Draxil on 4/10/2017 at 12:22
Quote Posted by Brethren
The fact that your call them "Suppressors" tells me everything I need to know about you. You're a gun person.
And the fact that they're already legal in 42 states just proves my point. Wacko Americans and their obsession with guns.
The fact you call them "silencers" tells me everything I need to know about you. Your information about firearms comes from Hollywood, and is worthless. A good suppressor will quiet a gunshot to the 110-120 decibel range with a small caliber round. That's still loud. Suppressors had nothing to do with the Las Vegas shooting and wouldn't have affected it at all.
As far as being a "gun" person, I guess I am. I enjoy target shooting, and own several guns. I haven't shot any of them in over five years, and only shot sporadically before that. I would guess I'm pretty typical of American gun owners. I'm certainly typical of the gun owners I know--we have jobs, families, other hobbies, and happen to own a couple firearms that we've used recreationally, relatively rarely, and responsibly. Me owning a gun does not pose a threat to anyone not posing a threat to me. I've never needed one, but it's nice to have.
Despite the media hysterics would lead you to believe, crime across the board has fallen in the United States in the past 20 years. According to published FBI and DOJ stats the murder rate, violent crime rate, gun crime rate, etc are all significantly lower than they were 20-30 years ago. Take a look at (
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Rtc.gif) this, which gives a snap shot of concealed carry status in the US over the past few decades. Gun laws have
loosened significantly in the past 30 years, accompanied by a drop in violent crime and gun crime. I see no reason to change things and restrict gun ownership more severely.
SD on 4/10/2017 at 15:10
It's pointless even talking about gun control, because it's never going to happen. Stop wasting your energy.
Islamic extremists taunt us with claims that they love death more than we love life. Well, America loves guns more than it loves life. This is why, in America, owning a gun is a right, but being treated for gunshot wounds in hospital is a privilege.
Jason Moyer on 4/10/2017 at 15:29
Quote Posted by heywood
Since gun control has proven so effective in preventing terrorist attacks outside of the US... oh wait, no it hasn't.
The purpose of gun control is to lower incidents of spree killing, not to end all crime forever. And it's been highly effective at that in places where assault weapons are banned.
Dahenjo on 4/10/2017 at 16:02
Quote Posted by heywood
It's not a strawman that I made up. The thread title itself links this event and gun control. The original poster in the thread, in his very first sentence, implies that gun control could have prevented this tragedy. Over the last two days the media has been full of articles and blog posts making the same connection.
The same thing happened after the Orlando nightclub shooting last year, and the San Bernardino shooting & attempted bombing the year before. Every event like this immediately triggers a flood of people saying we need gun control to prevent this from happening again.
Actually I was going to post the video in Nicker's thread, thinking after a couple days it might be fitting there, but then saw scumble's post, from which I also gathered gun control has been covered here as a topic. My intention wasn't to re-open that broad subject but just make the point that more needs to be done than pay our respects, which unfortunately often becomes an excuse not to focus further on these other aspects.
If our elected representatives simply reflected the 90+% of the public favoring expanded background checks, including I believe over 70% of NRA members, just doing that would be a good start. Not likely under our current Congress, but I think we may see a shift within a few years with legislation potentially passing that most gun-owners would also support, including banning some assault weapons, ammo types, mods, closing more loopholes, etc. Absent bought-off politicians, I personally think something substantial could & would be done towards preventing or at least greatly reducing these mass-killings.
Briareos H on 4/10/2017 at 21:11
Quote Posted by Draxil
The fact you call them "silencers" tells me everything I need to know about you.
Says the guy who was sure the killer was firing an automatic weapon, making it the basis of their whole argument for a post.
Renzatic on 4/10/2017 at 22:23
My honest opinion on the matter? We've gone so far to enshrine guns as an import part of the American identity, there isn't anything we can actually do about it now. At last count, there's an estimated 90 guns per 100 people here in the United States, with a good chunk of those numbers concentrated among 25% of particularly enthusiastic gun owners.
So say we outlaw guns tomorrow. Who's gonna take them away? The logistics alone show it to be a nigh impossible task. Hell, even if we take the far lighter, more likely route, and ban a select set of particularly dangerous weaponry, there are so many of these guns floating around the country, all we'd be doing is creating a black market for them. We'll see a slight drop in gun violence, sure, but not one nearly large enough to justify the effort and expense required to implement these new laws. It'd take a couple decades, billions of dollars, and a lot of unruly people being thrown in prison and/or martyred for their cause before society would start seeing a net gain on par with post-ban Australia.
...and at any time, these laws can be repealed.
We're basically stuck with what we have. Our guns aren't going anywhere. By this point, it'd be better to address the root of the issue, rather than focusing the tools used to perpetuate the issue:
What is it about the American psyche that makes us so partial to grandiose displays of indiscriminate, wanton violence? We're not the only country in the 1st world that allows for an armed citizenry, but we lead them all in mass shootings.
Why is that?
Starker on 4/10/2017 at 22:33
Gun control is not about banning all guns, though? What is it about the words gun control that makes people think, "They are coming for our guns!" What about the other aspects of gun control, like enforcing background checks or requiring people to know how to use and maintain these dangerous tools.
I mean, there are a lot of regulations for cars, but nobody is saying, "They want to take our cars away."
Renzatic on 4/10/2017 at 22:50
To understand why none of the measures will work, you have to sink into the mindset of your average gun-toting American.
Background checks? Why does the government have to check to see if I'm eligible to exercise a natural, enumerated right guaranteed me by the Constitution?
Banning certain weapons? Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that my right to bear arms shall not be infringed, save in certain circumstances. And it's not like banning things makes for a safer society. Drugs are illegal, yet they still flood our streets. If we ban dangerous weapons, only criminals will have dangerous weapons, and we'll be defenseless!
Training? Do you require speech classes to exercise your 1st Amendment rights? Why should I require a gun safety course to bear arms?
See, I'm all about background checks and mandatory training, but I also understand that any argument made pro-gun control will ultimately be met with a ton of circular arguments that end up always pointing towards those very clearly defined lines in the Constitution, and will ultimately be construed as the first step towards a blanket ban. It's obvious that no right is unlimited, but as long as its limits aren't spelled out within the Bill of Rights, advocating for such will always be met with resistance from a politically proactive countergroup that tends to vote far more often, far more regularly than just about anyone else.
Until there's a massive change in public perception (which isn't going to happen anytime soon), I think it'd be more productive to address the core of the matter. Why does America tend to produce more bloodthirsty, trigger happy murderfucks per capita than any other 1st world nation? What is it about us that makes us so...exceptional?
Starker on 4/10/2017 at 22:57
I'd say that it's the availability of guns that drives the murder rates up (compared to other high-income countries). It's much easier to kill someone with a gun than a knife, both physically and emotionally.
Likewise with suicides. Gun suicides have a vastly superior success rate to other common forms of suicide.
And yes, if guns are less available, criminals will resort to other less effective tools, like heywood pointed out earlier, but surely that's preferable to guns? For example, while acid attacks are a horrific form of violence, would you rather have acid thrown at you or would you rather be shot in the face?
