Thousand Oaks parent: 'I don’t want thoughts and prayers. I want gun control.'
145 replies, posted
What are the chances of being in two mass-shootings in the US?
For some reason I feel like they're remarkably high...
No, his claim was
Banning & harshly restricting access to firearms is an effective method. There's countless instances of this, my own country included.
yet for this supposedly effective method, gun homicides seem to have been increasing for decades.
Neither do I. But how do you determine a dipshit from their photo ID? Dipshits aren't necessarily in the law books, after all.
NOT advocating for mass-confiscation, this is a serious question: How DO you determine a dipshit from a guy who needs to shoot at food?
Check their social media. If they're a New England Patriots, Detroit Lions, Seattle Seahawks, Minnesota Vikings, Greenbay Packers or Indianapolis Colts fan, lifetime ban on firearm ownership.
Did favorite team lose to all of those other teams? You sound like a Bears fan. You might want to pick a better team.
Football teams alone aren't a good indication.
Some candidates could be:
Team stickers covering their vehicle (this fits in with "more than three stickers puts you on a watch list" rather nicely per @OvB 's suggestion )
Team clothing ensembles
Awful Christmas sweaters out of season
Crocs
Emoji Movie: Deluxe Director's Cut Blu-Ray 4K present in video library
Says "libtard/Cuntservative" un-ironically
Q-anon temple in bedroom closet/drawer
It's unfortunately not really the sort of thing you can do a whole lot about until after they've already started doing it. You could do something like require a firearm safety class which includes a functional test at the end but that'd just turn out like people getting their driver's license then immediately disregarding 2/3rds of the rules of the road. Ie: I don't know about everywhere in the country but the Pacific Northwest has a serious issue with people who don't seem to understand what a turn signal is despite the fact they clearly needed to know this before getting their license.
The only thing you can realistically do in such a situation is crack down on the people being morons. In the case of driver's licenses repeated offenses can get you permanently barred from being able to drive. Someone being irresponsible with a gun should be subject to the same thing, albeit maybe more stringently. It takes quite a bit of irresponsibility to get permanently barred from driving. I think that irresponsible gun owners should be subject to the same thing but with a lower bar.
Well shit I can’t really add onto anything which wasn’t already said when Zombinie unleashed exterminatus upon Coydog on page 2.
But yeah could we please at least try to find better solutions which don’t involve fucking over millions of people for simply having possession of technology which has existed since the late 19th century?
"Thoughts and Prayers" means nothing unless you actually do something about it. The Bible literally says it:
James 2:14
14 What doth it profit, my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but have not works? can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister be naked and in lack of daily food, 16 and one of you say unto them, Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled; and yet ye give them not the things needful to the body; what doth it profit? 17 Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. 18 [a]Yea, a man will say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith apart from thy works, and I by my works will show thee my faith.
While I don't believe in banning guns outright, I do believe that there needs to be more control over them. Also the NRA is a piece of shit.
It is in the US, it doesn't mean that it is a good thing that it is such a fundamental right though. Not all legislation is inherently good. I think it goes too far when it prevents screening people who really shouldn't be trusted with weapons, for instance.
I think it's pretty clear at this point that it won't ever act as such. Most firearms are owned by the kind of people who would happily follow the orders of a despot as long as he's from their side of the aisle and tells them what they want to hear. In the event of a tyrannical coup, at best you'd get a civil war where the chunk of the population who defend the dictator actually have an edge.
It always was a pretty weak argument in support of ownership, TBH. Individual right to self defense is at least more compelling, even if I disagree with some of its implications.
I'm not certain why you pinged me
Maybe it's just me but the idea that someone would say, "my kid died in a shooting therefore I know what method is best to handle the gun issue in this country" makes me think they don't actually care about what's going to work. It makes me feel like the people in this country that want gun control aren't thinking logically and would accept a band-aid solution. It makes me feel like "gun control" is a dog whistle for "do something that makes it feel safer" as apposed to wanting to sus out what the best option truly is.
I cant say with 100% certainty but if I had a child that died in a shooting in this country I think I would say something along the lines of, "I'd like it to be harder for certain people to have access to weapons. However, I just don't trust this administration (or any for that matter) not to use gun control as an excuse to take guns away from people that have not and would not ever harm someone that didn't deserve it." I would be asking questions like, "How do we restrict access to guns without painting with a broad brush and restricting those that truly deserve their rights to remain intact, while still restricting those that clearly do not? How do we only take guns from bad people?"
Sorry for ranting but I just have a lot of thoughts on the subject and I've spent that past couple years wondering if a solution to this problem is even realistically enforceable. I think my solution to the gun problem in this country isn't even to tackle the issue itself, but rather to use this as motivation to fix our fucked up government/politics. We keep bringing up other countries in comparison to the US and I'm not sure if a policy being effective elsewhere is applicable. Forgive me for using another one of my stupid metaphors but if there were two children in trouble for stealing liquor from their parents and one kid came from an abusive home and one didnt, the solutions would not be the same. The happy-home kid might stop trying if you put a lock on the cabinet, doesn't mean you get to point the lock and say locks are the solution for everyone. The fucked up family dynamics the abuses to the child don't justify the bad thing the child did but you'd be blind not to see those as such obvious causes and start there, no?
We have guns as a check on the government. They aren't for personal defense against crime or hunting or whatever other arguments people field. We have firearms to not only kill humans, but specifically to kill soldiers. Our OWN soldiers. It is straight up written in the text of the second amendment.
They have literally, in the history of the country, never been more relevant. Our government is hitting levels of corruption that are unheard of. Protesting has accomplished precisely zero because the government simply doesn't care about the approval of protesters. We are desperately watching as the right wing attempts to snuff out every legal avenue we have to deal with their insane corruption. We are hoping that the system can absorb the bullshit that we have put it through and bounce back.
But it might not. We can't let Orange Hitler gain full control. That is apocalyptic levels of dangerous. It is bad enough it has gotten this far, but I don't want our neighbors or our friends overseas to suffer even more because we fucked up and let him become a full blown dictator.
Seems to me that 90% of the "gun nuts" are on team Trump though. Doesn't that sort of ruin the idea?
It takes a remarkably small percentage of your population operating in open rebellion to utterly cripple a country.
There are a lot of shitty factors. Like nukes fuck all sorts of things up. They make it extremely difficult for allied nations to provide material support to a left wing revolt. The flip side is that NOT providing that support allows the rise of what is essentially a Theocracy of idiots with the most powerful military on earth. Potentially an even worse outcome.
Ultimately though what does it matter? He can't be allowed to gain power. If he successfully moves to stop all legal means of holding him accountable, then what choice do we have? Trying and failing is better than allowing the rise of another 3rd Reich with no push back at all.
I totally agree, but I hope it never has to come to it.
Not really, tyranny is tyranny and when it actually manifests the 2nd amendment (or what's left of it) will be there. It's not really supposed to be aligned with any ideology, it just so happens that certain ideologies have come into being that make the elimination of this check on the government one of their tenets, and the conservative movement here have just moved to, well, conserve it.
Besides, an armed correction of the government doesn't have to be so large-scale that we're talking about the president here. Despite GarretFox's shitposting about Trump being "Orange Hitler" and this hilarious idea that the right wing in this country are the corrupt ones (it becomes even funnier when you compare them side by side with the left wing in this country) the Federal government is unlikely to actually be able to do anything that would require an armed intervention. States throughout history and right now have been in open defiance of federal policies countless times, and a lot of the times this is simply allowed to happen through dual federalism. You can simply look at the issues of pot and sanctuary cities if you need contemporary examples.
Before we see anything of that scale, we'd have to see more incidents like the Battle of Athens, Tennessee first, where a corrupt local power establishment was maintaining their grip through election fixing. A bunch of concerned citizens, mainly vets, grabbed some M1 Garands (which would be the contemporary equivalent of the M16/M4, which are full-auto capable versions of the AR-15), marched on the jail where the illicit counting was taking place, and forced the local government to surrender the ballot boxes.
A federal conflict wouldn't just spontaneously erupt because as hard as it is for some people here to believe, Trump doesn't really have a lot of power over your life as your local governments do.
Also, liberals accounted for a fair amount of new gun purchases following the 2016 election, and to that I say all the more power to them. I think it's great that we're potentially starting to get individual Democrats to recognize the value of the second amendment, even if their perceptions of the current administration are wrong.
Another thing is that you make some claim about "gun nuts" solidly being on "team Trump" but this statement isn't really that accurate either. I assume by "Gun nuts" you mean people who are particularly enthusiastic about guns, of which yes, many did vote Trump, but only out of necessity and not because they liked him. Take me as an example.
While I have come around to liking Trump more recently, as late as election day I didn't really like the idea of voting for him. I was one of those "Never Trumpers" and I actually have a post or two on this forum dating back to 2015 where I declared as much. In particular took issue with how he has expressed his possible support of an Assault Weapons Ban several times (which he later retracted off the cuff). When I voted for him I knew I was voting for a New York City liberal, with the AWB comments in very recent memory, and indeed Trump did support efforts to ban bump stocks earlier this year.
As a result of Trump's relative cluelessness about guns, combined with his city liberal background, you'll find plenty of gun enthusiasts who aren't really as fond of the president as you may think, some of them on this forum. And I'll say this much: If Democrats came out tommorow with a pledge to repeal the NFA and re-legalize full auto guns and assault rifles, and I could be reasonably sure that they were for real, I'd vote for them in a heartbeat ignoring all the insane progressive policies and rhetoric that they spew on the daily, but it's highly unlikely this would ever happen seeing that its in the Democrat establishment's best interests that their subjects remain unarmed.
linked article for background on the Battle of Athens.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29#End_of_the_Battle_and_Vote_Counting
good job, you beat Guatemala? that previous chart is still extremely alarming. a country with the living standards of the United States should not be on par with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
now i don't think the US government is anywhere near nuanced enough to introduce effective gun control, but there is still a very clear problem with gun violence and people are only gonna want more and more extreme solutions to it over time.
I don't think the second amendment will save the US from tyranny.
It's easier in hindsight to see that the kind of people who believe that the cult of force of the second amendment is the ultimate law are also the kind of people to support an authoritarian tyrant who believes in force and cult over law. Ultimately, the second amendment has merely armed fascist paramilitaries who, upon gaining power, instantly switch from "we need arms to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government" to "we need arms to protect the tyrannical government from traitors".
I can't think of any definition of liberty that supports removing the rights and voting power of individuals. Especially when the people in power aim to reverse the rights of individuals because they see them as a threat to the whole collective. Meanwhile the fantasy of liberty over tyranny costs 35,000 lives a year by giving people the most lethal methods of resolving disputes and their mental health, and mandating the most violent and psychopathic branch of policing known to the western world.
I don't know how to fix the USA, I just hope you guys figure it out before we have to treat you like just another failed state.
"Everyone should be able to own a gun, even if they disagree with me and oppose representatives that I currently support because self defense from thuggery and tyranny is important and (should be) ideologically agnostic"
Yup you're right, what a fascistic sentiment.
This is irrelevant. The increase is miniscule in comparison to the US, even factoring in population difference.
You don't know it's not effective until you've tried it, and y'all are clearly too busy wanking off your AR's and praising your nonsensical constitution to care.
No, you have to plan 2-3 years in advance to get a rifle so that you can hunt whenever you want. Not wait 2-3 years between each hunt. As for your health care system, well, that's a whole different topic but in an ideal world you'd ban both firearms and have a good, free health care. But that one's also too much to ask, apparently.
And no, I didn't misinterpret what you said, and my focus is on all guns. Nobody needs a gun. That's a fact.
It is plenty enough said. Cars are tools. They were designed with transportation in mind. They are heavily regulated and require extensive licenses and check-ups. Firearms are easily acquired murder-machines with the express intent to destroy and kill. The #1 rule is "do not aim at something which you do not wish to destroy". They are not comparable items. While we're on the topic of "handwaving", you're handwaving my concerns as "shitposting", so that's very mature of you.
You seem to be not reading the giant informative posts about so I'm going to put it in small words for the sake of your attention span: It has been tried. It's been proven ineffective.
@Coydog
“nobody needs a gun” until the moment they need a gun. Ok let me just call the cops real quick while anyone potentially armed and dangerous tries to force entry into my home.
”911 emergency how can we help you?”
Yes there’s a group of 3 people trying to break into the house and I’m still recovering from a back injury, so can you just beam me over an AR 15 through the phone so I can have a non-zero chance of being able to defend my family in the 10 to 15 minutes it takes for the cops to get here?
”Sure thing” *BOOP* “anything else?”
Nah I’m good now. Thanks fam.
Are you like the pro lifer equivalent to guns or something? Because that’s not how it works.
“NO GUN even in the event of rape, incest, or emergencies!”
Crikey.
Not in the US, and not to a standard comparable to countries where weapon bans have been effective.
Exactly. You don't need a gun. Law enforcement does. You want something self defense? Get pepper spray or a taser.
It's not irrelevant though, you claimed gun control has been effective in your country and those charts show it hasn't. We aren't comparing countries there, we are evaluating the effectiveness of your beloved regulations.
Then almost everyone must be using theirs wrong? If that was a guns only purpose you would be seeing much, MUCH higher rates of gun crime. And you should already know by now that collecting, target shooting, competition, etc are all incredibly popular here and have nothing to do with killing.
Oh please, everyone knows pepper spray and tasers are far too unreliable to be counted upon.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/1383/8484f930-bc35-48f1-a491-b2924b22f1ad/image.png
You should stop being purposely vague and give an example of a country then.
We just talked about how you don't get to make that decision for other people and all the faulty logic inherent in that line of thinking
Not only that but concealed carry is great if you live in an area known for predatory wildlife. Peace of mind that you have something to defend yourself with if a bobcat or a coyote happens to come at you.
You do know that even counting the highly misrepresented gun massacre stat, that the positives of guns (defending oneself, etc) still massively outnumbers gun deaths (including suicides)?
Those charts show a MINISCULE increase in gun crime, it doesn't show that the measures have been ineffective in the slightest. The people getting shot over here are almost exclusively gang members.
You cannot possibly deny the absolute fact that firearms were designed with the express purpose to kill and destroy. They are called WEAPONS. They had one purpose. Sure, they were fashioned (read: fetishized) into sport and fun, but you cannot take away the original intended purpose. That's idiotic.
This chart just kind of proves my point. "Other measures" are still effective. You don't need a gun.
Sweden, Australia, Switzerland (at least in terms of gun control rather than ban),
Ok. If this is what you want to argue, then take a look at all the things the military complex has invented. Look at their applications and how they have caused misery, grief, and death. By your logic we should not have that anymore. So goodbye Nuclear Power, goodbye GPS, goodbye fucking internet.
DUCKING QUOTE SYSTEM GARRY YOU SHIT
Yes, lets double our chances to get hurt because you are scared of guns.
Same here, 80% of our gun deaths are gang related
I'm not talking about their creation, I am talking about their use cases. And their creative intent is inconsequential when you consider that any given gun in the US has a 0.000027% chance of being used to kill annually.
No, it proves that anyone who takes personal protection seriously will want nothing other than a gun. As you can see for yourself a gun is almost twice as effective than "other measures".
I showed you the ineffectiveness of Sweden's and Australia's gun control. And Switzerland more confidently can attribute their relative peacefulness to their high standards of living and low poverty when you consider the high number of guns per person. (Not to mention you changed from gun ban to gun control)
Wow it's like you are willfully ignoring the chart you just addressed earlier that clearly outlines the advantage.
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