"The Government Has Nukes" warns Eric Swalwell[D - CA] to Gun Owners
154 replies, posted
Why would any state government want anything like this
If it was one side against the other why would the state system collapse
Why would the military not squash sectarianism that tried to appear
Why would long standing military leadership just say "fuck it" and go off to form their own groups
Why would the system collapse when the situation has been far worse before
Why would the military fight each other when you've got one of the most patrotic armies in the world
Because we're talking about a conflict between the chain of command and the US constitution which (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) is considered a higher priority for the military to uphold than the chain of command
In that case theres no point in even considering a civilian getting involved because its purely a military matter and they'd handle it before anyone else could.
But that wouldn't happen.
An american asked me to send this
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/106986/9c5d950b-a09e-4a51-afff-c6074a222548/image.png
Well it's all 'what ifs' but ok, I'll bite.
Maybe the feds did something really unspeakable. Maybe something controversial happened like they're told to enforce a horrific law. Maybe they don't want this but get drawn in.
Divisions based upon 'red did x' and 'blue did y' would spread, leading to petty disagreements between people from the ground up. Now I'm not saying every state would suddenly go to war with their neighbors at the drop of a hat, but people within that state might force their hands. That's if they still have a grip on power, if real anarchy kick off, who is to say local government would still even be in charge?
I have no clue. Don't ask, don't tell? Trust in professionalism that it won't affect them doing their jobs? It might do however, who knows? But the military is largely republican, on a scale of roughly 2 to 1.
Do you think a general when tasked with enforcing a direct order from someone he disagrees with and doesn't see as legitimate would allow such an order to impede his own long-standing beliefs? Again, no one is just going to start going off on their own, it will be a domino effect of escalation until it's almost impossible to pick a side. Some of the leadership will stand by the elected party and trust the system, others will argue that the government isn't legitimate, others still will remain neutral and try and protect 'America', some will resign their commands, others still will remain in place yet be purposely ineffective.
The situation hasn't been this divisive for a long time. Political riots between followers of the red and blue? A time when you can't admit your leanings, even if you're a moderate, to the other side without enduring ridicule and potentially causing a bitter argument?
It wouldn't just start immediately, but it depends on the circumstances. If the military were used to oppress the people you can damn well think at least some soldiers would begin to reconsider what was going on and their loyalties.
It was just an example.
I'm not American, so am just giving an example.
As I've said, it wouldn't all kick off within 10 seconds of some event happening, it'll be slow.
I can't believe you can't see it happening, and can't understand that a flashpoint that destabilizes one state (like Ginsburg dying and then riots happening in MD) couldn't theoretically spin out of control and spread. E.g. Ginsburg dies, Democrats protest that Trump gets another pick, riots get nasty between police and the Democrats, Republican counterprotest begins the next day, situation escalates violently until someone starts shooting, various armed republican and democrat militias begin rallying in the area but nationwide, army is called in to quell the situation... it isn't hard to see how the situation could become a clusterfuck, given the current exasperation/desperation of the dems and Trump's cries that 'antifa could have it violently worse'.
Okay, I definitely should have made it clearer that I'm talking about "gun owners" as a political class being cult-ish, not that everyone who owns a gun is a nutter. I kind of rushed that post to try to get it in before the thread burned itself out, since it's moving stupid fast. I'll try to take more time with this one. It'll probably be like page five by the time I finish this but at least I'll make my point properly, even if nobody bothers to read it.
My view of gun owners comes from a lot of places. Talking to them, for one - I live in the South, even in the cities and suburbs they're fairly common. A fair number of Youtube videos - though I don't own any myself, I do find the history and engineering behind them fascinating, and though I avoid the overtly political ones, politics creeps in from time to time. I've watched a few documentaries that delved deeper into the history of how we got to the current state of affairs. I've done lots of reading on cults and cult-ish behavior in general, and found it perfectly applicable here. And of course, I find myself getting dragged into gun-control debates on forums pretty much constantly, which admittedly is an absolutely awful way to get a measured view on pro-gun people, but is a great way to get yelled at by the nutters and hear what they're all about.
So let me try explaining my point a bit better. There's a subset of gun owners, let's just label them "fanatics" since it's less emotionally loaded. Still a bit, but less so than "cultist".
The fanatics always existed, at least in the US. Everyone finds something to sink their money into, and guns are a great candidate. In the early days, you could spend stupid amounts of money on fancy engraving, or ahead-of-their-time mechanical systems like the Lorenzoni or the Whitworth, or maybe just a huge collection. And they existed side-by-side with the hunters, the sport shooters, and all the rest of the people who made up the vast bulk of gun owners in America (who, at that time, were in fact the majority of Americans). Even into the 1950s, gun owners as a political class were adopting quite reasonable positions. Machine guns? Yeah, we can restrict those, make them borderline impossible to own as a civilian, that's perfectly reasonable. The fanatics didn't really agree, but they were far outvoted even within the NRA.
But the gun manufacturers weren't a huge fan of gun control laws. While fanatics were a small proportion of gun owners, they were a very profitable one - the "whales", to use microtransaction terminology - and stuff like the NFA and GCA made it harder to sell to fanatics. So they started exerting some pressure in the NRA, trying to basically get it to start representing their interests and not just that of gun owners. They succeeded by supporting candidates who pandered to the fanatic. They're easy to get votes from, since they have one big button you can push to manipulate.
So now gun owners are de facto being represented by their most extreme members. This is where the cult cycle starts. The gun owners who think "this is crazy, why should we care about not being able to buy full-auto rifles, they're overpriced and useless for what I do anyways", they just leave the NRA, but they still keep their guns. So now the normies have even less of a voice, driving the group average further into extremism, crossing the line for even more people to leave in distaste, and so on and so forth. This is a very typical cult-like death spiral - a group spiraling into extremism because they drive off their most moderate members.
And, this is around the point where we as a culture stop needing guns the way we used to. America had swung from being primarily rural to primarily urban, and city-dwellers just don't have a use for guns. Hunting is now mostly a sport, not a way to survive, and there's nothing to hunt in the cities anyways. You don't need a gun for home-defense when police are minutes, not hours, away. Sport shooting was always just a recreational thing, but was buoyed by shooting being a useful skill, which it just isn't to most Americans now.
That drove a bit of a crisis in the gun manufacturers, who needed to keep selling a product to a far smaller market. They turned, once again, to the fanatic. They were already on board with "we need to fight gun control laws" - it was an easy switch to "we need to fight gun control laws by buying more guns". This is when the guns-per-capita started climbing. It wasn't enough to just have a hunting rifle or two, a shotgun, maybe a revolver or something. No, now you need a collection. You need the Best Guns, or the Most Guns, or the Rarest Guns. It stopped being a tool to support a lifestyle and started being a lifestyle in and of itself (consider the parallels to Harley-Davidson, or really any "lifestyle product"). You stopped buying a gun to go hunting with, and started hunting as a justification for all the guns you'd bought. "Dynamic" target shooting started to be a thing, because now the primary reason to own a gun isn't for hunting, where you shoot at an unarmed, unknowing animal from a fixed position, it's so you can defend yourself against criminals in a tense combat scenario.
The current state of affairs is rather sad. We've got the NRA, which despite being the most visible "gun owner's advocate", is really fighting for gun manufacturers (how else can you explain their endorsement, some years back, of a bill that would grant manufacturers immunity for injuries and deaths caused by manufacturing defects?). And they act as pretty blatant propaganda - just watch NRA TV for an hour, you'll see plenty of "the evil liberals are coming to TAKE YOUR GUNS. But we won't let them - they'll have to SHOOT us first. MOLON LABE MOTHERFUCKAS!" fearmongering.
That sort of rhetoric is a big driving force behind the so-called militia movements, who range from self-exiles from society to outright terrorists. The political positioning of gun ownership as a conservative, or more precisely anti-liberal, position also drives a lot of other right-wing terrorists, because fanatical personalities often become fanatical about multiple things, so now you get people shooting up Planned Parenthood clinics or synagogues. The obsession with "only a gun lets you defend yourself!" marketing leads to people jumping the gun (pun unintended) and reacting with force to ordinary situations. The massive overproduction of guns has even flooded the market, making suicides (and murder-suicides, or the now-popular mass-murder-suicide) even easier. They've even increased the gun accident rate, since the obsession with "you could get into a shootout with a gangster at any time, milliseconds count!" leads to some unsafe practices like carrying guns with loaded chambers, or not using a manual safety.
I sincerely wish the non-fanatic gun owners would organize, and fight back against the extremists. But, the fanatics have done a very good job of convincing the rest of the gunowners that there is no middle ground, that the liberals want nothing but to pile every gun in the country up into a pyre and burn them to ash and slag. And so the majority of gunowners, while not fanatics themselves, and probably even a bit put off by them, still see gun control as a bigger threat to them than gun fanatics.
For my part, I do intend to urge my D representatives to be more rational with gun control, focus on effective measures and not "we ban teh scary guns". That's about all I can do - try to give the fanatics less ammunition (pun still unintended) to accuse us of coming to take everyone's guns. It's going to be up to the sensible everyday gunowners of America to wrest control back from the nutters.
(For what it's worth, Guns & Ammo is somehow still fairly popular in my region, but I mostly picked it because I wanted to make a "is it a magazine or a clip" joke that I cut that in my brief editing pass.)
"Democrat militas"
Why would these exist? Why would the whole nation suddenly get armed groups popping up all over the place in response to a number of riots? Where were these armed groups in the race riots of the 60s and 70s? Why would the army be called in when the armed groups would have already been dealt with as their mobilization would have been seen coming a mile off and easily prepared for?
Why did the LA riots not end up with armed groups shooting down the National Guard when they arrived? Why did this not lead to a similar situation?
"It was just an example.
I'm not American, so am just giving an example. "
So you're not considering the two vital barries in your theory: the different governments of state and federal?
"As I've said, it wouldn't all kick off within 10 seconds of some event happening, it'll be slow."
If its slow then you've already lost any sense because the slower the event the easier it is for every single armed group possibly trying to do anything being shut down by the FBI/ATF/CIA etc etc all of whom are especially eager to take down any of the sort, just look at the Bundy event.
If its a slow build up it'll be stopped by federal forces, if its a fast build up it makes no sense at all.
This whole "If the Dems just dropped gun control they'd win all the votes!" Thing is such an exhausting meme. God forbid they stick to their principles and don't flip flop for single issue voters.
Ignoring that there are genuinely a ton of people who support gun control and the Dems standpoint on it, and that it isn't even that significant on their platform to begin with, i haven't seen any exit polling to support this wild assertion.
Erm, have you not heard of 'the swole left' and seen antifa showing off their guns? If you think they're 'just riots' you don't understand the context and how heated things are over here politically. It's not like in the UK where people go 'aw fucking tories', it's 'oh you're [other party]', they make a snarky comment and then launch into each other. When I arrived here, I attended a party at the embassy and was told that under no circumstances should you mention politics to anyone because it's that touchy here. I didn't believe them... but after my first month here I soon saw what they meant.
Where were the armed groups in the race riots? The black panthers were armed but thanks to their leadership they saw it was not a good idea.
I really think you put too much faith in the capabilities of the government to stop people who are already primed to despise the other side from flying at their throats given an opportunity. Governments rely on people and if the people who make up their support base are busy fighting them or another party (their political opposites in this situation) they will really struggle to contain the conflict.
These agencies are very keen to preclude conflict, for sure, but if at a protest, bullets started flying from both sides, it wouldn't be long before it kicked off in other states too. Can they stop a lone shooter? Sure, not hard. Can they stop a gun battle? Sure, with considerable difficulty. Can they stop the irreparable political chasm following such an incident? Hell no.
"Erm, have you not heard of 'the swole left' and seen antifa showing off their guns? "
Doesn't exist. The left wing or "Antifa" does not have any kind of similar shit the far right or right wing have, there is nothing similar to the like of the III% crowd on the left.
"Where were the armed groups in the race riots? The black panthers were armed but thanks to their leadership they saw it was not a good idea. "
The black panthers were armed but they were *armed* and that was it. They weren't setting out to occupy streets and attempt to start a race war.
"I really think you put too much faith in the capabilities of the government to stop people who are already primed to despise the other side from flying at their throats given an opportunity. "
Not government. Federal agencies. The CIA, ATF, FBI, they want to take anyone down regardless of which President is in charge. Hence why Waco happened under a Democrat, they live for these kind of events.
"These agencies are very keen to preclude conflict, for sure, but if at a protest, bullets started flying from both sides, it wouldn't be long before it kicked off in other states too."
Why? Why would it spread like that?
Why would far-right and left clashing with someone getting shot at a protest result in this spreading?
Why did this not happen with the BLM protests when the shooter was killed? Why did no response and "spreading" of conflict occur there?
" Can they stop a gun battle? Sure, with considerable difficulty."
How? A rightie and a leftie at a protest shooting would make the protest scatter and the shooters would run, they wouldn't hang around to carry on the fight.
"Can they stop the irreparable political chasm following such an incident? Hell no. "
No but they can stop paramilitary groups from setting up.
You're evidently fixed on your point of view and aren't willing to consider any points, no matter what. But here's the thing, I've lived here for 6 months, and I've got a good feel for what's going on here; America is a political tinderbox right now.
Those groups *do* exist. Left wingers are buying guns precisely because they see the right having them. Plus as you can see in this thread, just because someone is left wig doesn't mean they are anti-gun.
Yeah... and people at these theoretical riots are armed and that's it... until the bullets start to fly.
It would spread because the people who possess those leanings who weren't present would bring their conflict to their local areas. I.e. 'shot a lefty, rip
A rightie and a leftie together with their mates at a protest, it goes nasty, all of them start shooting. Do you really think it would be just one bloke on either side involved?
Paramilitary groups already exist, they don't seem to be stopping them right now.
"Paramilitary groups already exist, they don't seem to be stopping them right now. "
The KKK's still existing, would you argue that they could be ready to do something at any time?
All armed groups are watched in the US, day and night.
"E.g. here are armed left-wing protestors near capitol hill in late 2017:"
I see fat cunts with airsoft
"It would spread because the people who possess those leanings who weren't present would bring their conflict to their local areas. I.e. 'shot a lefty, rip my boys in MD'."
Why? Unite the Right didn't cause that.
"A rightie and a leftie together with their mates at a protest, it goes nasty, all of them start shooting. Do you really think it would be just one bloke on either side involved?"
Yes because this isn't the Wild West anymore, these armed groups are rare and they're pussies anyway.
The problem is there's no reason why Dems should, for the most part, be in favor of gun control (and by gun control I'm referring to the traditional irrational proposals that have been proven to do jack shit). Regardless of the priority, it's undeniable that Dems propose gun control legislation whenever a shooting happens, so it may not be a primary issue, but they are consistent about it. What good is sticking to principles if the principles are absurd?
If a civil war can happen in any other country it can happen here too.
Don't make the mistake of assuming something "can't happen here" just because you think we're magically, like, better than every other country.
We've already fucking had a civil war.
Uh no. You know what’s really an exhausting meme? Assault weapons bans. We all know they don’t work, yet idiots keep trying to bring them back from the dead.
If your principles involve turning an entire demographic of people into felons over simply possessing something which is commonly used for legitimate purposes, then your “principles” are shit. See the War on Drugs and Prohibition.
For what its worth, I never said I thought the Dems stance was a good one. I think that the dems come across as a tad uneducated and uninformed when it comes to gun legislation, and could do better by adopting more evidence-supported measures for gun control. It is, however, foolish to think that there aren't a significant amount of people who support either strict or conservative gun control and that the Dems would suddenly rocket up in support by adopting a lassiez faire policy on it.
According to pew research, 55 percent of gun owners and 77 percent of non gun owners (68% of all adults) support an assault weapons ban. 84% of all adults support background checks for private sales and gun show sales. 83% of all adults support barring purchases from individuals on watch lists. 71% of all adults support a federal database on gun sales.
I think it's not a great idea to compare guns to the war on drugs and prohibition. Guns are tools and weapons, while drugs and alcohol are used for consumption. I'm willing to wager that the illegal drugs market is significantly larger than the black market for firearms in countries where both are illegal.
This is what europol has to say about the illicit firearm market -
Recent terrorist attacks in Europe have spurred initiatives to crack down on the illegal trade in firearms, a relatively small market under the control of organised criminal groups.
Organised criminal groups often rely on the availability of weapons to carry out their activities. However, the market for firearms in the EU remains modest in size. Trafficking occurs on a small scale, and the weapons trafficked are intended for either personal use or to meet specific orders.
Weapons trafficking is almost exclusively a supplementary rather than a primary source of income for the small number of organised criminal groups involved. Most groups enter the weapons-trafficking business through other criminal activity, which may offer contacts, knowledge of existing routes and infrastructure related to the smuggling of weapons.
I think this is mostly because there's less demand for firearms in Europe, and because they're a one-time purchase rather than a sustained investment (like drugs). Probably not the best comparison.
Of course it's not going to be a 1/1 comparison since weed and alcohol only have medical and recreational uses. Possession of weed and alcohol aren't considered an individual right, you can't hunt for food with them, and they can't be used to fend off an assailant or natural predator while the cops/animal control are on the way. But besides those inconsistencies, my point is that all 3 of these things are in high demand. Our country's history clearly shows when you ban something in high demand out of "principle" or "morals", then the demand skyrockets creating another market for illicit goods. This result in organized crime which never turns out good for everyone involved.
Uhh... I'm sorry but do you know any gun enthusiasts in real life? NOBODY just buy's one gun. Also ammo and accessories are kind of a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caMHdcRNEkc
(Yeah I know it has the NRA's name attached to it, but generally this person's videos are pretty on point.)
Adding onto this, different guns are used for different applications because everything is a trade off. There is no "one gun to rule them all" but the closest thing we have to it would probably be an AR15.
Overall though we need better education about firearms to reverse the decades of fear mongering and propaganda. Irrational fear doesn't make for good legislative actions if people really want to actually do something about gun violence instead of hopefully wishing that gun owners are just going to stop existing.
So, who wins when the majority of the gun-owning civilian population supports the regime then?
The West hasn't had a single civil war since World War II (Troubles weren't a civil war lol) and it isn't close to it in any regard, the fact that civil wars have happened in the past means nothing as well.
The situation in the Civil War cannot be replicated in modern america.
A lot of people are overly simplifying things and overlooking a lot of things.
If the people was to get into a war with the gov't it would be bloody and messy. The gov't isn't going to lay waste to their own cities and strategic positions. The whole point of winning is to get something back, why level out your own country? Plus, the mass casualties from that type of reckless attacks would only drive people to fight the gov't more. Look at all the insurgencies that the U.S has fought and how they are fought. WMD don't mean shit, the gov't isn't going to use nukes against their own country. The idea that gun ownership is pointless and the whole right to bear arms is pointless because the gov't has nukes is just a lazy argument. You don't need the entire populous to stand up and fight, you only need a small group of competent fighters. Hypothetically, if such a thing would happen, it wouldn't just be "gun-owners" fighting, other people would be working from the inside. It wouldn't be just one violent clash, it would be a lot of sabotage, espionage, spying, and other activities. What everyone is focusing on would be a fraction of the whole conflict.
Now, is right wing extremism a threat? Yes, but that is for the federal law enforcement and law enforcement to take care of. Banning firearms or going even harder at that goal of gun control isn't going to help. These guys already have weapons stockpiled and ammo. If normal joe schmoes stock pile ammo and guns, don't think they are not. Plus firearms are just going to be the tools for right-wing extremist. Law enforcement needs to systematically dismantle and arrest real threats. Plus right wing extremism has already proven that they don't need guns to meet their ends.
As for gun legislation, if advocates at the political level were to actually listen and come up with logical arguments for it. Maybe there would be a starting point here. Maybe concessions made to gun-owners to prove that this is being done in good faith. You cannot seriously expect gun-owners to come to the table as long as they continue to get demonized and politicians going on record trying to push legislation about stuff they clearly shown to know nothing about. I as a gun owner I don't expect you to eat up the bullshit that our current administration is trying to spoon feed everyone or if someone pro-gun is trying to spoon feed bullshit. Don't expect me to do the same for politicians that don't know what they're talking about, just because they more along your ideals. There are many things that need to be fixed and so far from all the actual mass shootings it points towards the current system not being effective in communication with one another. Its hard to even want to talk about gun control when you have the fucking ATF calling guns with bump stocks fucking machine guns.
Can you elaborate?
How can they "support" something that literally has no established meaning
There is no such thing as an "assault weapon"
"Assault weapon" has a meaning, just not a technical one that anyone can agree on. Words mean what people use them to mean. In common speech, definitions are loose, a collection of related concepts that any thing must meet a certain fraction of in order to be considered correct to use a given word for. Consider: a hot dog might meet whatever definition of "sandwich" a particular dictionary has, but if I say "make me a ham sandwich" and you bring me a hot dog, I'm not going to be happy because you did not bring me something I consider to be a sandwich, even if I can't produce a definition for sandwich that excludes hot dogs. (For further reading, look up a primer on the philosophy of Wittgenstein, particularly the concept of a "language game")
Consider also that even technical terminology isn't always agreed upon. Is an AKS-74U an "assault rifle", a "machine carbine", a "sub-machine gun", or even a "personal defense weapon"? I've seen all three used by various respected sources.
"Assault weapon", to most people, means "semiautomatic rifle, fed from a magazine of high capacity, usually of a family that includes military weapons and/or automatic weapons, suitable for use in mass shootings, not suitable for hunting or static target shooting, normally fairly compact, may have additional military-ish features like bayonet lugs". The most relevant components here are that it is a "mass shooting weapon". People want less mass shootings, or at least less deadly mass shootings, and banning the weapons most often used in the deadliest mass shootings makes sense.
However, laws have to strictly define their terminology, and finding a technical definition for this concept is quite tricky. How many rounds is "high capacity"? What features do you look at for "suitable for mass shootings"? And remember that you don't just have to make a definition rule that correctly categorizes all the guns currently made, but one that resists tricky manufacturers trying to make something that meets the definition but violates the intent.
I've considered it for quite a while, and I'm not sure it's something that can be defined. The best I think I could do is some defined amount of muzzle energy times magazine capacity - say 15kJ. That's the closest I can get to "can fire a lot of human-killing bullets in a short time", which is basically a mass shooter's KPI. But even that has a lot of issues, principally around "magazine capacity". Do you go by what comes with the gun, what the largest compatible magazine is, or something else?
I think whatever technical definition is legislated should err on the side of overly strict, while granting the ATF power to exempt specific firearm models. That makes it most resistant to loopholes, while letting guns with actual sporting purpose remain in use.
You don't know much about California Democrats, do you? This is exactly the kind of thing I'd expect to come from them.
Assault rifle is a rifle that has select fire capabilities such as semi auto, full auto, and burst fire.
Submachine guns are just carbines which use pistol rounds.
Assault weapon has many meanings and is usually used as a buzzword to describe anything that has a detachable magazine. Its commonly used to refer to an AR15, but technically pistols could fall into this category. I could take a SKS with an internal magazine and add one of them bubba detachable magazines to it and suddenly it would fit the profile.
An AKS74U as an assault rifle, it is a short barreled rifle, which uses rifle cartridges. The characteristics of the rifle change how it is used and its effectiveness, but it doesn't change that it is a rifle.
If people actually gave a flying fuck about mass shootings they would focus on the shootings which occur regularly with semi-auto pistols. Rifles are hardly used in shootings, homicides, and murders. The majority of deaths are made up by pistols. Ironically enough, the places that are effected by mass shootings are the ones with the strict gun control measures already in place. So maybe it is time to look at society instead of looking at taking the tools away.
Banning weapons and restricting certain characteristics will do very little as it has already been shown. The idea that people are getting so caught up in terminology in order to try and restrict weapons and it has proven to do jack shit. What you've been talking about has already gone. Adding more measures isn't going to change anything. Most of these high profile mass shootings could have been prevented - all the media talks about how there was so many warnings, so many flags, and the people who committed the shootings already have police contact. Why are we not highlighting those failures?
There are many who would disagree with you (though I'm with you on this one). Russia classifies the AKS-74U as a submachine gun, and they made the damn thing. And what is the difference between a handgun and rifle cartridge? Plenty of rounds are used in both, and that's even before we get into crazy stuff like that .50 BMG handgun.
My point was that even technical definitions aren't universal. You might have a nice, formal rule that tells you whether a given gun is a rifle or a carbine, but that doesn't mean everyone else uses that same definition.
While you are correct that homicides are a bigger threat to most people than mass shootings, mass shootings are more visible (and frequently target children) and so they get a disproportionate amount of attention. And just because it's not the biggest issue in gun control, doesn't mean it's not worth trying to solve.
Handgun bans, or even just restrictions, are relatively common in large cities, and seem to be effective at reducing homicides and suicides (handguns being generally cheaper makes them more appealing to people who only plan to fire one round, point-blank).
And people are talking about solutions to mass shootings besides restricting guns. (Man, you're throwing out a lot of whatabouts). But the level of gun violence in this country is a big enough problem that sensible people don't want to trust a single solution. Anything that absolutely needs doing is something you don't just try one thing at a time. Fifty years ago, we needed to get automobile deaths down - so we attacked the issue from every angle. We legislated safety devices like seatbelts be used. We legislated that cars be built to higher safety standards, and spent taxpayer money on research on how to build safer cars. We stepped up anti-drunk-driving campaigns, not just laws but propaganda to make drunk driving socially unacceptable. We rebuilt roads to be safer. We lowered speed limits. Any one of those things alone could have made cars safer, but we implemented all of them because the danger was too high to not use every means available.
And so it should be with gun violence. The issue is grave enough that we need to attack from all angles. Restrict handguns, to cut down on suicides and gun crime. Restrict assault weapons to cut down on mass shootings. Gun buyback programs and gun production taxes to cut down on the pool of guns in circulation. Mandatory safety training, to cut down on accidents. Police reform, to cut down on unlawful police shootings. Mental health programs, preferably as part of larger-scale healthcare reform. Marijuana legalization, to push gangs and cartels into unprofitability. Police aid to Mexico, to cut down on cross-border crime. Even economic programs to stimulate low-income areas and give them better career options than "armed criminal". There's a million things we should be doing, and saying "but Y would do better" is only an argument against doing X if X and Y are mutually exclusive.
People are dying. That doesn't just demand action, it demands multiple actions, because we dare not risk trying one thing and having it fail.
Again, if the majority of the gun-owning population are the type of people who would support a tyrannical regime, then who wins? What use is a "small group of competent fighters" when they're up against a bigger group of competent fighters from within the civilian population alone?
The part about "people working from the inside" is kind of irrelevant because that would happen regardless of whether the population is well-armed or not.
The whole "combating tyranny" thing has always seemed to me like an irrelevant portion of the gun debate. It usually requires a lot of wishful thinking to work.
If you're actually worried about dictators getting into power, better invest in better checks and balances. They appear to be pretty weak currently, and it's not something that gun ownership has anything to do with.
You say it needs to be tackled from all sides, but all I see if that your argument is tackling guns in hopes to reduce x,y,z metric. \
Better healthcare and mental healthcare is going to reduce suicides. Taking away a handgun isn't going to do it. You are failing to address drug and substance abuse, sexual abuse, family abuse, depression, and other mental illness. These are the causes which lead people to suicide, the gun is a tool primarily for males. Adding wait times for firearms and better screenings will help reduce certain types of suicides. Better programs which help people afford safes and other items to secure weapons from potentially ill family members or friends will help.
Assault weapons are banned, that was back in the 90's. So what do you want banned specifically then? Guns that look scary? A lot of states already banned certain characteristics for firearms, specifically targeting the AR15 and it has yet again proven to be ineffective. Mass shootings like the ones in the news are a statistically small.
Gun buy backs don't do anything to reduce crime, they are actual just waste of tax payer money and PR moves. It is well discussed and even in criminology it is noted to be a waste.
What the hell is a gun production tax? How are you going to cut down the gun circulation with that? If anything, all you are doing is making guns more expensive. The cost will be passed down to the consumer as usual. Even then, you are attacking a huge industry in the U.S, it makes billions of dollars, they will not let something like that happen. Even if it did pass, Pandora's box is already open and the guns are out there. How are you going to apply that to private sales?
Safety training is fine, but how is that going to be funded? What are the requirements? is is federally mandated, state mandated, how are the purchasing systems going to communicate if someone has training or not at the time of purchase. What are the fines or penalties for not doing so?
Police reform is fine, it needs to be reformed for a wide verity of reasons. However, unjustified shootings are extremely rare. Police on average shoot 1000 people a year. Even then, unarmed shootings have been reported to be at their lowest. It is hard to find metrics as to how many are unlawful shootings, because these are the ones that are actually important.
Legalizing weed has helped cut down violence and helps disarm crime organizations. However, cartels are criminal organizations, they have many other ways of making money and spreading influence. I don't see how sending police aid to Mexico is going to help them.
I'm all for taking action, but if it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense. If it seems ineffective it seems ineffective, there are criminologist and sociologists which have been pushing for change as a society for decades. Why am I going to advocate for something that hasn't worked for the past few decades? Maybe the party who is pushing that shit should give up and try something else. There are all these things that can be done like you said, so why are they not being done or pushed for harder?
I find it funny that all these avenues to go through and try, people keep trying to push the same agenda as before.
Worth noting that Russia doesn't use Western classifications, for example they do not use the term Assault Rifle, it's called an Automatic Rifle (eg Avtomat Kalashnikov). As for the other stuff, it's come about as a result of the history of firearms. Full power were the standard, it was used in Rifles and later Machine Guns; they're large and usually have a bottleneck. Pistols used a much shorter cartridge so they could be hand held and compact. Submachine Guns used the Pistol Cartridge. Intermediate Cartridges were experimented with for awhile but it wasn't until Nazi Germany brought the Sturmgewehr using a shortened full power round that they took off, and they've since become both shorter and smaller than their full power predecessors. Russia on the other hand classifies things by how they're used rather than their physical characteristics, so a short gun like the AKS-74u is a submachine gun to them. By western standards, the AKS-74u is an Assault Rifle / Carbine.
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