The Gun Control Debate Thread

[Springfield]

The mental health angle is complete bull**** and I’ll tell you why.

 

I don’t disagree that people who choose to shoot up lots of soft targets are mentally unstable. But how do you put that into action? Mental health screenings with every gun purchase? Who is going to do the screening and how do you standardize it? Oh, the government. Got it. The same government that a majority of people who want to own guns don’t trust. Mental health screenings are a non-starter. Ok, let’s look at history of using psychotropic drugs to control depression, anxiety, etc. Kick everyone out of gun ownership who uses those drugs. How about marriage counseling or other psychiatric consultation, no guns for them either. At that point you just train people to avoid those types of things or lie about them. If you want people to seek mental health attention then taking their guns away for seeking it is counterproductive.

 

Just ask someone who cries “we have a mental health problem in this country” what they should do about it. They won’t have any answers.

 

So **** that. Take away the murder weapons.

[Renegade7]

[China]

Pope Francis and a cardinal say it's time for the U.S. to act on guns

 

Pope Francis says that his heart is broken over the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, and that the U.S. must act to prevent the spread of guns.

 

"I am praying for the children and adults who were killed, and for their families. It is time to say enough to the indiscriminate trafficking of arms," Francis said on Wednesday, during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

 

People should be working now, the pope said, to ensure a similar tragedy can never happen again. In the U.S., his sentiment was shared by another senior Catholic leader: Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago.

 

"The Second Amendment did not come down from Sinai," Cupich said via Twitter. "The right to bear arms will never be more important than human life. Our children have rights too. And our elected officials have a moral duty to protect them."

 

The cardinal noted that research has shown the expired federal ban on certain rifles was effective in preventing the terror of mass shootings.

 

"As I reflect on this latest American massacre, I keep returning to the questions: Who are we as a nation if we do not act to protect our children? What do we love more: our instruments of death or our future?" Cupich asked.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

America's gun culture - in seven charts

 

A school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, involving young children has reignited the national US debate about access to firearms. What does the data tell us about gun culture and its impact?

Firearms deaths are a fixture in American life.

 

There were 1.5 million of them between 1968 and 2017 - that's higher than the number of soldiers killed in every US conflict since the American War for Independence in 1775.

 

In 2020 alone, more than 45,000 Americans died at the end of a barrel of a gun, whether by homicide or suicide, more than any other year on record. The figure represents a 25% increase from five years prior, and a 43% increase from 2010.

 

But the issue is a highly political one, pitting gun control advocates against sectors of the population fiercely protective of their constitutionally-enshrined right to bear arms.

 

 

 

 

And while mass shooting and gun murders generally garner more media attention, of the total, 54% - about 24,300 deaths - were suicides.

 

A 2016 study published in the American Journal of Public Health found there was a strong relationship between higher levels of gun ownership in a state and higher firearm suicide rates for both men and women.

 

Advocates for stricter gun laws in the United States often cite this statistic when pushing lawmakers to devote more resources to mental health and fewer to easing gun restrictions.

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[bcl05]

[Larry]

Please, please, please let me get away with this scam till I die. 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Going Commando]

"We need more good kids with guns" will be the gun lobby solution to this problem.  It is always some kind of blood soaked scam to sell more guns.

[skinsmarydu]

I just learned something. 

In Canada, if you apply to own a gun, your "household partner" has to sign an affidavit that they are not afraid of you owning said gun. 

 

 

[Going Commando]

I want congress to take the quarter measure of passing universal background check requirements immediately.  Further along, I want a complete ban on civilian ownership of the AR and AK platforms.  They are ****ing toys that get used to murder innocents en masse.  I want a near total ban on magazine capacities over 12 rounds.  At the very least, I want mental health screenings to be a requirement for any large purchase of ammo or body armor.  These are the first steps we need to take.  Massacres at elementary schools must never happen again.  We, as an entire country, need to accept that as a moral obligation.

[CobraCommander]

21 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

I just learned something. 

In Canada, if you apply to own a gun, your "household partner" has to sign an affidavit that they are not afraid of you owning said gun. 

 

 

I mean that's nice and all but if your household partner is volatile it probably doesn't work. Like a battered wife is going to sign that piece of paper 

[Llevron]

35 minutes ago, CobraCommander said:

I mean that's nice and all but if your household partner is volatile it probably doesn't work. Like a battered wife is going to sign that piece of paper 

Knowing that it will give her abuser a gun? Doubtful 

[Ball Security]

1 hour ago, Going Commando said:

I want congress to take the quarter measure of passing universal background check requirements immediately.  Further along, I want a complete ban on civilian ownership of the AR and AK platforms.  They are ****ing toys that get used to murder innocents en masse.  I want a near total ban on magazine capacities over 12 rounds.  At the very least, I want mental health screenings to be a requirement for any large purchase of ammo or body armor.  These are the first steps we need to take.  Massacres at elementary schools must never happen again.  We, as an entire country, need to accept that as a moral obligation.

I’d offer, as a parallel, an extensive buy back program to incentivize giving up ARs and AKs.

[CobraCommander]

18 minutes ago, Llevron said:

Knowing that it will give her abuser a gun? Doubtful 

You don’t think she would fear the retaliation for not signing the paper?

[tshile]

2 minutes ago, CobraCommander said:

You don’t think she would fear the retaliation for not signing the paper?

I think you should look into the Canada system and realize there’s a more to it than just that, before you start picking apart one piece of it claiming it probably doesn’t work in certain situations. 

[CobraCommander]

2 minutes ago, tshile said:

I think you should look into the Canada system and realize there’s a more to it than just that, before you start picking apart one piece of it claiming it probably doesn’t work in certain situations. 

Maybe I should. It sounds like a good idea to me but not foolproof.

Edited May 26, 2022 by CobraCommander

[Llevron]

6 minutes ago, CobraCommander said:

You don’t think she would fear the retaliation for not signing the paper?

I think she would fear her abuser having a gun with which to kill her 

[CobraCommander]

12 minutes ago, Llevron said:

I think she would fear her abuser having a gun with which to kill her 

https://www.spamchronicles.com/gun-control-bill-groups-urge-not-to-shift-the-burden-onto-abused-women/
 

This article kinda explains what I’m getting at. Putting the burden on the woman is not fair and will usually lead to a worse outcome. The husband can still kill the wife without the firearm. Putting the onus on her to be the one to raise the red flag is not fair to an abused spouse.

 

Im not saying the law about a household member signing an affidavit is necessarily bad, just flawed.

[Spaceman Spiff]

All I can say in addition to what's been said is that this can't be another time where a school shooting like this happens and then in three weeks we're off and obsessing with the next social cause du jour.  

 

And by "we" I mean the Democrats.  Not that I classify myself as one, but as more and more time goes by, I'm repulsed by the Republicans and since there's no viable 3rd party, well...

 

But the Democrats need to just keep hammering away on this issue.  They can't get distracted.  They can't ease up.  They have to get a "**** you" attitude, an "in your face" attitude and hammer this home, repeatedly, with commercial after commercial on TV.  They need to have slogans like "The NRA and Republicans don't care about dead kids" along with the most terrible imagery that's allowed to be broadcast on network TV and just never let up.  All the way through the midterms and all the way through the 2024 election.  Hammer, hammer, hammer until the NRA and the Republicans try to combat the messaging because...well, they can't.  They know deep down it's true.

 

It's a marathon, it's not a sprint.  You can't bring up Stoneman Douglas only when you've had an Uvalde.  And you can't bring up Stoneman Douglas and Uvalde only when there's another mass shooting.  If the Democrats actually want to do anything except being ******* who throw their hands up and say "The Republicans block everything!" they need to slowly wear everyone down.

 

The NRA and the Republicans know that in a month from now, this incident will be largely forgotten, like I said.  There'll be something else that we're obsessing over, and that's what they're banking on; that they can just lay low and we'll be on to the next "thing."

 

IMO, the Democrats need to step up and drive this home.  All day, every day.  Wear their opponents down.  Spend big, big money on commercial campaigns that the NRA and Republicans have to address.  Call them out, call them out to the mat and see if they want to wrestle.  

 

 

[The Evil Genius]

Felito must have a flight to Cancun to catch.

 

 

[Going Commando]

52 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

I’d offer, as a parallel, an extensive buy back program to incentivize giving up ARs and AKs.

 

Absolutely.  A massive buyback program must necessarily accompany a widespread ban.

 

I also think we need to reach a point where violating existing gun or domestic abuse laws automatically triggers lifelong bans on gun ownership.  If you shoot or even simply brandish your gun in a public area without justifiable cause, lifelong ban on possession of guns.  If you are convicted of a crime involving domestic violence, lifelong ban.  If you are caught violating this ban, ten year mandatory minimum sentence.  The people who violate these laws are not worthy of service in a well regulated militia and should have no right to own or possess guns.

 

In addition to gun control legislation, we need a broader cultural shift too.  We have got to stop depicting and glamorizing gun violence in our culture.  I'd be in favor of the kind of censorship of gun violence that we already do with nudity and sexual content.  If you depict someone being shot in a video game, movie, or tv show, it should trigger an 18+ rating.  It needs to be far more taboo than sexual content.

[Spaceman Spiff]

Lol Cruz saying that people want to come here because it's the freest, most prosperous, safest country on earth and then saying to the guy "stop being a propagandist' is the height of hypocrisy.

 

[CobraCommander]

10 minutes ago, The Evil Genius said:

Felito must have a flight to Cancun to catch.

 

 

****ing coward knows he's evil. 

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

1 hour ago, Ball Security said:

I’d offer, as a parallel, an extensive buy back program to incentivize giving up ARs and AKs.

 

The federal government is not going to implement an extensive buy back program, it would cost up to 20-40 billion dollars if they offered $1K-2K as the buy back if all 20 million assault rifles in circulation (legally) were turned in.  

[TradeTheBeal!]

3 minutes ago, Dont Taze Me Bro said:

 

The federal government is not going to implement an extensive buy back program, it would cost up to 20-40 billion dollars if they offered $1K-2K as the buy back if all 20 million assault rifles in circulation (legally) were turned in.  

$30 billion put right into taxpayers hands while removing 15 million killing machines from their communities sounds like paradise.

 

I can see why the GQP death cult would be very much against it.