidents on the whole are reduced (or at least, their body count) - still fine.
However, the positive benefits of firearms are often conveniently ignored, when by any measure, even the most conservative of estimates - people utilize firearms in the US to defend themselves (and I'd bet any money save their lives undoubtedly) more often than any single person is killed in these incidents.
So you ban all guns to stop less than a tenth of a percent of all murders in the US, to condemn a bunch of other people to die in their place.
[QUOTE=s0beit;48821514]1. I like how you're removing statistically far more significant (even in the US, by a gigantic margin) types of "gun violence" (shit word)
2. Whereas our 'mass shootings' with firearms is more prevalent, so is our defensive uses of firearms. By an absolutely astronomical amount, it outpaces all murder with firearms. All murder entirely, actually.
3. You can say types of killings are reduced, but aus has never been a prime example for gun bans = less crime/murder on the whole. Whatever assertions made in this thread, your rates of crime and murder remain consistent year to year, before and after the bans.
If you want to say banning all firearms would reduce mass shootings, fine. Even I will state it's obvious that they will be reduced. You can say mass murder incidents on the whole are reduced (or at least, their body count) - still fine.
However, the positive benefits of firearms are often conveniently ignored, when by any measure, even the most conservative of estimates - people utilize firearms in the US to defend themselves (and I'd bet any money save their lives undoubtedly) more often than any single person is killed in these incidents.
So you ban all guns to stop less than a tenth of a percent of all murders in the US, to condemn a bunch of other people to die in their place.[/QUOTE]
Yeah but are the people using firearms to defend themselves defending themselves from other people with guns too? Also you're talking about the positive benefits of firearms but you keep really only mentioning the one point, defense.
[QUOTE=Eluveitie;48821448]No one's saying that gun laws will entirely eradicate gun crime you muppet.
"moral of the story" lol[/QUOTE]
Nah it'll just reduce mass shootings, murder and suicide by firearm, and criminalize gun owners. Meanwhile gang shootings remain high, murder and suicide by other methods go up to fill in the gap, and former gun owners are just left disappointed.
[QUOTE=Diago21;48821540]Yeah but are the people using firearms to defend themselves defending themselves from other people with guns too?[/quote]
Not always, but even if it was against criminals with guns a huge portion of the time, he just admitted that gangs and domestic abusers have them already so that argument seemed pointless.
[QUOTE=Diago21;48821540]Also you're talking about the positive benefits of firearms but you keep really only mentioning the one point, defense.[/QUOTE]
Defense is really all they're good for in terms of utility, I can talk about how fun they are but they're a fighting tool in the end.
But more on the defensive front, when defending yourself against a criminal - guns sort of bypass the serious issues with defense other forms of defending yourself seem to have trouble with. Such as being weaker, or smaller, or frail, what-have-you. Just as it makes these crazies able to do terrible things, it empowers people who would normally be curb-stomped or stabbed to death easily some means to fight back.
That's a fairly large benefit.
[QUOTE=SpotEnemyBoat;48821326]The moral of the story is that people can still get guns no matter if your try to pass draconian laws.[/QUOTE]
So you're saying we shouldn't have bothered drastically reducing gun violence because we couldn't eradicate it completely? Brilliant logic. I guess [i]all[/i] laws are pointless then because there's always going to be a bunch of dicks who break them.
[QUOTE=Jimesu_Evil;48821589]So you're saying we shouldn't have bothered drastically reducing gun violence because we couldn't eradicate it completely?[/QUOTE]
Depends, how "drastically" did you reduce all violence and murder?
Let me hint you: If it was able to do that, "gun violence" wouldn't even exist as a term people use.
They'd just say "banning guns reduces murder"
[QUOTE=Antdawg;48821151]The first such non-domestic/non-gang shooting since the Sydney siege last year; more than ten months ago. How many shootings at schools alone, putting aside other shootings such as of the Virginian journalists, has happened in the U.S. since last year?
Our laws don't make shootings impossible to carry out. But they greatly minimise the propensity of them occurring.[/QUOTE]
how many mass shootings in the history of australia compared to the history of america, even before our supposedly wonderful legislation?
Almost all studies of the 1996 legislation have concluded it had no significant impact on firearm homicide. There is only one study to my knowledge which suggests it was a roaring success - thing is, two of the study authors were members of the coalition for gun control in Australia, years before the legislation was implemented. One of them in particular, Simon Chapman, has been particularly prominent politically, and has been accused of dishonesty by other academics.
A more recent analysis from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research:
[url]https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2008n17.pdf[/url]
"Using a battery of structural break tests, there is little evidence to suggest
that it had any significant effects on firearm homicides and suicides. In addition, there
also does not appear to be any substitution effects – that reduced access to firearms may
have led those bent on committing homicide or suicide to use alternative methods."
In fact the preponderance of studies available seems to suggest that overall, the 1996 reform has had negligble effect on firearm homicide: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_Australia#Research[/url]
Of relevance to your comment:
"Subsequently, a study by McPhedran and Baker compared the incidence of mass shootings in Australia and New Zealand. Data were standardised to a rate per 100,000 people, to control for differences in population size between the countries and mass shootings before and after 1996/1997 were compared between countries. That study found that in the period 1980–1996, both countries experienced mass shootings. The rate did not differ significantly between countries. [B]Since 1996-1997, neither country has experienced a mass shooting event despite the continued availability of semi-automatic longarms in New Zealand. The authors conclude that "the hypothesis that Australia's prohibition of certain types of firearms explains the absence of mass shootings in that country since 1996 does not appear to be supported... if civilian access to certain types of firearms explained the occurrence of mass shootings in Australia (and conversely, if prohibiting such firearms explains the absence of mass shootings), then New Zealand (a country that still allows the ownership of such firearms) would have continued to experience mass shooting events[/B]"
So no, you really can't say our laws minimize the propensity of them occurring.
Again, people keep myopically focusing on legislation and never examining all the other factors that make America such a violent place.
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;48821543]Nah it'll just reduce mass shootings, murder and suicide by firearm, and criminalize gun owners. Meanwhile gang shootings remain high, murder and suicide by other methods go up to fill in the gap, and former gun owners are just left disappointed.[/QUOTE]
yes but why are you arguing a point that everyone knows is fact?
[QUOTE=paul simon;48811118]I don't see why that second amendment is so important. It just hinders progress.
But of course you've been taught in school to follow it religiously, so w/e.[/QUOTE]
Pfft 'hinders progress' the nametag to slap on anything you don't like
Abortion hinders progress because it skews our perception of what human life is
Liberal economic policies hinder progress because they encourage paternalistic government'and lack of personal responsibility
But you don't see me saying that because unlike you I don't try to masquerade my ideals as being 'the way forward' on some arbitrary map of political ideas that I drew
I'm seriously getting sick of the left wing calling everything they do 'progress'
[QUOTE=Eluveitie;48824968]yes but why are you arguing a point that everyone knows is fact?[/QUOTE]So wait, you only care that people [I]shoot[/I] each other, but you don't care about the [I]killing?[/I] I mean I knew this is what the anti-gun side has always cared about because guns are loud and !!scary!! but it's always a little bizarre to actually see it in action.
Fact remains the right we have to keep and bear arms isn't about hunting, it's about protection. We're armed because this country was founded on the idea that a government is something we consent to rule over us and our boomsticks keep it from getting too out of control. Usually at this point people parrot about not having tanks, guns, bombs, and other stupid points that mean exactly dick but let me remind you of something that blows that dumb fucking argument out of the water: we have had successful [I]armed protests[/I] in this country. That means protests that ended with the government backing down precisely because the protesters were armed. Even better, one such protest happened last year (Bundy vs the BLM) and by all accounts the protesters were supporting a guy who said some questionable things about racial matters and is basically defiant in the face of US law. Yeah, you read that correctly, armed protesters supported a racist tax-dodger and the government backed down because it decided shooting protesting citizens wasn't a good idea. Yeah it sucks that the rule of law wasn't enforced but that's better than people getting hurt and people's civil rights being trampled just because they were deemed invalid on a whim.
That's precisely why we have the 2nd Amendment even in this day in age and honestly I'll take the statistically small amount of violence we have in this country (that's mostly contained to various urban shitholes anyway) as a yearly penance for that.
[editline]4th October 2015[/editline]
Oh and while I'm on that subject: the media loves to sensationalize this shit and there is a specific narrative that they like to play because it sells. We're painted as a terrible, violent nation that's full of gunfights and everyone needs to at least be packing two assault rifles they bought at Wal-Mart or else they'll get gunned down in the streets. Truth of the matter is that's not true at all, and what problems we do have should be solved and tackled rather than ignored. Young, impressionable white males gunning down innocent babies with their scary black rifles that are always identified as "assault-style weapons" is a story that sells because it's sensationalist. People hunger for it. They need that dose of tragedy and chaos because largely their lives are boring and mundane, and it's comfortable for them to talk about things that do not affect them. They're not victims, they're not concerned with self-defense, and they don't own firearms of any kind, so they can safely comment with the same tired rhetoric entrenched in emotion and hysteria that is easily dismissed by simple fact and common sense.
What bothers me and other gun owners is we're expected to compromise and relinquish what we have [I]despite the fact[/I] that we are precisely the ones who would defend those same people from the big, bad bogeymen that the media tells them they should fear. We don't do it because we hate the bad guy, on the contrary, we'd much rather have every single firearm be a redundant piece of equipment that nobody truly needs because we live in a safe, orderly, crime-free world. We'd much rather that bad guy be a smart, adjusted, successful individual who has overcome whatever adversity that has turned them into a gun-toting monster preying on the weak.
Find me a gun owner who wouldn't want to live in a world where nobody needed to defend themselves and I'll argue you found a sociopath.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;48829118]So wait, you only care that people [I]shoot[/I] each other, but you don't care about the [I]killing?[/I] I mean I knew this is what the anti-gun side has always cared about because guns are loud and !!scary!! but it's always a little bizarre to actually see it in action.
Fact remains the right we have to keep and bear arms isn't about hunting, it's about protection. We're armed because this country was founded on the idea that a government is something we consent to rule over us and our boomsticks keep it from getting too out of control. Usually at this point people parrot about not having tanks, guns, bombs, and other stupid points that mean exactly dick but let me remind you of something that blows that dumb fucking argument out of the water: we have had successful [I]armed protests[/I] in this country. That means protests that ended with the government backing down precisely because the protesters were armed. Even better, one such protest happened last year (Bundy vs the BLM) and by all accounts the protesters were supporting a guy who said some questionable things about racial matters and is basically defiant in the face of US law. Yeah, you read that correctly, armed protesters supported a racist tax-dodger and the government backed down because it decided shooting protesting citizens wasn't a good idea. Yeah it sucks that the rule of law wasn't enforced but that's better than people getting hurt and people's civil rights being trampled just because they were deemed invalid on a whim.
That's precisely why we have the 2nd Amendment even in this day in age and honestly I'll take the statistically small amount of violence we have in this country (that's mostly contained to various urban shitholes anyway) as a yearly penance for that.
[editline]4th October 2015[/editline]
Oh and while I'm on that subject: the media loves to sensationalize this shit and there is a specific narrative that they like to play because it sells. We're painted as a terrible, violent nation that's full of gunfights and everyone needs to at least be packing two assault rifles they bought at Wal-Mart or else they'll get gunned down in the streets. Truth of the matter is that's not true at all, and what problems we do have should be solved and tackled rather than ignored. Young, impressionable white males gunning down innocent babies with their scary black rifles that are always identified as "assault-style weapons" is a story that sells because it's sensationalist. People hunger for it. They need that dose of tragedy and chaos because largely their lives are boring and mundane, and it's comfortable for them to talk about things that do not affect them. They're not victims, they're not concerned with self-defense, and they don't own firearms of any kind, so they can safely comment with the same tired rhetoric entrenched in emotion and hysteria that is easily dismissed by simple fact and common sense.
What bothers me and other gun owners is we're expected to compromise and relinquish what we have [I]despite the fact[/I] that we are precisely the ones who would defend those same people from the big, bad bogeymen that the media tells them they should fear. We don't do it because we hate the bad guy, on the contrary, we'd much rather have every single firearm be a redundant piece of equipment that nobody truly needs because we live in a safe, orderly, crime-free world. We'd much rather that bad guy be a smart, adjusted, successful individual who has overcome whatever adversity that has turned them into a gun-toting monster preying on the weak.
Find me a gun owner who wouldn't want to live in a world where nobody needed to defend themselves and I'll argue you found a sociopath.[/QUOTE]
you wrote all of that AFTER putting words in my mouth?
USA needs to limit what kind of guns people can buy. No more hand guns. Sorry. No more AR-15s. Sorry. If you want a gun, you'd better be hunting, and it'd better be a hunting rifle. I'm tired of these bullshit public shootings. There is NO reason why anyone should have to die while out in public, because some percentage of people want their guns (hobbyists) and a small percent of those people want to use them to kill innocent masses of random people. It's fucking stupid. At this point, if you're still ok with how guns are distributed, you're also saying you're ok with the trend of random mass shootings we've been having.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]USA needs to limit what kind of guns people can buy. No more hand guns. Sorry. No more AR-15s. Sorry. If you want a gun, you'd better be hunting, and it'd better be a hunting rifle. I'm tired of these bullshit public shootings. There is NO reason why anyone should have to die while out in public, because some percentage of people want their guns (hobbyists) and a small percent of those people want to use them to kill innocent masses of random people. It's fucking stupid. At this point, if you're still ok with how guns are distributed, you're also saying you're ok with the trend of random mass shootings we've been having.[/QUOTE]
If you're going to make such insulting generalizations of US gun owners by saying they support mass shootings by opposing their rights being restricted, then don't be offended when someone says that by proposing a handgun ban you support women being raped and people being killed for being unable to defend themselves against their assailants.
Neither statements are true, supporting gun rights doesn't mean you support mass-shootings, nor does supporting gun control mean you support victimization, but they're both equivalent in terms of their hyperbole and generalized offense, just on different ends of the argument.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]USA needs to limit what kind of guns people can buy. No more hand guns. Sorry. No more AR-15s. Sorry. If you want a gun, you'd better be hunting, and it'd better be a hunting rifle. I'm tired of these bullshit public shootings. There is NO reason why anyone should have to die while out in public, because some percentage of people want their guns (hobbyists) and a small percent of those people want to use them to kill innocent masses of random people. It's fucking stupid. At this point, if you're still ok with how guns are distributed, you're also saying you're ok with the trend of random mass shootings we've been having.[/QUOTE]
"it'd better be a hunting rifle"
Sweet! We get to keep our AR-15s then.
[QUOTE=Eluveitie;48831192]you wrote all of that AFTER putting words in my mouth?[/QUOTE]So what words were in your mouth then?
Oh and just for clarity sake since we're dispelling any misconceptions here, most of that post wasn't even directed at you but was a general statement.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]USA needs to limit what kind of guns people can buy.[/QUOTE]No.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]No more hand guns. Sorry. No more AR-15s. Sorry. If you want a gun, you'd better be hunting, and it'd better be a hunting rifle.[/QUOTE]
So you mean you want people to buy sniper rifles then? I mean if you're going to start kicking out sensationalist, uninformed positions why don't you call a fucking spade a spade here, you want people to own high-caliber sniper rifles capable of hitting a man-sized target over half a mile away.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]I'm tired of these bullshit public shootings.[/QUOTE]Well I'm tired of uninformed people talking about shit they know nothing about, but unfortunately we can't always get what we want.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]At this point, if you're still ok with how guns are distributed, you're also saying you're ok with the trend of random mass shootings we've been having.[/QUOTE]I am, your attempt at shaming has completely failed. Why?
Violent crime has been and will continue to decrease steadily, (shooting sprees are violent crime, by the way) so I'm perfectly okay with that trend.
[QUOTE=Native Hunter;48806172]All these people saying "Ban Guns" clearly have no idea what the second amendment is[/QUOTE]
I'll give you an outsider's perspective on the Second Amendment. To a non-American observer, it was a mistake. Granted, it was a mistake the consequences of which could never have been forseen, but a mistake nonetheless.
I do not know of any countries in which one has a constitutional right to drive a car. Instead, people who wish to drive cars have to undergo testing to prove their competency, and earn the [I]privilege[/I] of driving cars. - A privilege that can be penalized or revoked if they prove incompetent at a later date. This is because cars have a high probability of severely injuring or outright killing someone if they are being operated by individuals who are either incompetent, irresponsible, or using them as weapons.
In Canada, anyone who is mentally sound, has a clean criminal record and who can prove their competency to earn a license then earns the privilege of owning and possessing a firearm. Firearms, like cars, need to be registered. Unlike cars, firearms are deadly weapons that are designed to kill - Whether their targets are other people or lesser animals. Calling them mere 'tools' is misleading.
In the USA, people have a constitutional right to bear firearms. The second amendment, the country's militaristic nature on the world stage, and popular culture have all combined to create an environment in which guns have become an important part of the American cultural identity, and in which any move to regulate gun ownership is met with massive opposition. Many Americans who, by any other standard, are level-headed, liberal-minded and sensible, will absolutely lose their minds when faced with the prospect of having their right to bear arms curbed.
The second Amendment is the primary reason, in my opinion, that the United States has more shooting deaths a year than any other country in the world, including many countries that are at war.
Because it's not the responsible, competent gun owners who are the problem - It's the idiots and nutjobs that get to hoard them because the country at large considers owning guns a constitutional right, and because many owners of gun stores sometimes belong to the section of the population that don't believe the regulatory laws should apply to them for that reason.
It's a problem without a fix. As a Canadian, I'm just incredibly thankful it's not ours.
[QUOTE=archangel125;48831705]I'll give you an outsider's perspective on the Second Amendment. To a non-American observer, it was a mistake. Granted, it was a mistake the consequences of which could never have been forseen, but a mistake nonetheless.
I do not know of any countries in which one has a constitutional right to drive a car. Instead, people who wish to drive cars have to undergo testing to prove their competency, and earn the [I]privilege[/I] of driving cars. - A privilege that can be penalized or revoked if they prove incompetent at a later date. This is because cars have a high probability of severely injuring or outright killing someone if they are being operated by individuals who are either incompetent, irresponsible, or using them as weapons.
In Canada, anyone who is mentally sound, has a clean criminal record and who can prove their competency to earn a license then earns the privilege of owning and possessing a firearm. Firearms, like cars, need to be registered. Unlike cars, firearms are deadly weapons that are designed to kill - Whether their targets are other people or lesser animals. Calling them mere 'tools' is misleading.
In the USA, people have a constitutional right to bear firearms. The second amendment, the country's militaristic nature on the world stage, and popular culture have all combined to create an environment in which guns have become an important part of the American cultural identity, and in which any move to regulate gun ownership is met with massive opposition. Many Americans who, by any other standard, are level-headed, liberal-minded and sensible, will absolutely lose their minds when faced with the prospect of having their right to bear arms curbed.
The second Amendment is the primary reason, in my opinion, that the United States has more shooting deaths a year than any other country in the world, including many countries that are at war.
Because it's not the responsible, competent gun owners who are the problem - It's the idiots and nutjobs that get to hoard them because the country at large considers owning guns a constitutional right, and because many owners of gun stores sometimes belong to the section of the population that don't believe the regulatory laws should apply to them for that reason.
It's a problem without a fix. As a Canadian, I'm just incredibly thankful it's not ours.[/QUOTE]
Almost every gun owner here would agree the states have better gun laws than us.
One thing they don't do so well with is healthcare which is what is causing these mass shootings. The fact that we don't have millions of police officers and military officials shooting each other up around the world proves that a population can have guns and be civil with the right training.
The problem is that you are taking the right to own firearms and blaming it instead of poor mental healthcare which is the cause of these problems.
Like drunk driving, you don't ban cars or make cars harder to obtain when you have a drinking and driving problem, you educate the public and make them aware of the issues in order to prevent needless deaths due to drunk driving.
You will never be able to tell what a persons intentions are with a gun or predict how they will act but you can educate people and fix underlying issues. And the second amendment was more of a government thing than a civil liberty, it's meant to take some of the power out of the hands of the government and give it to the people in case the government becomes a public enemy,
[QUOTE=ultra_bright;48831989]Almost every gun owner here would agree the states have better gun laws than us.
One thing they don't do so well with is healthcare which is what is causing these mass shootings. The fact that we don't have millions of police officers and military officials shooting each other up around the world proves that a population can have guns and be civil with the right training.
The problem is that you are taking the right to own firearms and blaming it instead of poor mental healthcare which is the cause of these problems.
Like drunk driving, you don't ban cars or make cars harder to obtain when you have a drinking and driving problem, you educate the public and make them aware of the issues in order to prevent needless deaths due to drunk driving.
You will never be able to tell what a persons intentions are with a gun or predict how they will act but you can educate people and fix underlying issues. And the second amendment was more of a government thing than a civil liberty, it's meant to take some of the power out of the hands of the government and give it to the people in case the government becomes a public enemy,[/QUOTE]
Ultra-bright, you're a libertarian, and one of the only FPers who actually think Harper's got the right idea. Your views certainly don't reflect the views of the Canadian public, at least not those of the public who live in the more metropolitan areas. Therefore, 'Almost every gun owner here' is a bit too much of a generalization.
Also, weren't you the one who earlier said you thought the Libertarians had the right idea to dismantle Canada's nationalized healthcare insurance? It's kind of odd to see you pointing out problems with the US system in light of those comments.
[QUOTE=ThePanther;48831281]USA needs to limit what kind of guns people can buy. No more hand guns. Sorry. No more AR-15s. Sorry. If you want a gun, you'd better be hunting, and it'd better be a hunting rifle. I'm tired of these bullshit public shootings. There is NO reason why anyone should have to die while out in public, because some percentage of people want their guns (hobbyists) and a small percent of those people want to use them to kill innocent masses of random people. It's fucking stupid. At this point, if you're still ok with how guns are distributed, you're also saying you're ok with the trend of random mass shootings we've been having.[/QUOTE]
...she said at the helm of her minivan, carrying the kids to their soccer training through her gated neighborhood.
[QUOTE=archangel125;48832148]Ultra-bright, you're a libertarian, and one of the only FPers who actually think Harper's got the right idea. Your views certainly don't reflect the views of the Canadian public, at least not those of the public who live in the more metropolitan areas. Therefore, 'Almost every gun owner here' is a bit too much of a generalization.
Also, weren't you the one who earlier said you thought the Libertarians had the right idea to dismantle Canada's nationalized healthcare insurance? It's kind of odd to see you pointing out problems with the US system in light of those comments.[/QUOTE]
Why are you talking about me and nothing about what I said?
[QUOTE=ultra_bright;48832475]Why are you talking about me and nothing about what I said?[/QUOTE]
All right, I'll address your comment about Canadian gun laws directly. They're far from perfect and some of them are just plain stupid, but I'd still rather have that over a system resembling that in some American States any day. You'll notice that shooting deaths in Canada are relatively rare per annum - That's as it should be.
[editline]5th October 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=jimhowl33t;48832312]...she said at the helm of her minivan, carrying the kids to their soccer training through her gated neighborhood.[/QUOTE]
And this is exactly the kind of shit I'm talking about.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.