What is the rationale, really?
To show how strong you are by gunning down a few dozen people whenever you are upset because:you lost money in a casino?
you are upset with your mother-in-law?
your barber nicked your sideburns?
you thought you had the right way and the other driver didn't think so?
you felt insulted by your boss or a fellow employee?
your son wasn't picked for the school football team?
a teacher yelled at your daughter?
your cable signal is repeatedly down?
your neighbour's dog wandered into your yard?
a call girl stood you up?
...In 1994, when DEMOCRAT Bill Clinton was President, there was a federal assault weapons ban - the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act. The ban had a sunset clause - it would expire in ten years if it was not renewed.
Ten years later, REPUBLICAN George W. Bush was President. He and his fellow NRA gook gobblers did nothing to renew the AWB. That's why civilians have the right to own assault weapons.
Moreover, the current shit-for-brains president signed a bill barely a month into his presidency revoking Obama's gun checks for people with mental illnesses. I guess he wanted to make it easier for him to buy a gun for himself.
.....why are millions of Americans so deeply in love with guns?
...One reason among others is entertainment exposure namely old western TV & movies, people refuse to admit that seeing their cowboy hero's gunning down the bad guy's may have influenced their BANG BANG mentality. The idea that firearms are a wise tool to correct anything you don't agree with has been ingrained in a major part of each generation since the start of WW2. Of course GaG & others are correct about (the toothpaste is out of the tube) it would be nearly impossible to get firearms out of the hands of the people that want them so I believe the most logical answer is to increase the rules for buying guns, like more thorough back-round checks & waiting periods. It is inevitable that we will be living with these awful shooting occurrences for many years to come because we have no shortage of armed loonies who believe that firearms are a logical answer to what they don't agree with & it's not just Chicago nearly every major metropolitan area records several shootings every day. I don't expect talking about this problem will stop it anytime soon but it is better than ignoring it.
Unfortunately, It's people, not guns, that cause problems. Beirut, Columbine and 9/11 started the insanity and I agree we will be talking, and attempting to deal with this problem for a very long time.
There's no clear cut solution. Awareness of your surroundings is the only clear cut solution.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
"It's people, not guns, that cause problems?" Well riddle me this, if the nuts who did the last two mass killings didn't have semi- and fully-automatic weapons do you really think so many people would have been killed? In the case of BOTH mass murders it was PRECISELY the guns that caused such massive loss of life.
"Beirut, Columbine and 9/11 started the insanity?" Laughable. If by Beirut you're referring to the killings at the Marine barracks, that was a truck bomb. And 9/11 was airplanes. So what in the world does that have to do with the gun debate? Answer: ZERO. Also, there have been mass shootings in this country long before that. What about Charles Whitman, who shot 13 to death at the U. of Texas in 1966? What about James Huberty, who shot 21 people to death in a San Ysidro McDonalds in 1984? And back in 1949 a guy killed 13 people in Camden, NJ.
Maybe it's just that you express yourself so poorly and didn't mean to sound as dumb as you did. But your post is wrong in every possible way.
Oh, and how in the WORLD is "awareness of your surroundings" going to help if you were in that church? The gunman was firing through the walls before he entered. So many of the people who were killed never even saw who fired the shots.
Go quote the Second Amendment somewhere else. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Beirut started the onslaught of MODERN terrorism, 911 gave the Islamist terrorist hope and Columbine introduced MODERN deaths by sociopaths in America. One can argue that the Oklahoma bombing started the deaths by modern american sociopaths.
Either way, there is a problem and guns are not the problem, socio/psychopaths/foriegn muslum terrorist are the problems.
What do you suggest? Revoke the 2nd amendment and take away the defense and RIGHTS of law abiding citizens and enforced by the government???? Clearly you're not suggesting that? I think....
The Second Amendment protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms for defense of life and liberty.
No, I don't advocate revoking the Second Amendment. I guess you missed it when I wrote earlier on this board that I am a legally-licensed pistol owner. But it doesn't infringe on any legitimate right to ban high-capacity magazines, bump-stocks, unrecorded gun show sales, etc. Not to mention that you really don't have to worry about it since no new laws will get passed the way things are now.
PS: The Second Amendment does NOT give people the right to bear arms "for defense of life and liberty." Maybe you should read it.
you're not for revoking the Second Amendment. Most folks aren't.
Sure the second Amendment gives people the right to bear arms "for defense of life and liberty"!!!!
Just the other day two regular guys in Texas used their ARMS to shoot down a psychopath that opened on a FUCKING church. I'd consider that defending life and liberty. Don't you think????
You're defending the indefensible. I would expect this from mrhuck and the like but not you. smdh.
"the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views"
You are not using the word properly.
I asked you to read the Second Amendment and obviously you failed. NOWHERE in that text does it mention "for defense of life and liberty!!!!!"
Here's what is says, and all that it says: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
So, Chimpy, if you want a gun, go join the National Guard.
Dope.
-- Modified on 11/7/2017 3:34:40 PM
in defense of life and liberty. You said it yourself in one way or another when you felt threatened. You have every right to defend yourself.
You friend is evading the high capacity magazine issue.People don' t have a problem with hand gun and hunting ,we all should have them.
If the Texas shooter did not have a high capacity magazine weapon he would have been shot long before he get to killing 30 and injuring twenty plus in only a few second.
They always evade the issue.......Australia took those gun away from everybody and fix their mass shooting problem.
Parts of the Constitution needs to be fixed to deal with modern day problems,it is almost 400 years old.
"It's people not guns that kills people". Heard it a few times ; most ignorant words that can come from someones mouth. Lacking the ability to think logically and critically.
Good luck trying to school the Chimp.
...And of course the second amendment to the constitution makes that abundantly clear, or does it ? Don't you believe the authors of the second amendment would have been a bit more specific if they had the benefit of the information we have today. When the second amendment was composed the firearms that were available were single shot flintlock rifles or ball & powder pistols, hardly the semi-automatic weapons capable of firing hundreds of rounds a minute that are popular today, & if the authors had the death & injury statics that we see today don't you think they may have altered the wording in an attempt to slow the carnage that we see so often now. My apologies for a purely speculative post but if we didn't have all this hardware so readily available might there be many more Americans alive today.
I just returned from spending 4 months in the Netherlands. Very liberal and highly developed country where people come across as happy and content with life. Gun ownership and homicide rates are low.
Contrast the US with Japan, a wealthy country with a higher life expectancy. Homicide rates are extremely low and almost zero for gun-related homicides.
I can't buy the argument that people need guns to protect themselves.
and now has a MUCH lower level of gun violence than we do. And it hasn't devolved into a dictatorship. And then there's Switzerland, where there are guns in many homes and almost no violence.
What do you think is the reason the Swiss behave so responsibly?
were best described by the black power leader H. Rap Brown: "Violence is as American as cherry pie."
Don't you agree that the Swiss case is an exception? Among the other countries, the more guns people own, the higher gun-related deaths.
that every single Isreali household is armed with some very powerful weapons.
So why don't they have a problem?
The Middle East is exactly where we need to send these American WACOS .
Because Israel is not America
How you mean there is no solution ?,what the heck you talking about.Taking those kind of weapons from WACOS like you is the solution to the problem.Australia did it and save their people.The only people you are killing is civilians .Look at tyour history wit those guns.
The second amendment is 300 + years .What Century are you living in .Modern day changes must be made.Back then one AR 15 could have won the Civil War.
Today politicians go to jail and or resign.No war with Government. It is all a fallacy,so you can continue to murder civilians .
The founding father must be tuning in their graves .
Bull shit.All you do is kill civilians.
We also have right to life, liberty and happiness.
No one ever talks about it. Every time a shooting occur, someone's right to life, liberty and happiness is taken away. Why don't the victims, kith and kin take the government, gun manufacturers to court for not protecting their ri
There is also a solution to control who can shoot with a gun (smart gun), but the NRA doesn't want to go anywhere near it.
The colonies were carved out of the wilderness against sometimes hostile Native Americans. The colonies became independent when an armed populace rose up against a tyrannical government. The country was formed under a Constitution which codified a right to bear arms, and the history of the Second Amendment includes writings that believed in a need for an armed populace to defend their rights if their government again became tyrannical. The country expanded in part because settlers were armed. Since the beginnings, those arms were also used to hunt. That's rather over-simplified but this country has a long history of private gun ownership that explains why some people are "so deeply in love with guns."
NONE of this excuses a need for concealed weapons or semi-automatic rifles that were never intended for hunting. But I think it does explain why some people love them.
The Texas killer was able to purchase his Assault Rifle because the Air Force failed to put the killer's name in a Federal database with his conviction and time in the brig, which would have prevented him from purchasing the weapon. OK, so the Air Force fucked up. But does anyone with a brain believe he wouldn't have gotten such a weapon illegally anyway? After all he'd been prevented from purchasing a pistol in Texas but when he went on his murderous spree he had two handguns with him. This country is awash in guns of all types. So I'd say blaming the Air Force for this is a red herring.
If that is what you are saying, I have to agree with you completely.
I will concede that I think that the sheer number of weapons out there with high capacity magazines is problematic. How to put the toothpaste back into the tube is the question however. Just banning these weapons doesn't seem to be a viable option, just like banning firearms is simply not possible in a country with hundreds of millions of guns.
Two points I would like to make. A "good guy with a gun" was ultimately who brought this guy down and it was a guy with a shotgun who was able to bring down a guy with an assault weapon not a SWAT team.
And it has also long been my position that because of the huge number of firearms out there, the horse has left the barn on this debate. That is why I became a legally-permitted handgun owner myself.
It's also worth noting that the "good guy" with the long gun did NOT need a permit to buy it, only to register with the state. I thought (and had heard) it was a shotgun, too, but Timbow (below) says it was an AR. That makes sense because it's pretty hard to do much damage with a shotgun unless you're up close.
-- Modified on 11/7/2017 10:59:45 AM
I have read several articles this morning looking for confirmation that he used an AR, but all I can find so far is that he used a rifle, and that he was once an NRA instructor.
The one thing that is crystal clear is that if it weren't for the actions of the neighbor, the death count would certainly have been much, much higher. I think he intended on killing every single person in that church and with out someone to stop him he almost certainly would have done so.
and I completely agree about the horse having left the barn. I would be just fine in a gun free world, but as long as criminals, psychopaths, and terrorists have guns I am keeping mine too. Just as soon as you can assure me that everyone who might do me harm has been disarmed, you are more than welcome to my guns, but not a moment before then.
Yea lots of guns already exist, so regulating how they get into people's hands won't change anything at all.
Where do you get this stupid shit?
-- Modified on 11/7/2017 10:11:35 PM
Had the Air Force submitted the information to the FBI then this loser would not have been able to purchase the 2 rifles he bought. I may be wrong but as a convicted domestic abuser his firearms he owned should have been confiscated.
Guns will always be readily available easily to scum bags than legal owners. Look at places with high homicide rates.....Chicago, Baltimore and so on......Tell me how many of those who commit the crimes are actually LEGAL gun owners?
The Texas killer was able to purchase his Assault Rifle because the Air Force failed to put the killer's name in a Federal database with his conviction and time in the brig, which would have prevented him from purchasing the weapon. OK, so the Air Force fucked up. But does anyone with a brain believe he wouldn't have gotten such a weapon illegally anyway? After all he'd been prevented from purchasing a pistol in Texas but when he went on his murderous spree he had two handguns with him. This country is awash in guns of all types. So I'd say blaming the Air Force for this is a red herring.
Why don't you morons focus on where the MOST folks are killed by handguns - Chicago for example!
Someone disrespected me . . .
took my food stamps . . .
1) There a too many guns on the market, nothing we try to do can help the situation.
2) One group has a stockpile of guns, so the other group must acquire similar pile to neutralize the advantage and protect itself.
Think about it, they're over compensating for their "short" comings.....duhhhh.
That's 40k more deaths than gun homicides BTW. 20k of the 30k killed by guns every year are suicide .
Clean up the mass killings in Chicago every weekend and the number drops to 6-7 k a year .
And semi-automatic rifles are not Assault Rifles . Assault rifles are Assault rifles .
The 2nd amendment is NOT about deer hunting . The 2nd amendment is about the people not being ruled by a tyrannical government and being forced against their will to do anything .
McVeigh used a massive bomb made of fertilizer, diesel and a rental truck . Do you want those banned to ?
They always want to point fingers and never look at the larger issues.
Chicago gangsters killing each other and people taking drugs DOES NOT justify the mass shooting of innocent Civilian .There is no Justification.,so keep trying.
The Second Amendment is 300+ years old .One AR 15 back then could have won the Civil War . MAKE MODERN DAY CHANGES,totally different times now.The founding father must be turning in their grave to see the baby they have created grow into this uncontrollable monster . Today people resign,go to jail or both.There is no more tyrannical government.
All they do with these weapons is kill innocent Civilian, look at the history - Columbine Virginia Tech, Colorado, Sandy Hooke, Orlando
Alexandria, Texas and the list goes on. .
Hand gun and hunting gun is all we need.People have the right to "LIFE ,LIBERTY and THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS" and not be murdered by some " Waco " and his so called rights.
Common sense is missing among those fighting for the right to own assault weapons.
Chicago gangsters killing each other and people taking drugs DOES NOT justify the mass shooting of innocent Civilian .There is no Justification.,so keep trying.
The Second Amendment is 300+ years old .One AR 15 back then could have won the Civil War . MAKE MODERN DAY CHANGES,totally different times now.The founding father must be turning in their grave to see the baby they have created grow into this uncontrollable monster . Today people resign,go to jail or both.There is no more tyrannical government.
All they do with these weapons is kill innocent Civilian, look at the history - Columbine Virginia Tech, Colorado, Sandy Hooke, Orlando
Alexandria, Texas and the list goes on. .
Hand gun and hunting gun is all we need.People have the right to "LIFE ,LIBERTY and THE PURSUIT of HAPPINESS" and not be murdered by some " Waco " and his so called rights.
Clean up the mass killings in Chicago every weekend and the number drops to 6-7 k a year .
...Let's hear ALL of the reasoning against more stringent federally required back-round checks & waiting periods, and don't give us this bullshit about states rights, different rules in different states would only confuse the issue. What is wrong with waiting a few days to pick-up your semi-automatic firearm?
...AFRAID to answer ? or you have no answer, or is it just because you believe the exalted N.R.A. would just threaten enough legislators so laws like these could not get passed, let's hear it !
I suppose gun fanatics will argue that people who have heart attacks and stroke receive urgent care. Why have us wait for a few days and not let us kill people as soon as we have the urge?
Do we have a tyrannical government? Have we had one in the past century? You are not equating tyranny with high taxes; are you?
Do you believe that the massacres at Columbine, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Vegas, and the latest in a Texas church were justified expressions of revolt by common people against a tyrannical government? And, the second amendment was meant to allow people who are upset about something to go around killing innocent fellow citizens with assault weapons?
You are not making much sense. Actually, not making any sense at all.
The 2nd amendment is about the people not being ruled by a tyrannical government and being forced against their will to do anything .
Yes, doesn't take much.Tired of people having the "RIGHT TO LIFE and the PURSUIT of HAPPINESS " going about their daily lives and getting slaughtered by these "WACOS".Then to make matters worse ,the ignorant ass people running this country (who suppose to know better) try to justify it by talking about gangsters kill each other in Chicago. Motha$%&#@rs.
You all know that I'm a pretty left leaning guy around here. I also fully support the right to bear arms. I'm pretty well versed in the law, at least I know how to read it and often do so. I believe that the Preamble and the Bill of Rights need to be strictly adhered to if we are to remain and retain the ideals of America.
From the comments I've read here I see a lot of fear. I also see a lot ignorance of what the 2nd Amendment really is on both sides of the argument. The single most important thing about the 2nd Amendment is the right to defend oneself, his family/tribe and property. Not just from civil intrusion or threat to life limb and property, but also to ones liberty.
There was a comment about the existence of tyranny and whether or not it exists today. The thing about tyranny, is that you never know it exists until it does. And when it does, it must be resisted and fought against and destroyed. The founding fathers knew this, and truly feared it because they had just fought a devastating war to end it in America.
An argument was made in the 19th Century that the 2nd amendment should be construed to mean the citizenry should only be allowed to own arms if they were actively in a state militia. The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision soundly rejected that by saying essentially, if the government is the only one with guns, how would the people resist and fight against tyranny from the government? This has been repeatedly found in cases to our modern times. The argument that when the 2nd amendment was drafted the founders didn't know about machine guns is both fallacious and reactionary.
The issue of mass shootings is not a 2nd Amendment issue, it is a mental health issue. These individuals will always find a way to kill as many people as they can. It's kind of interesting that we don't seem to have serial killers anymore. They must still exist, but there isn't much press about it. In this instant internet driven gratification world we now live in, serial killers operate too slowly so as to bore us. On this board, I see more and more 15 minute rates than ever before.
We are Americans and American tradition is that we solve problems. We were once, not too long ago, the world leaders in solving problems. I would propose we work together on this problem instead of calling the Trumptards stupid. It doesn't change the fact they are, they all know they are - thats why they voted for him in the first place, but lets remind them of it less.
My suggestions are 1) end the gun show loophole. Thats how any nut gets a gun. 2) Regulate the same as driver's license. Require state sanctioned training and application exam. After all if the guy can't get a gun as in Europe, he just rents a truck. 3) stop defunding public health. Make it more accessible - PSA every day about how to deal with conflict and stress and where to get help. 4) ATM like devices on every corner and in every home and building that will complement you and say what a rosy and butterfly rainbow day it is today.
Well that last one just for the Trumptards.
Love of guns, even starting at an early age, does not equate to high murder rates, nor many mass shootings. Nor, does strict regulation and accountability necessarily lead to the elimination of gun ownership. Socioeconomic factors (poverty, lack of opportunities for improving one's socioeconomic situation), and a culture of individualism can be negative factors in increasing crimes committed with guns.
The question is, what are our politicians; on the left or the right, doing to address the factors that make the Swiss model work?
Give respect to individuals with mental illness. They are no more likely to commit violent acts than others.
Hatred does not equal mental illness. Most people who commit violent crimes including mass shootings do not have defined mental illness.
Whenever there is a mass shooting incident, the ill-informed conclusion is: "if only we deny gun access to the mentally ill, the world would be heavenly and we could live happily ever after."
if one can bring class action suit on the basis of right to life? Every time, someone kills another, they are taking away their right to life and happiness! Sue the NRA for being complicit and throw in gun manufacturers too.
I don't expect Rupublicans to do shit about these guns.Because as most of know, it's all about the money,and they are way up the NRA and gun maufacturers ass as far as that is concern.
They don't give a shit about people.