The E wrote:Zakharra wrote: The rest of the developed world has different priorities. We take our rights seriously, which means any attempts to infringe upon them is resisted I know a lot on the left/Democrats (certainly their leadership) do not see the 2nd as worth being a right, so they try to do work around laws to restrict it's use. Which is illegal as hell and they refuse to use the legal option available for them (amending the US Constitution). To them, they would see the 2nd made into a privilage, like it is for most of the rest of the world. But here it's a -right-, which puts it on a completely different level. That's the big difference between us. You see the 2nd as something that should be a privilege. We see it as a right. And as a right, you CAN'T stop us from using it, as much as you'd like to. Rights aren't supposed to be infringed upon. It's the same reason why our free speech rights are much more open than those in the rest of the world. We tolerate things the rest of the world is more likely to shut down hard.
Including the murder of schoolchildren, the almost daily mass shootings, an insane fatality rate overall....
We take our rights seriously as well. One of those rights is the right to not be shot by idiots, insane people and criminals.
Ownership of a lethal device
should be a priviledge, just as car ownership is. You should be forced to demonstrate proficiency and good character while owning something that is designed to kill people and/or animals. That's just common sense.
The right to own firearms falls under the 2nd, which is a self defense clause. The 2nd gives the US citizen the right to defend themselves. Firearms are, bar none, the -best- means of self defense in the world. They make everyone equal. A 100 lbs woman can successfully defend herself against a 250 lbs man. Take away access to firearms and the 250 lbs man will win any fight 99 times out of a hundred.
Given the number of privately owned firearms in the US, the numbers of people killed in the US by firearms is stupidly low. Most of the mass shootings are gangland ones (and oddly enough are NOT covered by the mainstream media), remove the reasons why gangs exist and need to be killing each other and the number of deaths will drop. The mass shootings that make the news are sensationalized to a very large degree, but the number of people killed in those are not even a -blip- on the radar of people killed in total. The largest group of people killed by firearms? Suicides. Those are the single biggest group of preventable gun deaths in the US. However the reasons why someone might try to commit suicide isn't touched on gun bans. all those bans are, are about removing firearms from everyone. Deal with the problem of WHY someone does what they do and dpon't focus on what they use so much.
Idiots are everyone, you and me included. We've all done stupid things. That's no reason to restrict our rights.
Insane people; mental health could be a lot better, but we have a problem of getting people treatment (it's hard to force people to get treatment), but it requires the court system to be able to restrict a right. And many crazy people aren't a threat to anyone. Is that a reason to take away their rights?
Criminals; they are already breaking the laws, why should they be afraid of breaking firearm laws? It's not like those laws are enforced on criminals anyways.
The E wrote:If criminals aren't going to obey laws, why have laws, any laws, in the first place? After all, if this is true about tighter gun control laws, why isn't it true of others as well?
The gun laws aren't really enforced on criminals in the first place. They do a plea bargain and the gun violation charges are tossed out.
The E wrote:You're also assuming that our belief in the 2nd is nonsense. The US is, in many aspects, it's own world in regards to rights, culture and economy. We are a LOT different than other developed nations; from our culture, to our system of government, rights, and beliefs. Given the size of the US (territory and population) and the number of firearms in privately owned hands, the rate of gun deaths is stupidly small. Even mass killings are a statistically rounding insignificant. The numbers also do not add up between firearm deaths and the total number of firearms in the US. We have more guns than people, yet the number of people killed with firearms is very very small (about 30,000-35,000 per year atm). That's way way WAY less than 1%. It's about 1% of 1% of the total US population. More people are killed in automobile accidents than by firearms.
And compared to
every other first-world country, that number of incidents is absolutely insane. Not just "every country is a bit different", but actually
insanely out of proportion.
Most of the nations of the rest of the developed world are also ethically homogeneous. The European nations, Asian nations (Japan, South Korea and so on) are almost all one main ethnic population group (in Europe, it's almost all Caucasian). That allows for a lot of societal cohesion. The US is a massive multicultural and ethnic nation with a LOT of different flavors of culture, societies and ethnicity all mixed together. That makes us a lot different than any of the rest of the developed world. And it shows.
The E wrote:It gets even more different when you break down the types of gun deaths. Suicides and gang violence (thank you War on Drugs...
) accounts for a huge percentage of those deaths and the gang violence is usually located in only a few sections of urban areas. Remove those areas and the number of firearm deaths drops to near European levels.
The main problem in the US isn't a gun problem, it's a violence problem. Without addressing -why- people resort to violence, trying to remove firearms does nothing to reduce violence itself. Yes you might reduce gun deaths, but like in Australia, other deaths and forms of violence would likely pick up and deaths overall would not necessarily go down.
Ah, yes, but that would mean doing something vaguely socialist, so you're not going to.
No. It requires the Democrats and left to pull their heads out of their asses and frikking THINK about something for once. The mental health and accessibility of medical records is something Democrats pushed for. They are very big on privacy so keeping a person's medical and mental heath records confidential has been a big thing for them. Using those records as a reason to deny citizens their rights opens up a huge can of worms (to use an old phrase) and its not something that would benefit them and they know it. Nor is that fair to the people whose records would be opened to public scrutiny.
The E wrote:That being said, even with the huge number of firearms in the US, major crimes, including gun deaths, in the US have been consistently falling for decades. The trend is already on the way down and has been so since the 1980s or so.
You don't get to proclaim how the US is special and then move on to say how the US is the same as every other first-world country in the same argument. Capital crime rates have been falling across the board, not just in the US; You guys are still, on average, more murderous than other developed countries are.
We're also a nation with a much larger population than any (aside from China and India), have a much larger territory than most, which spreads us out over a much wider area than places like Europe. Our culture is different too. Those have effects.
gcomeau wrote:Zakharra wrote: No. Most of the firearms in Mexico are from other sources other than the US. US made firearms are only about 24-27% of the total number of firearms in Mexico.
I didn't say the bulk of the total guns in Mexico were from the US. I said the bulk of the illegal gun FLOW between Mexico and the US was south into Mexico, not north into the US. Which it is.
No it isn't. I'd like a citation about your claim here
I was wrong about the % of firearms sourced from the US, it's about 10%, not 24-27%.
gcomeau wrote: There is not a ridiculous amount of firearms, unless you are inclined to not want a lot of firearms in private hands.
By the standards of the rest of the planet, there is a ridiculous amount of firearms in the US general population.
That's your problem. You fear firearms. Here, most sane people don't. Hell, the vast vast -vast- majority of firearms in the US are perfectly safe. People buy then to hunt with, for sport shooting, collecting or because they like owning a well designed weapon, or for self protection.
gcomeau wrote: The rest of the developed world has different priorities. We take our rights seriously, which means any attempts to infringe upon them is resisted I know a lot on the left/Democrats (certainly their leadership) do not see the 2nd as worth being a right, so they try to do work around laws to restrict it's use. Which is illegal as hell and they refuse to use the legal option available for them (amending the US Constitution).
Bull.
I love every time someone tries to claim that regulations regarding firearms are illegal because it violates a constitutional clause that says that regulation is necessary. Those founders that wrote that amendment? They were still around during the first Congresses. When they established the Militia Acts. Which damn well regulated firearms and their use. Because OF COURSE you would freaking regulate deadly weaponry.
Seriously, is it some kind of pathology in the right that they just can't see the first half of that amendment?
The gun laws the left/Democrats certainly want to put in
absolutely DO infringe upon that right because that is the stated goal of those people pushing for those laws. Ownership of firearms has been a right enjoyed by all from before the founding of four country (aside from slaves), but there was no real effort made to restrict gun ownership to just men between the ages of 15 to 55 years old. EVERYONE was allowed and able to buy, own and use firearms regardless of social status, age (aside from young children) or gender. Men, women, old and young people were allowed to have, own and use firearms for hunting, self defense, collecting, practicing. Hell, it was legal (and I think it still is) for private citizens back in the founding and now, to own cannon and artillery. It costs more now, but there's really nothing stopping someone from owning a functional cannon (other than cost to buy one, the ammunition and finding places to shoot it at). Another thing to consider that most gun laws, especially in the last century or so were -racist- in nature. They were made to keep certain races (blacks) from being able to own firearms. I am all for them to be able to own firearms as long as they pass a background check like every other Americans has to to be able to purchase a gun.
The 2nd is two parts, the first part does deal with a well regulated militia, but the second part has been affirmed by the SCOTUS to mean the
individual citizen also has a right to be able to buy, have, own and use firearms. An individual right. Which cannot and should not be infringed upon except by due process (ie the court of law). The same process that protects every one of our rights.
gcomeau wrote: To them, they would see the 2nd made into a privilage, like it is for most of the rest of the world. But here it's a -right-, which puts it on a completely different level. That's the big difference between us. You see the 2nd as something that should be a privilege. We see it as a right. And as a right, you CAN'T stop us from using it, as much as you'd like to.
You know amendments can be changed right? I mean.... they're called AMENDMENTS. People in this country used to have the RIGHT to own black people. Occasionally you need to grow up and fix a mistake.
We do not see the 2nd as a mistake and the Democrats know for a fact they do NOT have the votes to be able to amend the Constitution because in the only two ways we're allowed to amend the Constitution, both of them require 3/4 of the state legislatures to ok the amendment. That is never going to happen and they know nit. So they try to do workarounds that tie up the 2nd in so many rules and regulations that it is impossible for US citizens to use the 2nd. And it keeps getting shot down time and again.
Freeing the slaves was legally giving them the rights everyone else was supposed to have. It wasn't taking rights away from the rest of the population of the country, but making sure that everyone had the same rights under the law.
gcomeau wrote: Another problem with gun control is that the laws proposed for it do not really affect the criminals. They are already doing illegal actions, why would they obey gun laws?
For. Fuck's. Sake. When will this abject stupidity finally just crawl off somewhere and die?
By this logic there should be no laws against theft rape or murder either, because they only effect the law abiding people. Murderers still murder even though it's illegal!
Laws are deterrents EVEN TO CRIMINALS. Curtailing gun supply makes guns far more difficult to obtain and far more expensive to buy EVEN TO CRIMINALS.
How do you not know how laws function?
The laws are PUNISHMENTS for breaking them. That's why we charge murderers, rapists, thieves and such. The gun laws AREN'T being applied to criminals because they either do a plea bargain and any gun charges are dropped, or they are never applied in the first place. So having new laws proposed and made into law won't do a damned thing if they are never used.
Nancy Pelosi, one of the head gun control people, has admitted on vid that there isn't a -single- gun control law on the books or proposed to be on the books that would have stopped the Las Vegas shooting. No law on the books -now- would have stopped that. Yet what do they do? Propose more laws that won't do a damned thing and only punish the law abiding.
gcomeau wrote:I always have trouble comprehending blithering nonsense. Most rational people do.
Making guns illegal drastically curtails supply over time. It isn't that there aren't criminals who still want them, but it becomes harder and harder to GET them. And getting caught with them tends to carry nasty penalties if they do, eventually it becomes contra-indicated to try and get them at all except for a minority of truly hard cases. And then if they use them they tend to attract the full attention of the entire local police force because instead of being "oh there was another shooting today, what is that 15 this week? Ho hum" it's "we have a report of someone discharging a gun, get everyone over there and deal with it now!"
As demonstrated by, I call your attention once again..... the rest of the freaking developed world.
So to get firearms out of the hands of criminals, you are willing to punish/disarm the rest of your population?
Only a spoiled child considers losing their dangerous toys in the interests of saving the lives of thousands upon thousands of their fellow citizens to be punishment.[/quote]
I and tens to hundreds of millions of other Americans have and use our firearms responsibly. The vast majority of gun owners are no threat to you or to anyone else. WE are safe. Yet because of the actions of a tiny tiny -tiny- minority of people (less than 1% of 1% of the US population is killed every year from firearms), you want to restrict all of the rest of our freedoms to make yourself feel safe. That you consider gun owners to be spoiled children says a lot about your mentality when you are more than willing to restrict/remove our rights. Rights the majority of us use safely every day.
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