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So then why do we allow people with clear mental health issues, and felons buy firearms? We can do better, because we know what the problem is, and the big manufacturers lobby to continue to allow the status quo.
At this point, there is undoubtedly a copycat effect in place. Colombine provided something for these disturbed people to aspire to, and now there have been many more. With each widely-publicized successive event, such as Sandyhook, Aurora, UCSB, and Virginia Tech, more and more mentally disturbed individuals are learning that this is a way to inflict their pain on others while getting attention that they crave.
Sadly, I expect there to be more of these events in the future rather than less.
Like people who live in neighborhoods with lots of gun violence, where young children know what gunfire sounds like and learn from the time they are babies to drop to the ground and seek cover when they hear it, slowly our society is going to acclimate to gun violence, since there doesn't appear to be any truly effective way to reduce it.
I do realize that the rate of violent crime has decreased greatly over the past few decades in America, and that technically these mass shootings are considered "rare" - but the increase in media coverage, IMO, is contributing to the likelihood that there is a copycat effect that has been slowly building since Colombine.
Hmmm, yeah. If we had much more restrictive gun laws, like the laws in, oh, Canada for instance, we wouldn't have incidents like this, or like the one the other day where three cops were gunned down in, um, er, ah, oops, Canada.
You're going to try to compare the very very small incidents of gun violence in Canada to the prevalence of gun violence every single day here in the U.S.? Wow, that's just a huge fail of a comparison.
This leads me to wonder whether you somehow missed the five-post exchange between Magnatomicflux and me that took up most of page 3 (which included the one brief passage below) or you are just being selective for a purpose in the posts you choose to quote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ogre
By the way, considering that your population is one tenth of ours, in a chilling kind of way that's actually a pretty impressive list of massacres north of the 49th. In any case, my citing the incident the other day was not intended to be a fully considered argument, not a dissertation on the subject as it were, just a brief point to consider, for those whose reflexive response to news of these incidents is a simplistic, "That's why we need to ban guns."
Besides, since that incident in New Brunswick just happened, mentioning that was too much of a temptation to resist.
Even the most stringent gun control isn't going to stop these mass shootings. If there were a complete ban on ALL gun sales tomorrow, there would still be millions and millions of firearms to be had anywhere in this country, by illegal sales or theft. Gun control at this point is like closing the barn door after all the horses got out.... too late & not going to do any good. The only way to effectively have 'gun control' is to physically confiscate every single firearm in the country. I question if that is even feasible, but even if it were and were constitutional (which it isn't), you could very easily have a major blood bath on your hands, if not an outright civil war.
You can try to regulate gun sales to keep them out of the wrong hands, and that may help the problem a little. But to start screaming for 'gun control' every time one of these shootings happen is a waste of time. It's too late for that, and all you do is perpetuate the gun control debate which solves nothing. If you want to stop these random killings, then stop concentrating on the guns, and start concentrating on the human fingers that pull the triggers.
Gun rights activists keep parroting the same intellectually lazy defenses in response to every mass shooting
1. Guns don't kill people.....people kill people. Why don't we ban knives, cars, bats etc.
We all know that people kill people. But if someone wants to commit a mass killing spree, the most effective and efficient tool to cause the most death and injury is a gun. The sole intent of a gun is to kill with maximum effectiveness and efficiency. You never hear of massive casualties from a knife attack or a deranged killer mowing down people with his car. Yes, those are all equally horrific but your odds of surviving a knife wound or a car hitting you are way higher than a gunshot wound.
Gunmen have the advantage of maiming and killing multiple victims from a far distance in a very short amount of time. Victims have very little time to respond to bullets flying. Whereas an attacker with a knife or car has to get up close to every victim to kill and bystanders have sufficient time to react and take defensive or offensive measures.
2. Banning guns won't make them go away, the bad guys will always find a way to get them
The second point is ridiculous because by that same token; banning murder won't stop people from killing others, but you don't hear people clamoring to legalize murder, since heck people are going to do it anyways right? The point of gun control is to restrict access and availability of guns which has statistically shown to reduce the likelihood of overall gun violence. Of course some people will still have guns illegally, to argue that all guns would magically disappear is foolish. But if other countries are seeing dramatic decreases in overall gun violence as a result of banning guns, then it can be inferred that gun control is good social policy.
Gun rights activists need to do a better job of showing that easy accessibility to guns reduces gun violence through facts and statistics.....not ad naseum repeated soundbites and intellectually weak counter-arguements
Last edited by go-getta-J; 06-06-2014 at 11:06 AM..
Even the most stringent gun control isn't going to stop these mass shootings. If there were a complete ban on ALL gun sales tomorrow, there would still be millions and millions of firearms to be had anywhere in this country, by illegal sales or theft. Gun control at this point is like closing the barn door after all the horses got out.... too late & not going to do any good. The only way to effectively have 'gun control' is to physically confiscate every single firearm in the country. I question if that is even feasible, but even if it were and were constitutional (which it isn't), you could very easily have a major blood bath on your hands, if not an outright civil war.
You can try to regulate gun sales to keep them out of the wrong hands, and that may help the problem a little. But to start screaming for 'gun control' every time one of these shootings happen is a waste of time. It's too late for that, and all you do is perpetuate the gun control debate which solves nothing. If you want to stop these random killings, then stop concentrating on the guns, and start concentrating on the human fingers that pull the triggers.
You have a point about the barn door - but stricter gun controlwould certainly make a difference (see Australia for example). The removal of guns would be a long term project - over say a decade. It might be very difficult, but just 'concentrating on the human fingers' isn't going to make much of a difference. Again, I have no doubt that a change in the laws would help (almost no one is suggesting that Joe still can't go duck hunting). The problem is the will. Americans (or enough of them) are so enamored by guns that they (selfishly, I would suggest) see these events as an unfortunate, but necessary price of the deal.
So then why do we allow people with clear mental health issues, and felons buy firearms? We can do better, because we know what the problem is, and the big manufacturers lobby to continue to allow the status quo.
And how is that working out? I don't want bombs OR guns. Humans with easy access and pitiful gun control laws are killing us.
Perhaps relies that if we can control drugs on humans ;we certain can't control guns when its obvious many will not comply. heck now are they going to enforce general gun laws when they can enforce felon ownership of guns or those that exist for mental off. its against the law you know for person with mental problems to buy a gun and they have to lie on liberal passed form to get one. What being done to even enforce that. Nothing as is obvious. Passing a law does nothing but make some people free good. often.
Statistics in other countries with more stringent laws are proof that it works. Canada's laws require registration of all hand guns, and their homicide rates are much lower. We knowingly allow sales at gun shows to felons which seems absurd to me, but we all treat illegal aliens better than our own citizens.
I wonder how many of these college campus shootings involved prescription drugs? So many of our young people are placed on various forms of mind-altering drugs, for ADHD, depression, etc. They then become dependent on it and seek more, especially around finals week, when they need to rev up their brains. Then, combine that with the stress of finals, and whatever other drugs they might ingest, alcohol, weed, etc their brains are completely scrambled.
I think we're reaping what we've sowed.
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