It doesn't Directly affect people's lives. It could Potentially, affect people's lives. As in, you're not hurting anybody while drunk driving UNTIL you crash.
There's no magic legislation that will stop gang bangers from slaughtering each other (accounts for over 75% of U.S. gun deaths), nor will it prevent massacres of innocents by knife, firearm or bomb. If you're talking about Sandy Hook, the kid already committed murder to possess those guns, he broke many laws doing what he did. To me, the insanity is that more laws will matter to the type of mind we're dealing with here.
It's already illegal to use a firearm on a human being with good cause. With drunk driving you're engaging in behavior that puts other people at risk, so it's reasonable for that to be made illegal. Just owning firearms puts nobody at risk.
It is always interesting people blame the inanimate object not the animate mind behind it. As others have said, it's like blaming obesity on forks. Ban airplanes because of hijackers? We need to understand the psychology of the people behind the evil-doers. Its easy to hate them and even easier to blame an object, but a loving society that wants real change needs to address the heart of the matter. Childhood/adult trama, traumatic brain injuries, stresses of all sorts, ideologies/brainwashing, physical/mental pain, etc. We need to help, heal and support these people and make available the help they need. Lets spend Obama's newly planned $500 million on treatment instead of enforcement/oversight agencies. The difference between the person committing these acts and you, is that you haven't lived walked their life. Very few people want other people to murder others, but blaming the tool not only misses the point, it perpetuates the underlying problem.
It is a proven fact that places with strict gun control have significantly more crime than places that require their citizens to own a gun. I think its completely retarded that the government is moving to stricter gun control while outfitting the police state with surplus military gear. <--- That makes no fucking sense at all and directly speaks to the fact above. US citizens complain about immigrants. I see a large majority of them becoming immigrants in the next 50-60 years once this country virtually destroys itself from the inside out. Sweden is looking fantastic by the way.
lol. Whens the last time you saw someone driving a monster truck? Did they run anyone over? Non issue -Yuri
Reading some of the comments on here reminds me why I love America and the American dream. God bless you beautiful people, fuck that state and big up the right to bear arms!
We really gotta start being honest with ourselves and admit that the opposition to even common-sense measures of gun-control are influenced by the fact that the United States has a strong gun culture. Some people just love their guns, just like I love my electric bike. My mum loves cars, my step dad loves cars.. I love motorbikes.. and we've all been caught speeding or passing red lights, but I guess at the end of the day we all have to admit that we need at least common sense laws to stop people from doing stupid shit. You could say I'm a deranged psychopath for my love of fast wheels.. but I'd just tell you to get fucked because, well.. I can't help it. I love bikes, I love speed.. New Zealand as a whole loves fast vehicles.. though I'd still feel awful if I hurt a little kid trying to cross the road, so that's why I do my riding sensibly. At the end of the day, however - The law gets broken all the time. Speeding is illegal, but people still speed. In countries where guns are illegal, people still buy them off the black market and murder people (as is the case in my country Venezuela). What we really need to do is get to the root cause of the problems we have in society, instead of just mindlessly banning everything in sight and having policemen in every street corner telling you to pull your pants down as you go on about your day. If we focused greater effort on prevention of harm rather than law enforcement, the world would be a better place. You can chase a thief forever, but until you look at the reason why people steal to begin with.. it'll be a never-ending battle.
I don't understand what you mean. There are no common sense gun control laws, because gun control itself doesn't make sense. You can make it illegal to shoot people or carry gguns on certain properties like school, but trying to control who can own what is just retarded in every way -Yuri
Speeding fines don't make sense, either. You're not hurting anybody while speeding.. and some people are actually good at driving. They're all laws based on what could happen, but we've already discussed this and it's just starting to go in circles.
exactly. Speed limits are similar to gun control. They are entirely pointless and serve only as a meathod for cops to confiscate wealth from innocent people using protection as justification, Government... However on that same note, we do prosecute people more harshly if accidents do happen. For examole, if its nor your fault someone ran in front of your car, you could get a lighter punishment. But if you were driving recklessly you'd be punished severely. Again. Punish criminals not innocents. Someone owning an assault rifle is not a criminal, in fact, his mete presence deters crime -Yuri
Sorry, I've just noticed this. More effective policies are needed for sure, but it is a start? Hopefully now the issue of gun control will be opened up for serious public debate. The stance of, "When guns are outlawed, only criminals will have guns. So, we will continue to have criminals using guns to commit crimes" is a total myth. The UK has practically zero firearms, including the police, and the impact they have on society is negligible.
Agreed. But we must also take it a step further and analyse the psychology of the nation at a whole. A nation in which (a majority? A fraction? I'm not sure) are wound up and baited into a seething frenzy due to, potentially, no longer being able to have a gun in their possession. An object that can extinguish life in a click. What's the mentality behind that? Where does the fury of no longer being able to be an arbiter of life and death stem from? You know that something is terribly wrong when it's more difficult to get a drivers license or booze (in some States) than it is to get a gun.
The problem with this is gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right. We also have the fundamental human right to self-defense. We do not have a right to vehicles and transportation. As far as drunk driving vs owning a firearm, that is just nonsense. Just owning a firearm is the same as owning a vehicle. Simply owning these items causes no deaths or injury until they are used. Vehicles are not self-defense instruments. Firearms are. There is a difference. Just like a firearm, vehicles can be used for malicious purposes. Do we outlaw certain vehicles because people ram them into others? No. Do we outlaw cars because of DUI epidemics? No. So why should we do the same for firearms? It is already against the law to use a firearm in dangerous situations where your life is not directly threatened. You cannot just pull a firearm on someone, hell you can't even suggest to pull your firearm on someone such as resting your hand on the grip in a threatening manner. Firearm owners are the most demonized people on the planet. We don't get suspicious of someone driving their car under the influence simply because they have a car and occasionally drink of the weekends? So why the hell do people automatically suspect that someone who owns guns is likely to shoot a place up?
I'm sort of inserting myself here, and a bit rudely, and long-winded, and it's more of a presentation of my opinion than an answer to your post. It was to take up your challenge of analyzing the US national soul and looking at the psychology as a whole: On culture As Europe is slowly finding out with some of our new countrymen of devout Islamic beliefs, different cultures have different traditions, different circumstances and people in those cultures behave differently as a result. America is a dangerous place. The people there don't have as many options as we do here in northern Europe - they aren't guaranteed their profession (or even a profession at all), they aren't guaranteed medicinal help, and the country is founded on individualism; furthermore toughening economical climates and increase in propaganda, domestic terrorism and corruption doesn't make anything better for anyone. On 2016 reality Given that there already are more guns than people there, and given that you don't know if the guy next to you on the bus has a stable base in his life, and given that there isn't nearly the level of civic cultural cohesion we enjoy here in northern Europe, I wouldn't want to go about life in America without a gun. I wouldn't want to take my family to the movies, I wouldn't let my wife walk down the street alone at night, I wouldn't let my kid go to highschool, even; without knowing they at least have an equal (or better, given regular training) chance if there's a lunatic or a criminal in their way. Conclusion It's a medieval nation with a medieval mindstate; everyone has a sword strapped to their side, and you better look after your own damn farm and leave me to mine. You're an idiot if you leave your blade at home and never train with it. You're gonna get chopped down by someone who does have a sword, and doesn't have a stable financial base or the hope of ever getting one. Add in a few hundred years of that mindstate, and you've got a boiling point of daily mass shootings. Does this make sense, given<span class="redactor-invisible-space"> the current<span class="redactor-invisible-space"> state of the nation?</span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space"> </span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space">TLDR: USA scary so want to have gun if live there. (I hold different political views for Norway, where I say keep guns illegal as fuck; the takeaway is to acknowledge the different states of different nations, and that different 'realpolitik' ideals might need to be applied.)</span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space"> </span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space"> </span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space"> </span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space"> </span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space">---------------------------------------------------------------------------------</span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space">Src</span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space"> </span></span> <span class="redactor-invisible-space"><span class="redactor-invisible-space">[Better echoed and the source of my changed opinion, (but longer read); Sam Harris' The Riddle of the Gun<span class="redactor-invisible-space"> article: </span></span></span>http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-riddle-of-t...] [Audio form, he reads it basically: ] edited for fuckups
You're right that it's a bit of a culture clash from our points of view and is a mentality we'll never truly be able to get to grips with, without growing up and being surrounded by it. It seems to me it stems from a place a fear. Fear of your fellow man, fear of your environment and circumstance, and through the use of guns, people gain an illusory feeling of control over the situation. Can't be healthy and, if anything, the opposite is happening. Taking in to consideration what you've said, to have a scenario in a world powerhouse, the zenith of the Western world if you will, to have that nation have more deaths via guns in a week than what has happened in Europe in the last 20 years is ridiculous. Rather than continuing to add shit to the heap and strap yourself up just because the next man is, why not go to the root of the problem? In terms of the Constitution saying every man has the right to bear arms, remember it is called "the 2nd AMENDMENT".
Good luck taking that amendment away. Any man who wishes to disarm me is a man not to be trusted in my book. If anyone is using fear, it is those who wish to disarm others who have done nothing illegal. You're projecting quite a bit if you ask me.