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And where it the intelligent discourse from the gun lovers? The only "meaningful action" you guys propose is, "let's put even more guns out there into the hands of everyone and their dog." That's ALL you have.
Did you not read my OP? How about we discuss some of those options?
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We're not going to be intimidated by you. Maybe you guys are willing to be callous and flippant about the prospect of kids and teachers slaughtered in schools, but the rest of us are not willing to accept it as the price for our "right" to buy 50 high-powered semi-automatic weapons with no background check.
It isn't being callous and flippant, it's called keeping a level head and not basing political poilcy off of the raw emotion and knee jerk reactions of the public.
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We're going to push through some common sense reforms, like not allowing people to buy these weapons with no background checks at gun shows. That alone is a start. Another is to revamp psychiatric and mental health screenings and infrastructure and integrate it into gun purchases and ownership.
What an excellent idea!!!!! So glad that I suggested it in the OP.
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Maybe a third will be to have specially trained and armed officers in schools, like they do in Israel.
Aren't you contradicting yourself now?
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The only "meaningful action" you guys propose is, "let's put even more guns out there into the hands of everyone and their dog." That's ALL you have.
And by the way, in Israel, teachers and bus drivers are armed, an idea that has been suggested and highly ridiculed by your crowd.
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And on that note, we're going to look to all of the other first-world nations that seem to have been able to get this right and therefore have a fraction of our homicide rate. We'll learn from them.
What we won't do is side with you in supporting the status quo, which is all we can ever expect from you.
Well you keep those obvious stars in your eyes, I can tell your a man on a mission with big dreams and big plans. I hate to be the oneto break it to ya though, things don't happen in this country just based on a hope and a prayer.
This is priceless, coming from the gang that insists it has to have its vast arsenal of assault weapons because the duly elected government by, for and of their friends and neighbors might just snap at any moment and name a dictator.
Well lets make a list. You make a list of how many teachers have snapped because they had a gun. I'll make a list of past dictators, governments, and cult of personality types responsible for the deaths of millions. Bet my list will be a lot longer than yours.
Define gun nut, numb nuts. I have 11 (guns not nuts) I ask because I want to know if you are calling me crazy so I can justifiably unleash my scathing sarcasm on your crippled intellect.
First being sarcastic with me will get you nothing because I don't care. So you'd be wasting your time and probably proving my point.
Gun nuts are fear based frequently racist conspiracy theorists.
First being sarcastic with me will get you nothing because I don't care. So you'd be wasting your time and probably proving my point. Gun nuts are fear based frequently racist conspiracy theorists.
And you'd be surprised at just how few of those there are compared to the majority of gun owners in this country. Of course , you likely believe that anyone who owns a gun is a racist conspiracy theory nut don't you?
And you'd be surprised at just how few of those there are compared to the majority of gun owners in this country. Of course , you likely believe that anyone who owns a gun is a racist conspiracy theory nut don't you?
Don't bother. He's made that same post a good 50 times in the last couple days, I don't think he's interested in any rational discussion.
What exactly is your definition of a gun nut? Anyone who owns a gun?
So are many who don't own a single gun, your point?
What exactly is your definition of a "high powered gun"?
Who do you propose pays for that?
Heres where you lose me. Do you also think that GM should be held accountable for every drunk that kills a familyon the road because they got behind the wheel of one of their cars? If I go and stab someone in the face withn a fork, do you think the manufacturer should be held accountable? And don't even try and say it's different because it isn't. The only difference is that we are talking about guns.
This is just ridiculaousness and frightening at the same time, this way way of thinking.
So, unconstitutionaly and unfairly tax a specific group of people? Sounds like America at it's finest.
Yes, single out another group of people and create more division, sounds like a plan.
It's quite obvious that you know very little about guns or the people who own them. I'm sorry you have such short sighted and ignorant opinions about people you don't even know.
What I wrote was reasonable. US government policy should be to limit and greatly lower gun violence.
I think that is a very reasonable policy goal of any sane society.
The way you do that is to closely track guns. The society makes producing, and selling guns less profitable and more regulated with stiffer penalties and more oversight.
Also make gun ownership more of a hassle and more expensive.
Finally you put social pressure in getting the word out on just how dangerous these tools are to the safety of American citizens so that being on that lunatic fringe becomes less and less attractive.
So basically your post to me was irrelevant because it addressed nothing I wrote.
"Hell no" = compromise. Get serious. For decades the NRA had the votes to create gridlock negating any meaningful reform. Now with this massacre, I have no doubt they don't. So quite frankly, the side w/o the votes should not be answering "Hell NO" to anything.
It will never be 12/13/2012 for the NRA and their mindset again.
Every now and then one comes across a post that makes one laugh and shake his/her head.
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Originally Posted by bobtn
I'm saying I have no doubt the votes are there to greatly strengthen gun control laws, and I hope gun owners are adult enough to participate in the conversation. But if they are not, well..the votes are there to greatly increase regulation anyway.
So hoping they are adult enough to participate is an act of kindness, not a requirement now.
It is no longer 12/13/12.
It's a tie!
Maybe a 3-way tie:
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Originally Posted by Iamme73
First being sarcastic with me will get you nothing because I don't care. So you'd be wasting your time and probably proving my point.
Gun nuts are fear based frequently racist conspiracy theorists.
Nothing on earth will ever prove your point because your point is just plain silly. And wrong.
lol
Here's the problem we don't have to confiscate guns. We give people an amnesty period where guns on the restricted list can be sold back to the state who knows maybe will give the owners a sweetner say 5-10% more than fair market value. I bet you a lot of husbands will return from work to find their guns gone.
After the end of the grace period if these guns are found outside of the home the owner will face felony charges. Simple and done. So you can keep your guns we don't have to come for them. They still maybe used in crime, domestic disputes etc but we would have curtaild its availability and the cultural acceptance of these weapons. They'll end up going the way of cigarettes.
Bet you find a lot of women wondering why their stuff is on the curb.
Last night I bet I opened at least 30 of the hundred or so new threads discussing gun control on this board. Not in even one of these did I find a hint of meaningful conversation that displayed any reason or logic from the anti gun people. Instead they are inundated with sheer ignorance and blind stupidity with zero intellect and very little intelligence being displayed. Just a few examples of the ignorance, and I'm para-phrasing:
And the winner, by a landslide.....
How exactly do you expect to accomplish anything with this type of mentality? Do you not agree with president Obama that to create "meaningful action" we must "come together"? all this rhetoric is doing nothing but driving us further apart. Being the NRA member and avid believer in the second amendment that I am, I'm not a real big fan of any kind of new regulations on firearms, however, I DO believe there is a middle ground and room for compromise on both sides of the issue. Things like a national firearms registry, NICS check on all sales public and private, mental health status showing up on the NICS check, mandatory gun safes, regulating high capacity magazines, these are all areas that could be discussed and compromised on. It should also be noted that all of the above are considered "radical" ideas by my fellow pro gun posters on here. It should also be noted that I held these beliefs long before any of the recent mass shootings because unlike MANY of you, I am capable of keeping my emotions in check, and don't let the latest tragedy influence my political convictions.
One thing I am certain of though, is that with all the mud-slinging school yard bull**** being flung around between both sides, this "meaningful action and change" will never happen. One side starts it and the other side either clams up or throws it right back. So heres your chance, I've given you a baseline to start a real conversation, let's see if we can all be adults here and handle it.
P.S.
I would also like to point out that I have the capacity to realise that no matter how many laws or regulations that you pass, short of banning guns on a world wide level and rounding them all up and melting them down, you will never ever be able to completely prevent this type of thing from happening.
Which, feel free to entertain the notion of banning guns all you want, but with 300,000,000 privately owned guns in this country alone,good luck with that.
Thoughtful post raising some interesting questions.
A little background on me; I'm not a gun owner. Grew up in England, Africa and Asia where gun ownership is rare, if even legal. I didnt know anyone who owned a gun till coming to the US in 1998. Living here in the Dallas Texas area, TONS of people grew up with, and currently own guns. I personally am uncomfortable with the idea. This struck close to home as we recently lost a member of my church who killed himself when he accidentally shot himself while loading his gun (yes, it sounded fishy to some other folks at the church too). I know there is some stat out there that shows that guns in the house are more likely to be used on members of that house and not intruders. But, to each his/her own.
To your topic. You brought up some interesting ideas as to how the gun owner lobby could concede some things to help prevent the next tragedy, with the background checks and all that. Sadly, all of this would have done absolutely NOTHING to prevent this incident, as the guns were stolen from the owner. The owner would have passed all the checks you suggest. That wouldnt have helped with her son though. And that is the problem. The vast majority of gun owners are peaceful, law abiding citizens. That I can vouch for. It's the lunatic fringe that we have to worry about. This kid had access to guns because his mother had them. If the news reports I read are correct, she even taught him how to use guns as well. So what do you do about that?
One idea floating around is to arm the teachers. I disagree with that. Can people be trained in tactics on how to take down armed aggressors? sure. They are called SWAT teams. Proffessionals with years of specialized training. Expecting a math teacher to get anything close to that amount of expertise is not realistic in my opinion. And I suspect the teachers themselves would much rather worry about teaching algebra instead.
Another idea (which I personally like) would involve having police officers at each school. To me this would probably be the best thing. But with city and state budgets being tight, I'm not sure how economically feasable that is. The other problem with this is that these crazies can attack just about any public place; schools, malls, movie theatres, etc. You cant have every place guarded by police so what do you do?
The other big problem area is the movies, music and videogames. The violence in our culture is scary when you think about it. Like I said before, I've never had a gun, had never seen one up close till I was 19, yet I know just about every brand of gun available; AK 47, AR 15, Ruger, M16, 380, Mac 10...I'm missing some I'm sure. So, how do I have such an extensive knowledge of guns that I've never even used? From rap music. I grew up listening to it so I gained the knowledge there. It's even worse when you look at the video games, and movies. And this is the problem; For the sake of our kids, we need to completely ban access to all these forms of entertainment. Yet for the sake of freedom of speech, we dont. Hence now we have a youth growing up seeing blowing up people as just "videogame fun". Its all about the headshots now. I never thought about the overall effect of all this growing up. But now as a father of 3, I think about it more and more. There's going to come a time when Americans are going to have to decide which is more important; the freedom to express yourself (in any way you see fit, no matter the effect on the kids) and giving our youth a chance to grow up as normal human beings.
That being said, all this pretty much takes us back to the main issue; the guns we have. Looking at the guy's mother; I could understand having the two handguns for protection, but the bushmaster??? who was she expecting, the mafia? I'm sorry but I dont see the need for anyone to have that sort of firepower. Sorry, just dont. If two handguns can't do the job of protecting you, then you probably need witness protection from whoever is after you.
The people casually saying "oh, it's a one off nutjob, things are fine the way they are"...I suspect that if it was one of YOUR kids who died you wouldnt be quite so cavalier about it. WHile I'm against guns personally, I dont have any problem with gun owners having theirs. Just not enough that if in the wrong hands can wreak the kind of destruction we just saw.
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