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Re: US Politics Thread
buzzsaw wrote:I'm hardly a gun advocate, I'm a realist. Everything everyone says makes total since in imagination land, but doesn't work in reality. There are some things you just can't stop without intelligence that it's going to happen ahead of time. That is reality. You have to accept it before you can even begin to have meaningful discussions about anything. Everything now is just gun control freaks taking advantage of a horrible situation for political gain.
Surely, as a realist, you agree these bump stocks can be banned tomorrow & you have no problem with it, correct?
What are you accomplishing by doing it? I'm not at all for doing something to say we did something. Explain what this fixes to prevent this from happening in the future.
Re: US Politics Thread
The other thing is that we're only considering one dimension of the problem here....but I think it's time to be very honest with ourselves.
It appears that law enforcement goes to great lengths to identify the causation/co-relation factors that can predict these types of things happening. There is a definite psychological aspect here and while not everything has been pinpointed yet...I think it's safe to say there are a fair amount of predictive elements.
I also think it's safe to say that these shootings are a symptom of a much larger societal problem..and I wouldn't mind going even farther and say that our culture is sick. Not sick in a cool way or sick in a stupid way. Society and our culture has a tumor on it. Sometimes tumors can be treated...sometimes they can't.
I can't help but think that these mass shootings are a symptom, and you can't cure something by only treating the symptom.
That's been my point all along. You can't fix this or stop this with gun laws. Any actual solution has to be way deeper than that and that's a slippery slope too. Predicting this is also impossible. Are you going to lock up all mental patients just in case? Where do you draw the line?
If we want freedom, there are costs that go along with that. The only ways to limit this are huge impositions on personal rights.
- Randall Flagg
- Rep: 139
Re: US Politics Thread
See, this is what I hate. Repubs & gun rights advocates play a "Well let's hear your solutions?" game. Then, when you bring up a few possible suggestions off the top of your head that maybe with some tweaking or looking into, could have a nominal impact. But all you get in return is 'That won't work'. 'That wouldn't have stopped this situation' or 'Thats a waste of time & money'.
Its called brainstorming, and the first rule of brainstorming is not to reject someones suggestion, because it could inevitably led to a greater suggestion. But thats what they do. In return however, we got a Muslim ban???! When told that wouldn't have prevented any shootings nor 9/11, we get "Well its a start & needed to be done".
Flagg, you posted no other ammendments have a 25 year age restriction & what would it have done? I think most other shootings were by those under 25 IIRC, and car insurance rates tend to drop drastically once one hits 25, plus Obamacare people can stay on parents plans until they're 26, so it can be done. Plus I think trust funds can be written so kids cannot touch it until they're 25. Things like that. Again, it could be a start, mix it in with backgrounds checks, waiting periods, a ban on assault rifles & modification kits, and a limit as to how many high powered assault rifles one can have, or a registration of high powered guns etc and you're getting somewhere on this. Yeah, this has nothing to do with owning a pistol for defense. Although you look at the idiot George Zimmerman & alot of people think its grounds for winning a fight that they started but can't win otherwise, but I digress.
I'm surprised a civil lawsuit has never been filed from any of these, but I think Newtown they tried. It's very common for bars to be sued in DUI cases, but I guess never the beer manufacturer. They should sue the sellers & makers of that stock clip modification.
I'm all for solutions, but it's fair to critique them if they've been done before or have obvious problems. We banned assault weapons in 1994, remember? Within weeks the firearms industry was making new guns that accomplished the same thing, and we still had every mass shooting prior to its sunset in 2005.
July 8, 2003. Doug Williams, a Lockheed Martin employee, shot up his plant in Meridian, MS in a racially-motivated rampage. He shot 14 people, most of them African American, and killed 7 before killing himself.
December 26, 2000. Edgewater Technology employee Michael “Mucko” McDermott shot and killed seven of his coworkers at the office in Wakefield, MA. McDermott claimed he had “traveled back in time and killed Hitler and the last 6 Nazis.” He was sentenced to 7 consecutive life sentences.
September 15, 1999. Larry Gene Ashbrook opened fire on a Christian rock concert and teen prayer rally at Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, TX. He killed 7 people and wounded 7 others, almost all teenagers. Ashbrook committed suicide.
July 29, 1999. Mark Orrin Barton, 44, murdered his wife and two children with a hammer before shooting up two Atlanta day trading firms. Barton, a day trader, was believed to be motivated by huge monetary losses. He killed 12 including his family and injured 13 before killing himself.
April 20, 1999. In the deadliest high school shooting in US history, teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold shot up Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. They killed 13 people and wounded 21 others. They killed themselves after the massacre.
No one knows how many assault rifles are in the US, and again, the definition will vary by whom you converse with. But this article from 2014 (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat … /19836755/) says as many as 8.2 million, and we know that the past few years , nearly a 1/3 of all background checks were for the AR-15. So no matter which way you cut it, there's over 10 million existing assault rifles in the United States. So even if you were to write a perfect law that the gun industry couldn't get around, namely banning all semi-automatic rifles, you'd still have over 10 million assault rifles in circulation. And again, these weapons are the least used weapon in any category of crime. 82% of all firearm deaths are done with a handgun, a defined right of every citizen to own by SCOTUS in McDonald v. Chicago. So 82% of all fatalities are committed with a handgun, leaving the other 18% to every other type of gun out there (mostly shotguns). Mass shootings account for less than 1% of all firearm fatalities and only 27% of those used an assault rifle. So about .25% of firearm fatalities are done with an assault weapon, leaving all the guns we're "okay" with or SCOTUS rules a constitutional right to own.
I'm all for background checks as are about 85% of the country according to Pew. But if you have no criminal history or no involuntary commitments to a psychiatric hospital, you can legally own a gun. And nothing is stopping the straw purchase, which is already illegal, where you buy a gun for a friend from occurring. I'm all for having a background check be done for private sales, but as we already know, most of these shooters legally bought their weapons and passed the background check.
In a perfect world we'd be able to refuse service to someone "suspicious." But this is the same country that is going to have SCOTUS rule on whether a baker can deny making a cake for people he doesn't like. So what happens when the first gun store refuses a sale to Ahmed because he doesn't like his accent or his wife in a Burqa? How long until the ACLU sues on their behalf and every store is scared to exercise discretion?
I'm not impervious to common sense. I don't like the idea that someone on the No Fly List can buy a gun. But when you look at the No Fly List, realize that no judge approves your addition, the list is a secret, there is no way to have your name removed, and there are no standards on how one is added, how can you not see the immediate contradiction under the 4th and 14th amendment for Due Process? It's a right to own a firearm in this country, so we have to utilize Due Process before we strip someone of a fundamental right.
SCOTUS smacked down waiting periods. In Printz V. United States, SCOTUS ruled the waiting period unconstitutional. We implemented the instant background check as a constitutional solution, and over 3 million people have been denied a firearm sale because of it. California has a 10 day waiting period and it's on its way to SCOTUS. If they rule in favor of it, ok, let's discuss implementing it nationwide. But again, what do you think will happen by implementing a delay. It certainly wouldn't have stopped this idiot. He meticulously planned this assault. 10 days would have had no impact on him. The AWB never went up to SCOTUS, but with the Heller and McDonald rulings, how do you think an outright Assault Weapons Ban would fair? And again, what is the expected results?
Some of the ideas you guys are proposing has already been ruled unconstitutional. So you can't call me a naysayer for pointing to a previous SCOTUS case where the idea was implemented and later ruled invalid.
The only realistic solutions that SCOTUS hasn't shot down is a ban or limit on high capacity magazines. But these 100 round drums are rarely used as it is, (the images we have from this guy show him using 30-40 round magazines) and while I suspect you could probably get magazines above 10 or 20 banned and be held up in court, as numerous recent news articles have shown, banning them is hardly effective because it takes less than a second to slap a new one in. So while you may get some feel good legislation passed, the tangible result would be negligible if non-existent.
So where does that leave us for solutions that haven't already been knocked down by SCOTUS? New laws that require the same background check for private sales as through a dealer and a ban on high capacity magazines. Cool, I'm ok with that. But let's ask the obvious question and ask if these laws were implemented last year, what impact would they have had on recent shootings? And the answer is none. It's a solution to a non-existent problem.
Nut jobs having guns is the problem. And I've yet to hear a solution related to these "mass shootings" that would negate any of these asshats being armed. Freedom does come with a price. And as horrible, tragic and revolting as it is, the right of every American to own a firearm is going to occasionally result in some bad person harming people with their gun. Luckily firearm murders are declining and continuing to do so.
Re: US Politics Thread
mitchejw wrote:The other thing is that we're only considering one dimension of the problem here....but I think it's time to be very honest with ourselves.
It appears that law enforcement goes to great lengths to identify the causation/co-relation factors that can predict these types of things happening. There is a definite psychological aspect here and while not everything has been pinpointed yet...I think it's safe to say there are a fair amount of predictive elements.
I also think it's safe to say that these shootings are a symptom of a much larger societal problem..and I wouldn't mind going even farther and say that our culture is sick. Not sick in a cool way or sick in a stupid way. Society and our culture has a tumor on it. Sometimes tumors can be treated...sometimes they can't.
I can't help but think that these mass shootings are a symptom, and you can't cure something by only treating the symptom.
That's been my point all along. You can't fix this or stop this with gun laws. Any actual solution has to be way deeper than that and that's a slippery slope too. Predicting this is also impossible. Are you going to lock up all mental patients just in case? Where do you draw the line?
If we want freedom, there are costs that go along with that. The only ways to limit this are huge impositions on personal rights.
What about the freedom to be wrong? Or the freedom to be willfully ignorant?
Re: US Politics Thread
I believe in gun regulations but if we're using these mass shootings as an example or catalyst for regulations to try and stop the next one, then the truth is regs would do nothing to stop them. That's being honest. He could have easily gotten everything he wanted on the black market... A market that has exploded in the last ten years, which coincides with Obama and the fear they're going to start banning things. You can ban what you want, it'll all be available forever.
Not to mention, this guy had explosives that could have been even worse. Had he done it, what would the debate be then? The explosives he had were all legal. Fertilizer isn't going to be banned.
In Nice a guy killed over 80 people in a car. If we're going to use a tragedy to push an agenda we have to be honest that the people who commit the crimes are the real problem and will find whatever means they can to inflict as much damage as possible. I've read guns more than this psycho's name in this thread. Stephen Paddock. That's who did it.
Re: US Politics Thread
Why does a civilian need a fire arm?
There are areas of this country that don't have a proper law enforcement presence. We have the right to protect our property. Look at the LA riots, the Koreans who were under threat with rape, murder and robbery, with no help from police, set up a fort to protect their community from a mob of thugs seeking destruction. It worked. With automatic weapons.
Katrina, people had to defend themselves against roving bands of thugs.
In any natural disaster, the crimes are low in the areas where home owners place signs that say: You loot, we Shoot.
Also, but to go there, guns have saved lives, stopped rapes, stopped home invasions, stopped attempted murders.
Re: US Politics Thread
Hmm...well if noone had guns then u wouldnt need to defend urself against gun toting vigilantes right?
And maybe a little less funding to military and more funding to infrastructure such as law enforcement might go a little ways as well
I dont care how u spin it ... if u are not a soldier in action then why the fuck do u need an assault rifle and explosives? Or if u arent a police officer then why would u ever need a side arm or a shotgun? The right to bare arms is the most bullshit excuse i have ever heard...this isnt the civil war or the wild west anymore
Imo a hunting rifle is the only thing somewhat acceptable to a civilian ... as long as there are proper safe guards in place to store it and u have a valid license
Until u guys clamp down on guns shit like this will happen... i don't understand why everyone in the USA doesnt get that by now... its pretty brutal
Re: US Politics Thread
Well, neemo, if we lived in Oz we'd have a yellow brick road and would fight off flying monkey's with swords. But that's not reality. There's a lot we should do. And we can't live in someone else's view of how we should do things, it's how it is. We have guns. They're not going to disappear.
Thanks for the advice on how we should govern.
Re: US Politics Thread
I dunno dude...be as flippant as u want...call me asshole stupid pacifist canadian all u want
there is enough people dying in the world without rushing to add to the count over some stupid outdated custom/belief what have u
I remember talking about this shit on this very forum not to long ago ... yet here we are again ... and i know it will get swept under the rug yet again ... all i gotta say is that u guys gotta wake up sometime ... I'm just curious to see how many have to die in one fell swoop by one of ur own first before it happens ... i guess 59 isnt the magic number 
