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When it comes to job security, a great number of people can go from mentally stable to mentally unstable, with a pink slip, in a matter of seconds!
Sole breadwinner in family, with a half dozen kids at home to feed, a wife having elected to stay home and raise the children, mortgage/car payments, electric/water/gas/insurance bills to pay, no health insurance, no potential financial support from other family members. Lose the job, the father, mother, 6 kids, cats, dogs, go flying right off a cliff!
No, it's not just the crazy, creepy weirdo's I fear! Or the poor!
Back in the days I worked in a major corporation in Bloomington, where there were massive lay-offs, a middle-class couple working for that company, got pink slips the same exact day, with a beautiful home in Arden Hills. Back to their homes they went that day, he shot her, and then turned the gun on himself! Yes, someone like this could have returned to work the next day and?
It doesn't have to be like that. My father has been laid off several times in his career as an engineer. One year he was laid off and he had a relatively new house, 3 kids, sole breadwinner, and that same year, I became very ill and had to be hospitalized. I have two surgeries, all kinds of medicine, and other things were needed. My father didn't go crazy. It can happen, but it doesn't have to be. My father is an example of someone who has faced adversity over and over and never went off the deep end. I've also faced alot of adversity. I was bullied frequently in middle school and high school, the smallest kid in the class, nerdy Black kid, socially awkward, basically, I was picked on for alot of reasons. I didn't go off of the deep end and shoot people. Other high school students have done this, but I didn't.
I disagree. I look at it like this. Chicago and DC have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, stricter than Minneapolis. Those cities have much higher murder rates than Minneapolis. Illinois has a higher murder rate than Minnesota despite its stricter gun laws. This is how I see it. I don't think guns themselves are the biggest problem, but the attitude of the person with the gun. Criminals and maniacal people don't care what the gun laws are. If they are angry and want to kill people, they'll find a way.
I think that is a good start, but the usefullness of stricter laws in these cities is limited when you can buy as many ultra-violent guns and ammunition on the internet as you want as well as outside of the those cities.
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Originally Posted by Mason3000
You HATE our Constitutional rights, but love our country?
Those of you who are getting all protective of the constitution realize that slavery was discussed in it in several key points. Am I supposed to accept and support slavery too before I am capable of loving my country?
Oh but wait, there was something called an "amendment" that was made to the constitution in 1865 to abolish slavery. See, that's the beauty of this country. When something in the constitution becomes outdated we have the ability to make an amendment to change it. Yes, America is great, and it could be even greater if something meaningful was done about our awful gun violence problem.
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The gun didn't kill those people, the person did. A gun is just a tool, nothing more. What matters is who's using the tool. We had a kook at the U of M last winter intentionally drive his car onto the sidewalk & kill students leaving a bar. There was another well publicized case last year of a woman intentionally running down a stranger in a parking lot with her car because of road rage. Shall we ban cars? I'm not trying to ridicule, but it feels like saying "the issue is access to guns" is intellectually lazy.
It's intellectually lazy to try to make an honest comparison between killing people with guns and killing people with cars when there are over 10,000 homicides annually in the U.S. from guns, while those from cars are probably under a hundred. Tool or not, if it wasn't around we'd have far less homicides in this country, plain and simple.
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Canada has more guns per capita & doesn't have the same issues we do, why not? In Switzerland by law you MUST own a gun & yet they don't have the issues we do, why not? We need to look beyon
d the obvious, set aside knee-jerk political ideologies & look for the cause, as opposed to the symptom.
This isn't Canada or Switzerland, this is the United States of America. We have a massive gun violence problem here, and it's about time we address it instead of brushing it off.
I think that is a good start, but the usefullness of stricter laws in these cities is limited when you can buy as many ultra-violent guns and ammunition on the internet as you want as well as outside of the those cities.
Oh, here we go. So now you're saying that unless somebody is 100% in agreement with every single aspect of this country that you are incapable of loving it? Come on now, that is just ridiculous. Let's all just conform to everything placed in front of us. Things like improvement, change, etc. are overrated right?
It's intellectually lazy to try to make an honest comparison between killing people with guns and killing people with cars when there are over 10,000 homicides annually in the U.S. from guns, while those from cars are probably under a hundred. Tool or not, if it wasn't around we'd have far less homicides in this country, plain and simple.
This isn't Canada or Switzerland, this is the United States of America. We have a massive gun violence problem here, and it's about time we address it instead of brushing it off.
* You think the guns in inner city Chicago or Washington DC are the result of easy internet access? Really? Why not just let the police run the internet? Wouldn't that eliminate the problem & make you safer? How many freedoms are you willing to cede for the feeling of security?
** The Founding Fathers created the most free & prosperous system in history & you, in all your wisdom have decided it should be "improved"? Do you see the arrogance?
*** There are close to 40,000+ auto fatalities (very few intentional of course) every year to less than 10,000 gun deaths. I agree that there's a difference of course, but my point is that you can't regulate humanity or chance. How do you get on the road every day knowing you could die? Someone could cross the center line. These are the risks we incur to live in a free society. My personal fear of me or my family being shot is very low. I think of it like our post-9/11 airport security. I'd rather travel pre-9/11 & risk an Islamic attack, than be X-Ray'd & Scanned when flying to Omaha.
**** "This isn't Canada or Switzerland"? Me "brushing it off"? You completely sidestep the entire point I made. It's not the guns. If it was, Canada would have more killings. Switzerland would have more killings. They don't. Who thinks of Canada or Switzerland as dangerous places to live because they have guns (more than we do!)? It's us...our society is breaking down & to refuse to admit the problem ensures we can't fix it. Gun violence in America is like a trash strike. You pile up all the trash out on your steps in the sun for a few days & when no one comes to pick it up, eventually rats start coming. You are the neighbor who says "Let's go kill the rats", I'm the neighbor who says "No, let's remove the trash".
* You think the guns in inner city Chicago or Washington DC are the result of easy internet access? Really? Why not just let the police run the internet? Wouldn't that eliminate the problem & make you safer? How many freedoms are you willing to cede for the feeling of security?
Benjamin Franklin had this to say about it: He who gives up essential liberties for temporary security will end up losing both.
Another thing to look at is this. Gun control laws is the USA often had their roots in slavery. Black slaves were forbidden to have guns. Why? To keep a slave enslaved. If you have a gun, and you don't want to serve your slave master, you can tell him to stick it somewhere. The lawmakers knew the power of disarming people. Gun control laws were not made to protect slaves from themselves. They were made to protect the slave master from slaves. Making guns harder to get these days, in my opinion, is more or less a knee-jerk reaction to underlying problems that weren't addressed earlier.
* You think the guns in inner city Chicago or Washington DC are the result of easy internet access? Really? Why not just let the police run the internet? Wouldn't that eliminate the problem & make you safer? How many freedoms are you willing to cede for the feeling of security?
Benjamin Franklin had this to say about it: He who gives up essential liberties for temporary security will end up losing both.
Another thing to look at is this. Gun control laws is the USA often had their roots in slavery. Black slaves were forbidden to have guns. Why? To keep a slave enslaved. If you have a gun, and you don't want to serve your slave master, you can tell him to stick it somewhere. The lawmakers knew the power of disarming people. When people are disarmed, they are easier to victimize as they have no means of self-defense. Gun control laws were not made to protect slaves from themselves. They were made to protect the slave master from slaves. Making guns harder to get these days, in my opinion, is more or less a knee-jerk reaction to underlying problems that weren't addressed earlier.
I think there should be a bipartisan effort to promote public health in schools (formally health class). You can teach gun safety (which is a HUGE public health issue) alongside basic nutrition and proper sexual health. A win for everyone!
I think there should be a bipartisan effort to promote public health in schools (formally health class). You can teach gun safety (which is a HUGE public health issue) alongside basic nutrition and proper sexual health. A win for everyone!
I like this idea! AND, use gun-permit taxes (an increase on them, that is) to fund it, if necessary! Win-win-WIN!
You recognize how OLD and OUTDATED that Amendment is, right? The Constitution was created to give man rights to protect themselves from Government, themselves.....and also, Great Britain.....in the late 1700's. I think it's time to amend certain Amendments to the Constitution.
It would be easier to move the moon than to change the second amendment. It will not ever happen. Ever.
It's time we finally acknowledge that there is a very high price for the second amendment. Otherwise, shootings like this will eventually fail to make the news.
Guns, legal, or not... This type of thing was going to happen.
Y'all are thinking wayyyy too much on the surface. Bottom line: the guy had issues that started LONG ago. Not a few months ago. Not 6 years ago. Child, developmental stuff messed this guy up. It's too bad that people don't speak up more.
Everytime one of these tragedies happen (Aurora, Arizona, Milwaukee, Virginia Tech), you hear "He was just very quiet" "He was a loner" "I never met him, he kept to himself" "He seemed a little off"...
You don't just decide to open fire on a bunch of innocent people because of a couple of months or years of bad road.
I've lost jobs, girlfriends to break ups and friends/family to death in a short amount of time... But I have the good seeds planted in my head to never ever ever even contemplate something like this.
My heart goes out to all the families and friends of these innocent people.
Even the shooter. Wish he would have gotten help earlier, let's not forget his life was lost as well.
* You think the guns in inner city Chicago or Washington DC are the result of easy internet access? Really? Why not just let the police run the internet? Wouldn't that eliminate the problem & make you safer? How many freedoms are you willing to cede for the feeling of security?
My point is that making guns more difficult to obtain in one city doesn't do anything since you can obtain guns anywhere outside of the school or through the internet just as easily. If we want to see results we need cooperation nationwide to that accessibility is restricted.
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** The Founding Fathers created the most free & prosperous system in history & you, in all your wisdom have decided it should be "improved"? Do you see the arrogance?
Do you think that I should not be entitled to an opinion and forfeit my 1st amendment right? Do you see the arrogance in that? What are you implying regarding the other 27 amendments that have been made to the constitution....I suppose those who were involved in proposing those and worked towards ratifying them were arrogant as well?
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*** There are close to 40,000+ auto fatalities (very few intentional of course) every year to less than 10,000 gun deaths. I agree that there's a difference of course, but my point is that you can't regulate humanity or chance. How do you get on the road every day knowing you could die? Someone could cross the center line. These are the risks we incur to live in a free society. My personal fear of me or my family being shot is very low. I think of it like our post-9/11 airport security. I'd rather travel pre-9/11 & risk an Islamic attack, than be X-Ray'd & Scanned when flying to Omaha.
Sorry, but these are preposterous comparisons.
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**** "This isn't Canada or Switzerland"? Me "brushing it off"? You completely sidestep the entire point I made. It's not the guns. If it was, Canada would have more killings. Switzerland would have more killings. They don't. Who thinks of Canada or Switzerland as dangerous places to live because they have guns (more than we do!)? It's us...our society is breaking down & to refuse to admit the problem ensures we can't fix it. Gun violence in America is like a trash strike. You pile up all the trash out on your steps in the sun for a few days & when no one comes to pick it up, eventually rats start coming. You are the neighbor who says "Let's go kill the rats", I'm the neighbor who says "No, let's remove the trash".
Canada and Switzerland don't have a gun violence probem, while the United States does and thus, they have nothing to address. We have a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I don't care if people have weapons for hunting. What I have a problem with is handguns and assault weapons...there is just no need for them in our society. The statistics and countless tragedies in the last few decades speak for themselves.
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Originally Posted by green_mariner
Benjamin Franklin had this to say about it: He who gives up essential liberties for temporary security will end up losing both.
Another thing to look at is this. Gun control laws is the USA often had their roots in slavery. Black slaves were forbidden to have guns. Why? To keep a slave enslaved. If you have a gun, and you don't want to serve your slave master, you can tell him to stick it somewhere. The lawmakers knew the power of disarming people. Gun control laws were not made to protect slaves from themselves. They were made to protect the slave master from slaves. Making guns harder to get these days, in my opinion, is more or less a knee-jerk reaction to underlying problems that weren't addressed earlier.
I don't think nobody is arguing that it made sense to offer this freedom back in the 1700's. That was back when people had crappy muskets that helped them hunt for food to survive. It's 2012 now, where anybody can obtain an AK-47 or Tek-9 and take out a crowd of people in a matter of seconds if they suddenly get angry and irrational (like getting fired from a job or a sudden difficult breakup from their significant other, etc.)
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Originally Posted by knke0204
No need to get all political.
Guns, legal, or not... This type of thing was going to happen.
This is half of our problem here. Until you stop accepting these tragedies and recognize that they are intolerable than we all might as well give up on society right now.
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Yes, someone like this could have returned to work the next day and?
