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The mentally ill use guns to kill people. The mentally ill are not capable of following laws. The mentally ill do not obey gun laws. More gun laws will not stop the mentally ill from killing people. Mass shooters are often mentally ill. More gun laws will not stop the mentally from shooting large numbers of people in one event.
Worse still, anybody can develop a mental illness at any time. At any time a person who owns guns can develop a mental illness. A newly mentally ill person can buy a firearm at any time prior to his mental illness being discovered AND addressed in serious, formal fashion. We can't read the minds of the mentally ill. At any time, a person can go from sane and law-abiding to criminally ill, and commit a mass shooting, without sufficient warning to know for sure he was going to commit a mass shooting, as opposed to fantasizing about it, or committing suicide.
If the 20,000 current gun laws on the books can't dissuade or prevent the mentally ill from engaging in mass shootings, then yet another new law won't stop the mentally ill from new mass shootings either.
Additional gun control is illogical at this point, as we have a bounty of historical data to show that new laws won't stop the mentally ill from conducting mass shootings.
If you believe the mentally ill can be stopped with a new law, feel free to post what that new law should be in specific detail, and explain in detail how it would stop the mentally ill from mass shootings, and why it would be effective and note why none of the other 20,000 gun laws already on the books do not.
Last edited by Igor Blevin; 07-15-2022 at 11:58 PM..
Sane law-abiding people do not use guns to kill people except in self-defense or the random accident. Sane law-abiding people follow the law regarding guns, generally. Sane law-abiding people obey gun laws. More gun laws that infringe on the constitutional Second Amendment Right of sane law-abiding people, will have no impact on mass shootings by criminals and the mentally ill. More gun laws will only hurt sane law-abiding people, while having no effect on criminals and the mentally ill.
If the 20,000 current gun laws on the books can't dissuade or prevent criminals and the mentally ill from engaging in mass shootings, then yet another new law that only sane law-abiding people follow, won't stop criminals and the mentally ill from new mass shootings either.
Please explain in detail why you believe it is necessary to infringe on the right of 80 million sane-law abiding American gun owners in a nearly hopeless attempt to stop mass shootings, when all previous laws have failed to do so.
Do you just mindlessly think "we have to do something"?
Do you believe that gun law 20,001 will work after 20,000 gun laws haven't?
Have you sat down and really thought this through from the point of view of human nature, the criminal mind, the addled brains of the mentally ill, and educated yourself on the other 20,000 gun laws already in effect? Because I don't think people who propose more gun control to stop mass shootings have really thought it through, after all existing gun control laws have failed.
Do you think new DUI laws will stop DUI drivers cold from killing people?
Do you think yet another drug law will prevent people growing illegal pot, making meth in their rural trailer, shooting up in the streets, or the 100,000 overdose deaths we have each years?
Do you think another law will stop prostitutes from selling their bodies in the streets?
Do you think another law will stop business fraud or financial scams or people engaging in identity theft or hacking?
Do you think yet another law limiting politician's terms or donations will have any effect on the rampant corruption and abuse of power by elected politicians?
Maybe freedom just comes with a level of risk from bad, broken, stupid, and irresponsible people, and all of the laws in the world written on all of the millions of pages of paper in the world, just can't stop any of those things and it is up to us to do what we can to personally protect ourselves from these forces, and satisfy ourselves with punishing them after the fact with very long criminal sentences for murder, mayhem, and defying the public trust.
Last edited by Igor Blevin; 07-16-2022 at 12:02 AM..
It's not a matter of "obeying". Of course bad people don't obey things. That's beside the point. We need to do whatever it takes to reduce the amount of guns in the hands of bad people. That's the point.
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More gun laws will not stop criminals from killing people.
Actual serious and significant gun control measures, enforced at a national level, I believe could and would absolutely reduce murders. And yeah, other tools would be used for committing murder and crime, but those are not as effective for an insane person to go shoot up a concert, or an insane teenager to shoot up his local school, and that's the point. Fewer people would die, with the right changes and strict policies in place.
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More gun laws will not stop criminals from shooting large numbers of people in one event.
If fewer criminals have access to fewer and weaker guns, then less people will be shot at events. That is the point, and I don't see how that's not possible, if we simply would choose to set that priority and do that.
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If the 20,000 current gun laws on the books being ignored and violated by criminals won't stop criminals from engaging in mass shootings, then yet another new law won't stop criminals from new mass shootings either.
Wow, that's a lot of laws. What are each of these "20,000 current gun laws", you speak of? Because none of them seem to be a law that says, hey, maybe let's not permit sale of a rifle to this weird antisocial angry loner teenager kid who talks about violence. Because that seems to be perfectly legal and commonplace, apparently.
Any laws that are only applying to a state or a local area, are basically completely ineffective and pointless, because people, and guns, can freely travel between different parts of the country... so maybe that's one reason why most of those laws are a total waste of time.
We need about 20 laws, all at the United States federal law, and they should combine as one collective effort, to make it very difficult for unstable people to purchase or obtain deadly weapons. It should be not unlike getting into law school or becoming a police officer, or something like that. There should have to be character references, tests, stringent background investigation, whatever it takes. And not whatever we have currently, because that doesn't seem to be doing much. But that doesn't mean that nothing will do anything. Of course it would. Taking it to an extreme, we could ban all guns everywhere completely for anyone, and that would 100% absolutely reduce gun violence, significantly. (Not eliminate it, of course.)
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Additional gun control is illogical at this point, as we have a bounty of historical data to show that new laws won't stop criminals from conducting mass shootings.
Ineffective laws are ineffective, yes, that is a valid point. That doesn't mean that no law is ever effective at doing anything. Gun control prevents this madness from constantly happening in other countries. We're humans just the same as they are. So that is no argument to say that the US should not have gun control. I refuse to look at the faces of these innocent kids who had their whole lives stolen from them, and say, hey, there's no way to prevent this, here in the one nation in the world where this regularly happens.
Exactly, so why do we let so many of them have guns? We're just handing out guns to insane people, and then throwing our hands up when they go shoot people with them.
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More gun laws will not stop the mentally from shooting large numbers of people in one event.
If a gun law prevented a mentally ill person from having the tools or ability to do that, then, yes, it would stop that from happening.
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Worse still, anybody can develop a mental illness at any time. At any time a person who owns guns can develop a mental illness. A newly mentally ill person can buy a firearm at any time prior to his mental illness being discovered AND addressed in serious, formal fashion. We can't read the minds of the mentally ill. At any time, a person can go from sane and law-abiding to criminally ill, and commit a mass shooting, without sufficient warning to know for sure he was going to commit a mass shooting, as opposed to fantasizing about it, or committing suicide.
All reasons why I don't want just anyone to be able to have these things.
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If you believe the mentally ill can be stopped with a new law, feel free to post what that new law should be in specific detail, and explain in detail how it would stop the mentally ill from mass shootings, and why it would be effective and note why none of the other 20,000 gun laws already on the books do not.
I'll take it to a hypothetical extreme for you. If the 2nd amendment were repealed (which is a process that the constitution specifically provides for), and the congress/executive branch outright completely banned any private citizen from owning or possessing any firearms of any kind, whatsoever, period- then, the number of unstable 18 year old's shooting up elementary schools per month, surely would be drastically reduced. Especially since these crazy people are obtaining these weapons legally through legal channels, not like through the Mexican cartel underground or something.
The gun laws in place can't be effective without addressing the bigger more serious issues of holding public institutions and employees liable when they fail to report relevant information to the criminal background check system, medical privacy, cost of mental health treatment and civil rights pertaining to forced institutionalization.
Mentally ill people posing a danger need to be taken off the streets and flagged to prevent firearms purchases. Medical professionals must be required to report patients that pose a danger and be held liable for not doing so. Government employees must be prosecuted when they don't report criminal records as required. All that my sound harsh but they are valid positions. Where do their rights end and the rights of the public to have dangerous individuals locked up begin?
In almost every shooting incident the red flags were clearly present but the people surrounding the shooters failed to act or were prevented by our laws and institutions from acting to stop them.
Just to clear up a few things here... While some people who suffer from mental illness may tend to be violent, the vast majority of mentally ill people do not exhibit violent tendencies.
While no doubt there are mentally ill people who should not own firearms, and one might argue that only a person who was not in his right mind would commit a mass shooting, there are also other reasons for people not being "in their right mind" who are otherwise not diagnosed with a mental illness.
I thought the Uvalde guy bought the AR rifles legally, just a few days before the shooting? And same thing with the shooters in Highland Park, Buffalo, Tulsa, etc. Sadly I'm only even mentioning the ones this summer.
If they're breaking the law in obtaining these instruments of mass murder, then yeah, that would point to ineffective policies, or ineffective enforcement. But they're purchasing them legally, even as unhinged, antisocial type dangerous people that they are. So that seemingly points to a complete lack of any policies.
Well, I'm not married, don't have kids, and I don't own a gun. I've never had my home invaded. But if that did happen, even if I had a gun in the home, I'm not exactly sure that in the real world, that it would go the way you imagine it would go. First of all, do the invaders not also have guns, in this scenario? And I'm at home, and not asleep, in this scenario? And if they sneak up on me, aren't they just going to point their gun at me first of all, before I'd even have a chance to get mine? Then wouldn't they just steal my gun, along with my other valuables, and go use that for more crime? And isn't even that a pretty best case scenario, where nobody gets hurt?
I think 'good guy guns' tend more often to escalate the danger of situations, more than anything. Exceptions can always be pointed to, but I think that's the case in general.
I also think guns and kids don't mix. 1,200 children per year in the US die by suicide with a gun. Plus all the hundreds of accidents. And of course all the street violence, is the big one, even much bigger issue than the lunatic mass shootings. Over 2,000 kids die every year in gun homicides, all in all. So I don't necessarily agree with the argument that guns are protecting kids.
If they wanted to get rid of the second amendment altogether, then why would they care about that?
I don't want to repeal the amendment. I'm basically fine with it, and I'm sure it had a good cause, and probably still has some merit. I just think it's interpreted pretty ridiculously open-ended, and that's all I'd prefer to see change with it. The contextual lens with which it is considered and interpreted.
And it's funny, because on other issues, conservatives cheer the notion that the general clauses in there about privacy, don't protect a right to abortion, or gay marriage or etc. There, narrow interpretation works for them. But when it comes to the 2A, it's like somehow that snippet of text means that anybody can own any dangerous thing, and background checks are invalid, or whatever. The document does not say that. (If it did, I absolutely would support repealing it.)
Yeah, and the laws of the land should have advanced over the years along with all the technological changes. But that's apparently what didn't advance.
And yeah, I'm all for any branch of the military, or reserve forces, having whatever they need. All for the police and law enforcement to be armed, and have what they need to enforce the laws and maintain order. Also fine with private security professionals having guns.
Notice a trend, here? People who have undergone years of serious mental and physical training. Give them the guns. Take the guns out of the hands of the angsty suburban manifesto-writing 18 year-olds.
I don't blame the inanimate object in itself. A gun is a thing, and you can murder people with a car, if you're so inclined.
But the difference is, a car is a tool for transportation, that can be abused/misused for murder, like anything really. Or a chef's knife is a tool for food preparation, or whatever. But, a gun, is a tool that is specifically designed to kill people, as effectively as possible. So when it does that, that's what it was designed to do.
Guns make it easier and possible for people to quickly kill a lot of people, and that's the problem with them. Also their presence seems to make it easier for people to die, in general, of violence/deliberate, or accidents.
People kill people, and guns kill people. Both are true statements. People kill people with guns.
And how often does it happen there, versus how often does it happen here?
"It's only 99.9% effective elsewhere, so therefore we shouldn't do anything at all", is just a terrible point. I completely disagree with that.
The US had 39,740 firearm deaths in 2018, and Japan had 9.
Gun control clearly can be very effective. We just lack effectively having it or implementing it, and, well, all this needless death is the result.
I completely disagree. We're talking about having to pass a background check, and other tight regulations, before you can buy something that could instantly blow your whole neighbor's family's heads off. with a few twitches of your finger, because you're angry over politics, or the way they trimmed their hedges or something. Seems like basic common sense policy to me.
Seems like sound libertarian thought to me, too, actually. More gun control in this would make us more free, not less. Unless you think of lying in a pool of your dad's blood in a suburban Chicago July 4th parade day, as your definition of freedom. My idea of freedom in this real world, highly involves safety and security, in appropriate balanced measure.
Moderator cut: Off-topic
Yes, there are a lot of firearm deaths in the United States each year.
1% are listed as murders.
In 2018, 39,740 people died in the United States from firearm-related injuries.
Of gun deaths in 2018, 61% were suicides, and 1% were homicides.
While there were 12,892 handgun/firearm not specified deaths, for rifles which would include AR-15s and other black rifles, there were 455, basically the same as the 393 killed by blunt objects such as baseball bats, but below the 662 killed by hands, feet, etc. and far below the 1739 killed by knives.
I guess you'll want to ban all them too?
If you were actually a libertarian, you'd be familiar with the quote, "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Yes, firearms should be kept out of the hands of the criminally insane, but punishing 80 million law abiding citizens to do it flies in the face of being a supporter of personal liberty.
The most rational way to lessen violence is to punish the criminals that perpetuate the acts, and provide mental health services to those that need it, and people must be willing to get help for their family members or friends that need it instead of turning a blind eye to their disease.
Igor Blevin is exactly right. You should read his posts and then think about them for a while.
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 07-16-2022 at 10:58 AM..
Reason: Thread is not about abortion or LGBTQ rights/Don't use red
Well, maybe the god of guns, the NRA could fund some mental health facilities, since some of you are saying that's THE answer. I don't see any conservatives going that direction. Instead, the NRA is more important than their own children's lives.
Saying (some) gun control doesn't work is disingenuous when it indeed HAS worked in the other rich countries. Gun violence is a fraction of what it was before some restrictions were put in place. People still have their guns, but why does an 18-year-old need an assault rifle? I mean, come on. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.
The objectors here are acting like nothing needs to be done. They are just "ok" with children dying, an "acceptable" sacrifice, as someone else said.
It is not OK and here's how other rich countries handled it, though I know the pro-gun crowd won't read it:
Yes, firearms should be kept out of the hands of the criminally insane, but punishing 80 million law abiding citizens to do it flies in the face of being a supporter of personal liberty.
The most rational way to lessen violence is to punish the criminals that perpetuate the acts, and provide mental health services to those that need it, and people must be willing to get help for their family members or friends that need it instead of turning a blind eye to their disease.
But how do sensible background checks "punish law-abiding citizens"?
I suppose you think that DUI laws and suspending licenses of repeated impaired drivers also constitutes "punishing law-abiding citizens"?
I say, there's something wrong, when people on the FBI's "No-fly list" and followers of ISIS can legally buy assault weapons (as they can under current law).
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
10,356 posts, read 8,583,796 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sand&Salt
Well, maybe the god of guns, the NRA could fund some mental health facilities, since some of you are saying that's THE answer. I don't see any conservatives going that direction. Instead, the NRA is more important than their own children's lives.
Saying (some) gun control doesn't work is disingenuous when it indeed HAS worked in the other rich countries. Gun violence is a fraction of what it was before some restrictions were put in place. People still have their guns, but why does an 18-year-old need an assault rifle? I mean, come on. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.
The objectors here are acting like nothing needs to be done. They are just "ok" with children dying, an "acceptable" sacrifice, as someone else said.
It is not OK and here's how other rich countries handled it, though I know the pro-gun crowd won't read it:
How did that work in Japan for Abe?
If you truly cared about making things better you would stop demonizing gun owners as ok with children dying to make yourself feel morally superior and instead treat them with respect as all people want. You don’t start negotiations by insulting the other side. It doesn’t help you get what you want
You need to educate yourself if you want to have a reasonable discussion.
Stop using incorrect terms like assault rifle.
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