Majority in poll say Florida students 'effective advocates for gun control' - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Pascall;53194387]It's not just "fear", it's issues with coordination, loud noises, and poor eyesight which means it would be irresponsible for me to handle a gun. If you wanna encourage people to use guns, that's all fine and well, but you should also be willing to understand that not everyone wants to or is able to.[/QUOTE] Having physical issues with learning is understandable, but your original post gave the impression that it was simply being ignorant of a firearm is why you wouldn't want to have one.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;53194395]I mean, straight up, there's no instant solution that's worth a damn. The "arm everyone" camp is just as ignorant as the "ban everything" camp, IMO.[/QUOTE] He meant "instantaneous" as in "instantaneously killing the intruder rather than wait for the police".

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;53194405]Having physical issues with learning is understandable, but your original post gave the impression that it was simply being ignorant of a firearm is why you wouldn't want to have one.[/QUOTE] Nah, it really didn't, you're just assuming that. He quite literally said that he doesn't trust himself...that could be for any number of reasons.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;53194405]Having physical issues with learning is understandable, but your original post gave the impression that it was simply being ignorant of a firearm is why you wouldn't want to have one.[/QUOTE] Not sure how it did that lol I didn't really give a reason besides not liking guns and not trusting myself with one. Should be a decent enough reason on its own though honestly? Even if someone is fully physically capable. They shouldn't have to be pressured to use one just because the option exists.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;53194408]To be fair, most people that say "i don't trust myself" are saying that out of fear of the weapon, rather than a physical incapability.[/QUOTE] Or they simply believe that deadly weapons are not something most humans have the mental ability or authority to wield and use on people?

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;53194220][B]You also have much more police than America does per capita, iirc.[/B] Not to mention that police departments vary wildly in the US. You can have things like the Chicago or LA police departments that receive a lot of funding, [B]and have access to a variety of equipment including armored vehicles.[/B] Compare that to like, DeKalb, IL, which has a fairly minute force that only has a handful of cars and officers available at any time. Yes, some of that comes from the size of the city mattering, but rural or poor areas tend to have disproportionately ill-equipped/trained police forces.[/QUOTE] France seems to have about a fifth more per capita, but other European nations have less or around the same number. Australia apparently have quite a few fewer. I'm also go ahead and say that US police forced are - in general - probably equipped with more heavy duty stuff than European cops, so yeah. The last part is just based on my perception, though.

[QUOTE=ilikecorn;53194417]I mean i'd argue that the statistics don't support that line of thinking, but people are free to not arm themselves if they so chose. It's no skin off my nose. I don't really feel that you need to justify not owning a gun, just like I don't believe in needing to justify owning a gun. At the end of the day, it is what it is, now isnt it?[/QUOTE] You do need to justify using a gun on people, though, and I think that's the main concern for most people when it comes to them. And I don't know, do the statistics of gun vs human violence have a majority of self defense, or is it all the other stuff that guns are used for?

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;53194423]France seems to have about a fifth more per capita, but other European nations have less or around the same number. Australia apparently have quite a few fewer. I'm also go ahead and say that US police forced are - in general - probably equipped with more heavy duty stuff than European cops, so yeah. The last part is just based on my perception, though.[/QUOTE] Police equipment varies very widely from municipality to municipality. There are some municipalities so small that they don't even have their own police force, while others have so much money in their budget that they can shop military surplus without hesitation.

[QUOTE=Tetracycline;53194416]Or they simply believe that deadly weapons are not something most humans have the mental ability or authority to wield and use on people?[/QUOTE] Speaking as someone who works in retail and and used to work customer service specifically, it's fucking terrifying how so many people are licensed to operate motor vehicles, let alone own guns. [editline]11th March 2018[/editline] [QUOTE=_Axel;53194406]He meant "instantaneous" as in "instantaneously killing the intruder rather than wait for the police".[/QUOTE] And just to make myself clear, not necessarily instantly kill an intruder. That really should be the last resort. It's more about having options and not needing them then needing them and not having them. I don't think everyone should be armed.

[QUOTE=catbarf;53194311]I don't see why you're bringing this up. Are you discounting Switzerland as a comparison solely due to the fact that they have a reason for issuing assault rifles to every man? Because if the claim is that having guns readily available inevitably leads to mass murder, and gun availability is the sole driving factor in gun violence, I don't see how a sticker saying 'for militia use' makes any difference whatsoever in the outcome. Swiss men have ready access to fully-automatic firearms and ready access to ammunition. If prevalence and accessibility of guns is the driving factor behind mass killings, and the only way to stop mass shootings is to heavily restrict guns, then the country should be a bloodbath. Unless you're saying training and instruction in their use is the difference between rampant mass-murderers and a peaceful society, which I highly doubt, but at least that's an alternative to the stupid 'the only reason is guns, ban guns' rhetoric.[/QUOTE] You used Switzerland as an example of a country with easy access to guns and said "they give you a gun" with absolutely no context whatsoever, I wanted to understand it more so I looked it up and gave the info I found. Not sure where I discounted the entire country based on that.

[QUOTE=Tigster;53194475]You used Switzerland as an example of a country with easy access to guns and said "they give you a gun" with absolutely no context whatsoever, I wanted to understand it more so I looked it up and gave the info I found. Not sure where I discounted the entire country based on that.[/QUOTE] My apologies; I thought you were citing that context to undermine or discount the example. My point was solely that Switzerland is an example of a country awash with guns- not necessarily privately owned ones, but fully-functional and readily-accessible guns nonetheless- that doesn't have the same problems we do, which invalidates the claim that the reason America is the way it is solely because of availability of guns.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;53194174]Is it possible for anyone from outside the US to not make this weird comment?[/QUOTE] What part was weird to you? The part where I don't every schmuck in Sweden/rest of Europe to arm themselves with military weapons and where three in ten people carry a 9mm? If americans want to play with their guns and continue this endless cycle of violence fine, but don't start talking about "human rights" when half of the pro-gun debaters in this thread seem to happily ignore the fact that the cost of their ability to shoot racoons and methheads (lol) comes at the cost of innocents dying. I've fired weapons myself (Glock 17, AK-4 and AK-5C) and yeah, you feel powerful. But I would never want to trade that power or safety for a chance to have my nieghbours etc. arm themselves and accidently shoot my family or whatever. It's just not worth it. In any case, something I've realized with the countless debates on Facepunch regarding guns is that (most) europeans will never see eye-to-eye with US users because several basic aspects of society are vastly different (such as the trust for authorities, obsession with race, criminality, etc.).

[QUOTE=Viper123_SWE;53194500]What part was weird to you? The part where I don't every schmuck in Sweden/rest of Europe to arm themselves with military weapons and where three in ten people carry a 9mm? If americans want to play with their guns and continue this endless cycle of violence fine, but don't start talking about "human rights" when half of the pro-gun debaters in this thread seem to happily ignore the fact that the cost of their ability to shoot racoons and methheads (lol) comes at the cost of innocents dying. I've fired weapons myself (Glock 17, AK-4 and AK-5C) and yeah, you feel powerful. But I would never want to trade that power or safety for a chance to have my nieghbours etc. arm themselves and accidently shoot my family or whatever. It's just not worth it. In any case, something I've realized with the countless debates on Facepunch regarding guns is that (most) europeans will never see eye-to-eye with US users because several basic aspects of society are vastly different (such as the trust for authorities, obsession with race, criminality, etc.).[/QUOTE] The comment is weird because not a single post here is telling you to adopt American gun laws so stop acting like there are

[QUOTE=AlbertWesker;53193919] For many people it's not just a dumb hobby, but their way of life and in some cases their livelihood. A lot of people invest a considerable amount of time and money to make the 2nd amendment a part of their lives. Having this right suddenly revoked is not an option even with compensation (which would probably never happen). There's also the original intent and purpose of the 2nd amendment being wrote specifically to give the people a means of opposing a government gone completely rogue or a foreign power which hijacks our own government, but at the moment that's not entirely relevant and [B]hopefully it stays that way[/B]. [/QUOTE] To prioritize 'protection' against a theoretical end-of-the-US situation over literally everything else will never make sense to me.

[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;53194504]The comment is weird because not a single post here is telling you to adopt American gun laws so stop acting like there are[/QUOTE] Yeah except you do when you start chanting about Human rights, unless of course Americans are a separate "breed" from the rest of the world.

[QUOTE=Viper123_SWE;53194576]Yeah except you do when you start chanting about Human rights, unless of course Americans are a separate "breed" from the rest of the world.[/QUOTE] You act as if considering owning a firearm as a human right mandates you and everyone around you to become armed to the teeth when that simply is not the case. Besides that, most if not all Americans (for better or worse), honestly don't give a fuck about other countries when it comes to gun rights.

[QUOTE=Viper123_SWE;53194576]Yeah except you do when you start chanting about Human rights, unless of course Americans are a separate "breed" from the rest of the world.[/QUOTE] I sure didn’t and I’ve never said anything about breed, what are you doing

[QUOTE=Sir Whoopsalot;53193572]It's impossible to not read this with a southern drawl, it's such a stereotype. Gun nuts are the [I]weirdest[/I] people.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=SIRIUS;53193476]Oh no, poor poor you, what would you do without guns?!?! Seriously, come on, get off the melodrama and get some perspective on what's really important[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=SIRIUS;53193347]And I'll get to listen to gun nuts' victim complexes[/QUOTE] Its baffling that you think anyone on the other side of this debate is ever going to bother listening to you when you say shit like this. What do you think it is you're trying to do when you post like this? Who do you think you're convincing of anything? Do you actually think you're doing anything other than being smug and snide? Whats the point of this? Do you actually believe on any earth that you're doing anything to help when you do this?

[QUOTE=AaronM202;53194660]Its baffling that you think anyone on the other side of this debate is ever going to bother listening to you when you say shit like this. What do you think it is you're trying to do when you post like this? Who do you think you're convincing of anything? Do you actually think you're doing anything other than being smug and snide? Whats the point of this? Do you actually believe on any earth that you're doing anything to help when you do this?[/QUOTE] Somebody talking about gun rights the same way that one might talk about civil rights infractions seems a little ridiculous to some people. It's not that gun owners are easy to make fun of, it's gun [I]nuts[/I]. People that act like guns are literally the sole thing that is important to them. This is the exact same with any extreme-slant obsessive over any topic.

[QUOTE=catbarf;53194497]My apologies; I thought you were citing that context to undermine or discount the example. My point was solely that Switzerland is an example of a country awash with guns- not necessarily privately owned ones, but fully-functional and readily-accessible guns nonetheless- that doesn't have the same problems we do, which invalidates the claim that the reason America is the way it is solely because of availability of guns.[/QUOTE] You do know however, that Switzerland [URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912"]still has stricter gun[/URL] laws than the US, right? And you know that there's also a correlation between stronger gun laws and less gun related violence in Switzerland (and also [URL="https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.12091256?code=ajp-site&"]gun suicides[/URL])?

[QUOTE=AaronM202;53194660]Its baffling that you think anyone on the other side of this debate is ever going to bother listening to you when you say shit like this. What do you think it is you're trying to do when you post like this? Who do you think you're convincing of anything? Do you actually think you're doing anything other than being smug and snide? Whats the point of this? Do you actually believe on any earth that you're doing anything to help when you do this?[/QUOTE] Oh get over it. What do you expect when gun nuts have been spewing the same nonsense for years and being completely unable to admit the danger of the thing they love to wank over. The rest of the world watches in embarrassment while Americans continue to kill each other with guns and continue to do nothing about it because they’re stubborn and gun obsessed and point the blame at literally anything else when the answer is obvious to any sane person.

[QUOTE=MisterMooth;53194747]Oh get over it. What do you expect when gun nuts have been spewing the same nonsense for years and being completely unable to admit the danger of the thing they love to wank over. The rest of the world watches in embarrassment while Americans continue to kill each other with guns and continue to do nothing about it because they’re stubborn and gun obsessed.[/QUOTE] And what has this argument accomplished? This endless, fruitless, looping debate thats been happening for decades while only more and more of these kinds of shootings happen? Every time its the same exact debate, the same exact argument, that goes precisely nowhere because everyones (as a generalization mind you, i've seen some who are, but it seems to be a rarity) too pig headed to even consider the other persons side as even potentially holding the same weight as theirs, even [i]hypothetically[/i], even for the sake of discussing it. And every time, its only this same exact argument over whether or not people should own these objects, almost no focus ever on any other possible thing that could be done to curb these events, its always the same senseless banging against an iron wall thinking this time it'll finally fall down and something different will happen when it never does.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;53194750]And what has this argument accomplished? This endless, fruitless, looping debate thats been happening for decades while only more and more of these kinds of shootings happen?[/QUOTE] That’s exactly the point. Nothing ever gets done. You can’t argue this because of the stubbornness of gun nuts.

[QUOTE=MisterMooth;53194754]That’s exactly the point. Nothing ever gets done. You can’t argue this because of the stubbornness of gun owners.[/QUOTE] Listen to yourself for a moment. Think about what it is you just posted.

[QUOTE=AaronM202;53194755]Listen to yourself for a moment. Think about what it is you just posted.[/QUOTE] What do you propose be done then? Because it should be obvious the kind of things we propose, but Americans seem way to stubborn for any of that. Why is making guns harder to obtain such a controversial issue? America is the only country where this regularly happens, and it’s pretty glaring what sets America apart from other countries.

[QUOTE=NoOneKnowsMe;53194730]You do know however, that Switzerland [URL="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912"]still has stricter gun[/URL] laws than the US, right?[/QUOTE] Sure do. But that doesn't really matter when someone's claiming firearm accessibility = violence and mass shootings, because regardless of the laws for private ownership, firearm accessibility is prevalent in Switzerland due to the conscription system. [QUOTE=MisterMooth;53194747]Oh get over it. What do you expect when gun nuts have been spewing the same nonsense for years and being completely unable to admit the danger of the thing they love to wank over. The rest of the world watches in embarrassment while Americans continue to kill each other with guns and continue to do nothing about it because they’re stubborn and gun obsessed and point the blame at literally anything else when the answer is obvious to any sane person.[/QUOTE] What do you expect when gun control advocates keep spewing the same nonsense for years and being completely unable to admit that many countries get along fine with widespread gun ownership, repeatedly proposing feel-good measures that have failed in the past rather than tackling statistically significant factors in gun violence? I already gave you several direct, clear counterexamples to your claim that it's gun availability that sets the US apart from the rest of the world, and you never responded. Even Australia's academics haven't conclusively determined any impact of the massive gun buyback, while meanwhile a stone's throw away New Zealand has much more ready availability of guns and a lower homicide rate than Australia. Serbia's got the second-highest number of guns after the US, but their homicide rate is comparable to their gun-banning European neighbors. Plenty of countries with easy access to firearms don't have the problems we do. Plenty of countries with the problems we do have tried implementing gun bans, and failed horribly. The answer's not obvious, you're just shitposting.

[QUOTE=catbarf;53194775]Sure do. But that doesn't really matter when someone's claiming firearm accessibility = violence and mass shootings, because regardless of the laws for private ownership, firearm accessibility is prevalent in Switzerland due to the conscription system. What do you expect when gun control advocates keep spewing the same nonsense for years and being completely unable to admit that many countries get along fine with widespread gun ownership, repeatedly proposing feel-good measures that have failed in the past rather than tackling statistically significant factors in gun violence? I already gave you several direct, clear counterexamples to your claim that it's gun availability that sets the US apart from the rest of the world, and you never responded. Even Australia's academics haven't conclusively determined any impact of the massive gun buyback, while meanwhile a stone's throw away New Zealand has much more ready availability of guns and a lower homicide rate than the US. The answer's not obvious, you're just shitposting.[/QUOTE] You mentioned Switzerland, a country with significantly stricter gun laws as brought up by other posts. Same with New Zealand. Do you really think it’s as easy to get a gun in NZ as in America?

[QUOTE=MisterMooth;53194772]What do you propose be done then? Because it should be obvious the kind of things we propose, but Americans seem way to stubborn for any of that. Why is making guns harder to obtain such a controversial issue? America is the only country where this regularly happens, and it’s pretty glaring what sets America apart from other countries.[/QUOTE] You mean like all of the socioeconomic inequality and stigmas to mental health issues and the glaring issues with the education system and how it punishes people for being bullied and the massive gang problems, etc? You know like the root cause of these types of crimes? As in the [i]why[/i] of the crime? I dont care what anyone thinks about whether or not people should be allowed to own these things but for fucks sake how many more shootings followed by the same nonsensical screaming that fails to do anything is it going to take before even the slightest bit of thought is put into trying to solve it another way? Once again, how many times has this argument happened, over how many decades, and yet these shootings continue, and yet they seem to happen more and more, and nothing changes. More scrutiny, more arguing, more divisiveness, and it does [i][B][U]NOTHING[/U][/B][/i] to stop people from being shot. [editline]11th March 2018[/editline] Thats why i ask, again, what is it that you think you're doing? Do you actually think you're helping when you do this?

[QUOTE=MisterMooth;53194772]What do you propose be done then?[/QUOTE] As I and others have suggested in multiple threads: Gun-specific -Make straw purchase a felony nation-wide, and force the DoJ to prosecute it -Empower the ATF to investigate FFL holders more frequently -Ensure the DoD properly reports mental health and criminal records to the NICS -Reform HIPAA to ensure civil mental health records are reported to the NICS -Enforce storage requirements and stricter liability on stolen firearms -Implement a universal background check system -If necessary, add handguns to the NFA Non-gun-specific -End the drug war, which drives the gang violence that makes up the majority of our firearm deaths -Invest in our inner cities (see previous point) -Reform mental healthcare and make it available to everyone -Address bullying and ostracization in schools We've proposed, repeatedly, across multiple threads, specific measures to address both the use of firearms in crime and the social factors that drive our shockingly high homicide rate to begin with (spoilers: Flint, MI doesn't have a homicide rate ten times the national average because they have ten times more guns, it's because the place looks like the post-apocalypse). We've given specific measures that could address both gun crime and crime in general, without looking to band-aid solutions. We've only argued against simplistic caricatures of the situation and knee-jerk feel-good reactions that won't address the problems. What else do you want from us? [QUOTE=MisterMooth;53194783]You mentioned Switzerland, a country with significantly stricter gun laws as brought up by other posts.[/QUOTE] For like the third time, it doesn't matter how strict the gun laws are if the government is handing out machine guns to every able-bodied male and no mass shootings or crazy homicide rates result. They have ready access to guns, end of story.

Considering the proportion of crime in the US carried out with stolen guns in the first place, comparisons between ease of legal purchase are completely fucking irrelevant. What matters is these countries are also "saturated with" guns and do not have a gun crime problem. The gun laws which law abiding citizens follow are irrelevant when someone who wants to break the law can circumvent them all by just stealing one from someone who jumped through the hoops. Yet nobody is breaking into Hans' house and stealing his SG-552 to commit a crime. That's because these are stable societies.