Happiness is a warm gun

[Murmdrum]

Go on then, tell us, in civilian life, *why* do you need an assault rifle?
(I'm not having a go at you, I'm genuinely curious).

thanks for not having a go at me like this other twat who I will not acknowledge, this will be my last post in here anyway. I am a state certified instructor for gun safety...I help people learn about guns in the safest ways, instructional shooting techniques, how to get properly licensed and handle all firearms in the safest manners...I need knowledge on all kind of firearms and there are many different types of guns. People own or want to own AR-15's wether some agree or not...its just life. I have half a dozen other guns that do the same thing as an AR but they do not look like the dreaded " assault" rifle...anyway thats it...thanks and have a good day

[broncofan]

thanks for not having a go at me like this other twat who I will not acknowledge, this will be my last post in here anyway. I am a state certified instructor for gun safety...I help people learn about guns in the safest ways, instructional shooting techniques, how to get properly licensed and handle all firearms in the safest manners...I need knowledge on all kind of firearms and there are many different types of guns. People own or want to own AR-15's wether some agree or not...its just life. I have half a dozen other guns that do the same thing as an AR but they do not look like the dreaded " assault" rifle...anyway thats it...thanks and have a good day

So you need the gun to show other people how to use the gun which they need because.....

[trish]

Supporters of an assault weapons ban, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), say that the goal of the bans is to prevent horrific mass shooting incidents, not stop the run-of-the-mill gun violence that kills dozens of Americans each day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.dd6272f41af0

And it will. She didn’t say “all” and she didn’t say “magically”. Good article by the way. The chart included demonstrate the ten year ban from 1994 to 2004 was indeed effective.

yes because every one will turn them in, even all the criminals who illegally have them and follow all the laws.....

No, not everyone would turn in their AR-15’s etc. Who said they would? But there WOULD be fewer on the street and consequently fewer used in shootings. Also not turning them in would be a criminal offense.

[buttslinger]

.... this will be my last post in here anyway.....

Before you go, and I'm truly seriously curious also....what were your SAT scores?

[Stavros]

Having been told over the weekend the President was now considering gun control measures, after chatting to guests at Mar-a-Lago, presumably because he has no ideas of his own, it emerges a ban on bump stocks is the best he can propose; while students from Parkland made the trip to state capital in Florida to watch the state congress sit on its hand rather than take action to limit gun ownership in the state. On Sunday that devout Christian Marco Rubio said Cruz should be executed if found guilty of the murders. I guess that is what American Christians call forgiveness. Sounds like cowardice all round from where I am.

Like Joe the Plumber said:

your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights

[Stavros]

An article in the New York Times offers an explanation for the high number of mass killings by guns in the US compared to other countries, and concludes the volume of guns in private ownership must be considered a factor, being even more relevant than issues of mental health or race, thus:

The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns.

and

Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns. From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.

Adjusted for population, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people — a distinction Mr. Lankford urged to avoid outliers. Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.

One has to agree with the conclusion, echoing a remark I made in an earlier post:

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/w...rnational.html

Maybe it is time for the US to enter the 21st century and scrap the 2nd Amendment.

[dreamon]

And it will. She didn’t say “all” and she didn’t say “magically”. Good article by the way. The chart included demonstrate the ten year ban from 1994 to 2004 was indeed effective.

Except it wasn't.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.05c7334af0ce

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed...211-story.html

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...-114754-1427r/

https://townhall.com/columnists/doug...k-now-n1476009

[dreamon]

Maybe it is time for the US to enter the 21st century and scrap the 2nd Amendment.

Aren't you from England? Don't you guys get ID'd to buy plastic cutlery? Bold talk about "entering the 21st century".

[broncofan]

Aren't you from England? Don't you guys get ID'd to buy plastic cutlery? Bold talk about "entering the 21st century".

They're not the ones cleaning up blood at their high schools and talking about arming teachers when there are very simple legislative solutions.

WE ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY FUCKING INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY WHERE THIS ROUTINELY HAPPENS!!! COULD IT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE AVAILABILITY OF GUNS? Everybody else has fewer guns and less dangerous weapons and restrictions on who can purchase. And nobody else has dozens of these massacres per year. And you fucking geniuses want to arm teachers?

It doesn't matter how many times you dislike other people's posts, it doesn't change the facts. Children's lives are more important than your inferiority complex.

[Stavros]

Aren't you from England? Don't you guys get ID'd to buy plastic cutlery? Bold talk about "entering the 21st century".

I live in the UK, and yes, the English part. And comment is free, just as you are free to comment on anything that happens in the UK that you are interested in, something I welcome. You can pick up plastic knives, forks and spoons for free at the checkout in the food halls in Marks & Spencer stores, no ID required, though there are now stores that will not sell kitchen knives to under-18 year olds and the law may get tougher given that knife crime is a serious problem in some cities.

It is not bold, but certainly a challenge to you as an American to ask if the time has come to completely re-think your relationship to weapons of mass destruction, because that it what semi-automatic weapons are. Look again at the figures from the Las Vegas incident: 58 dead, 851 wounded -the Wikipedia figure- other sources are smaller but over 500. Estimated time it took to achieve this: 10 minutes. Is it any wonder that we sit here and shake our heads, and some say 'Americans are mad'.

But look again at the arguments that are presented by people like Wayne LaPierre and you wonder if the USA is in the grip of civil war, as if the President's use of the term American Carnage was a description of everyday life as lived by Americans across the country, with tattooed gangs armed with guns and knives prowling the streets of your cities selling drugs, shooting up bars, turning whole blocks into no-go zones. And then to use this image of permanent war into a recipe that is more likely to increase it than reduce it.

There was an armed officer at the Parkland school, but he chose to stay outside rather then enter the building and confront the shooter, assuming he could have done that. To arm 'gun adept' teachers marks a low point in history when the Chief Executive of the USA, backed by some hysterical morons in effect says he cannot produce a solution to the gun problem except to increase their availability. Wayne LaPierre then takes on the FBI, the 'media', the Democrats as if these were all enemies of America. But maybe that it is his point: they are the enemies of his America. His America is a country where Black people know their place, they don't complain, they don't vote, they don't have guns, and they don't occupy the White House.

Wayne LaPierre should tell the truth. If the US elects another Black man, or a Latino, or a woman, and presents the country with what he calls 'Socialism', he and his people will declare war on the Federal Government, and they have their weapons to engage. That millions of Americans may actually vote to reduce gun ownership will not be democracy in action but 'socialism' or whatever label is handy to dismiss it as a genuine concern of American citizens, and the signs are that a new generation of young Americans is taking a very different view of their country from LaPierre, and they are not actors, but real people too.

In the end this is not just a debate about guns, it is about what you think the USA is, and what you would like it to be. In the UK we are engaged in the same question, but it is about the exit from the EU and the consequences for us as a country, and there are solutions to both. It is up to you as an American to either stay silent, or engage. We don't want to see any more dead children than you do, so what are you going to do about it?