Half a million #MarchForOurLives protesters rally in Washington DC - Polidicks

gun ppl are the bronies of politics

I wonder why. Hm.

Hello friendo can you please point out what I appear to have misread earlier I sure would appreciate it! Who's going to be doing this confiscation, by the way? You're going to have a hard as fuck time trying to convince most LEOs or Sheriffs (which tends to be a very conservative, very pro-gun demographic group by itself) to send out their officers and deputies to confiscate firearms when something like, 86% support concealed carry and are against further gun control. Even if ordered, plenty of those officers are going to be non-compliant (this is anecdotal based on the ones I talk and listen to, but it definitely seems to be a trend) because they know as soon as you start going door to door to confiscate weapons, a lot more cops are going to turn up shot and killed, very, very quickly.... considering that's what the 2nd amendment was for in the first place, anywho. I'd say at the point that a government is breaking down doors trying to take citizen's property that they're well into the tyrannical territory.

I, too, base my politics off of who teases me the most on the internet.

You shoot to neutralize a threat, at least when it comes to personal defense and police/military use. That's the real goal. Killing - or rather, weaponry that has a high likelihood to kill - is just currently the most reliable means to do so. I'm also aware that tasers and such are technically "less lethal" and not "non lethal"; I'd been using that term before in the thread but forgot this time. It's still a better avenue to pursue than weaponry meant to be lethal.

I think you're missing the point of what was being said. It's not "basing your politics off of who teases me the most", someone is not going to be convinced by you if you're being a raging, sarcastic asshole to them. They're not going to listen because you're being inherently combative.

Or maybe people dont want to listen to someone being aggressively snide and rude to them.

Listening to you has reinforced my opinion that people who call for gun bans to stop violence don't know much guns nor violence. Your positions and definitions have shifted dramatically during this conversation and you seem to have problems describing even the most basic attributes of the things you want to ban, which you admit is your end-goal, only starting with weapons used in mass shootings because of the emotional boost it provides. I'm listening, I just disagree. How so?

Apply this to any other constitutional right. "If people can't handle not protesting if they lose their right to free speech then maybe they shouldn't be able to protest in the first place"

Police shoot to kill. There's a reason their firearms are used explicitly for situations where lethal force is needed- otherwise they wouldn't be shooting at all. What police or military force are you talking about here?

Well, then I apologize for acting that way, but it's hard not to be frustrated when you try to convince someone that guns are maybe a problem in this country and they just utterly refuse to budge in any way whatsoever. Even if it was someone besides me, who is better at arguing and articulating themselves from me, they still get completely ignored and have whataboutisms like 'cars are exactly as dangerous as guns therefore ban all cars this is the liberal agenda' thrown at them.

Because you're approaching it from the stance of gun rights being an inherent problem. You've already entered the conversation without any intent of listening to what they have to say.

The argument wasn't that cars are exactly as dangerous as guns, it was that cars cause drastically higher levels carnage than guns do.

In a perfect world I'd be alright with a gun ban, but you gotta face the reality that that sort of thing is going to be logistically impossible as any kind of short term solution. There are simply too many guns, and too many gun owners who'd oppose such action. The problem with the gun debate is that both sides are looking for easy solutions to something that is a massively complex problem. We need to fix our healthcare so that people can get the mental health they need. We need to fix our education system, so that people are less likely to be swayed by extremist ideology. We need to undo decades of racist infrastructure that keep people from escaping poverty. I feel like fellow left wingers who only argue the gun angle are falling into a trap. Guns facilitate school shootings, but they do not cause them. Our abundance of school shootings compared to other countries is not a result of our abundance of guns, it's due to deep seeded cultural problems that have been festering for far too long. That being said, the GOP or the NRA don't seem interested in solving those cultural issues either. If you allow me to sound a bit conspiratorial I feel that keeping the debate focused on guns is a scheme both to keep left-wingers sounding like fools because they're arguing only the surface level issues, while also scaring right-wingers into buying MORE guns, keeping the gun industry ticking. And all this being said, I still support these marches, because I feel that raising awareness on the topic of gun violence is the only way that actual solutions can start to surface.

This. If your starting point is that all guns should be banned you aren't going to have anyone come to your side who wasn't there already. I'm not even sure what you could offer as a compromise in this situation because it's so all-encompassing.

Protesting is a vital part of society, I don't see how owning a weapon is a vital part of society in the same way as the right to free speech, especially considering the rest of the world seems to do just fine without guns. America is the only country that's convinced itself that 'being able to own a gun' is of equal importance to 'being able to not be enslaved'.

Could I suggest restriction corridors or regions? What I mean by this is that as areas get denser work population and police reaction times improve, gun restrictions get tighter and tighter for those areas. You can still purchase and own weapons but having them on person and or in home in restricted areas is illegal. And by restrictions I mean barrel length, magazine capacity, and ammunition type get more and more restricted until they're down right illegal in most if not all city centers.

Why doesn't we get rid of the other amendments while we're at it. We'll never have a terrorist attack or mass shooting again.

I'm torn. On the one hand I love that so many young people are becoming politically active (in a way that isn't walking through college campuses with torches spouting racism). There is something unique about this reaction to a school shooting that has never occurred, at least as long as I can remember. On the other hand I find most of the solutions these people arrive at to be the same sort of ones I argue against on FP; based on bad or sensationalized data that focuses on the easy (supposedly easy) solution of gun bans.

In many parts of the united states, hunting is a very important part of keeping wildlife populations in check, and in others, people rely on having those firearms to keep themselves safe in the event that they're thrust into a situation where its life or death. Especially in rural locations where everything is incredibly spread out and police response times are upwards to half an hour. Again, you're not understanding that just because you're not inherently wrong doesnt mean you're inherently right and that others viewpoints and perspectives hold as much weight and significance as your own.

-will find an excuse to bring up their hobby whenever they can -throw tantrums when ppl say its a lil weird and creepy -will not listen to any sort of criticism of their "lifestyle" -have bizarre sexual attachment to their hobby -have weird fantasies involving their hobby that arent sexual but are fuckin weird -inflated sense of self importance

Again, killing is the means. The end is to remove the threat. As you said, if lethal force isn't needed, they won't be shooting at all. If it truly comes to the point where a gun is needed and we can remove the "lethal" but keep the "force", wouldn't that be a better option?

Just because we don't have an armed revolt against a tyrannical government every day does not mean that the right is pointless or less vital. "what about other countries" is irrelevant.

You're pretty much suggesting sci-fi "set to stun" blasters at that point.

Nothing is ever going to be as sure to stop someone who wants to kill other people than killing them first.

Why are you being like this. Why is it so hard to just have even the smallest amount of basic human decency and listen to what other people have to say without twisting their words.

I'm not going to weigh in on whether or not gun bans are a good thing, but I will say I hope that this is just the start. Even more than gun laws, we need mental health reform, criminal justice reform, and better education. The problem is these just aren't as sexy as gun control laws. This should just be the beginning.

NPR's "On Point" show last night interviewed two Parkland students who helped make the protests today happen. One of the callers on the show mentioned how happy he was that the youth are becoming active and that politicians are only dismissing them because "they know in a year they'll be able to vote". The host then passed the question to the two students about their plans to vote, which to my horror, one reacted surprised at the thought of registering to vote at all as if he never thought of it before, while the other dismissed it as "useless" and that protesting was more effective in passing laws. Both were, obviously, anti-gun but those statements made me cringe the most out of the entire show interviewing them.

So? You're acting as if sci-fi hasn't become reality before. If that goal is at all possible, why not work towards it? It doesn't have to be a Star Trek-style phaser if we can get the same result from something else.

The immediate problem I see with this is that as it stands, city centers are currently the worst for gun violence. Related to this is that with most crimes being a result of handguns, barrel length bans in particular are unlikely to do much. That said, dealing with guns locally seems to work pretty well in the United States and is seemingly Constitutional. There are cities with strict gun control that have high crime rates and cities with little to no gun control with comparatively low crime rates. Tailoring your regulations based on the circumstances of where you are seems like a good idea.