https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/mass-shootings-gun-industry-greed-ravaging-america-1234874423/
Mass shootings like the one in Lewiston, Maine, in October are the product of the gun industry flooding America with military-style assault weapons.
Countries like Switzerland don't have mass shootings like the USA, yet they have tons of guns. The lack of mental health support and the orphan crushing machine are a HUGE part of the mass murders here in America.
The rates of gun ownership between Switzerland and the USA are vastly different. USA ownership is almost double that of Switzerland.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912
I'm not denying your take that it's a multifaceted issue, but equating the gun ownership between Switzerland and the USA doesn't paint an accurate picture.
Despite the USA having double the gun ownership that Switzerland does, the USA has more than 20 times the number of mass shootings. There's definitely more to this issue:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_Switzerland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States
If we're throwing out Wikipedia links, here are the actual laws in Switzerland, many of which the pro-gun community in America staunchly oppose adopting, including the mandatory military service that would actually qualify gun owners to be part of a "well regulated militia".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzerland
Unfortunately, they're not interested in learning, especially from other countries.
It's just a way of deflecting blame away from failing gun laws so they can demand that other people spend 50 years building a impossible mental health utopia first.
The Swiss also don't celebrate weapons as much as the US Americans.
I struggle to find the correct word. Celebrate isn't it, but I'm too tired to think about a better one and I don't want to start a comment war here. You'll probably understand what I meant.
The Swiss also have compulsory military service (at least for men) where they theoretically teach you how to use and presumably not be a dummy with your gun.
Also do Switzerland have carry laws? If everyone left their firearms at home it would be much less of an issue too.
Swiss can open carry in hunting areas with a license and allowed to store their own firearms and some duty fireams in their homes. They care more about to control the sales and storage of ammunition moreso than the actual rifles and handguns themselves.
In many states in the USA you can carry your weapon (both open and concealed) to the grocery store. It makes everyone uncomfortable and is super weird. Also most people don’t carry their guns properly and it would take someone about two seconds to steal it.
Yes:
"If you wish to carry a weapon in a public place, you must obtain a permit do so from the cantonal authorities. The permit is valid throughout Switzerland and you must have it on you at all times."
"Your application to carry a weapon will only be granted if you can prove that you must carry a weapon, for example if you are a private security officer, in order to protect yourself, other people or objects from tangible danger. You must also pass an exam on how to use weapons and the legal requirements for doing so."
Cantons are about the size of a county in the United States, so imagine getting a concealed permit for a particular county. They don't carry over, so you're not going to be able to travel very far with it.
Not that Swiss people really travel that far either...
In Florida it’s a form that doesn’t do a background check and doesn’t even check that your main residence is in Florida. Then you can use that license in other states.
John Oliver did an episode on how absurd it is.
There are quite a few states that do not allow CCW permits from other states. New York, California, Oregon, Washington and many others.
The states that honor all U.S.-issued concealed carry permits are:
Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas Idaho Indiana Kansas Kentucky Michigan (resident permits only) Mississippi Missouri Montana North Carolina Ohio Oklahoma Sout Dakota Tennessee Utah Vermont Virginia
Could this compulsory military service also alert authorities to people that aren't suitable to own private firearms?
You also need a permit to buy a gun. Shall-issue for most of the guns I'd categorize as more reasonable, but still need to put in for the permit. Automatics have quite stringent requirements on their may-issue permits. High-cap magazines are not available. Universal registration & background check and "red flag"-style blocks on any purchases.
Ammo is also included in these rules, essentially.
Second-hand sales require a paper trail conforming to many of these rules with a decade-long statute of limitations to prove legitimate transfer that is also reported to the state authority.
Storage methods are regulated. Failure to report a lost/stolen weapon to police is bad news for you.
You need a permit to carry which is mostly only given to people who have occupational need to carry -- like the old NYC law where you have to state a plausible need. Otherwise, when and where you can carry is limited to basically sport or similar events.
And there's more. Not to mention their culture of training and safety around it because of their military and militia requirements.
I'm all for imposing Swiss-style gun rules on the US. It would restrict guns a lot. The people who appeal to how great they are with guns and how it is "proof" that gun restrictions aren't a good solution just haven't even done basic research about what the gun situation actually is in Switzerland.
I think a large part of it is the politicization of firearms that has made gun ownership a lifestyle choice for unstable people.
You've got a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists being told that the liberals are out to kill their god and take their weapons, so they stock up on weapons that they use when they finally crack.
We've manufactured a system where the mentally unstable are actively encouraged to arm themselves.
I use the word 'clutch' often, as a baby with a blanket or an old nerd with vi. They're unwilling to find a better solution than a gun, and the gun lobby tells us it's all okay as long as we have our Glock.
...come to think of it, so much rap music seemed to do the same, for awhile.
Sorry it took me so long to answer, I accidentally started vi and had to reboot my computer to quit it.
Not a bad word at all, this might be the correct one.
Flaunt? It really is w divide. We have normal people, some of whom are responsible gun owners but most of whom don't have guns, and then we have that crowd
This. I’m a liberal and I definitely think we need tighter restrictions on guns in the U.S., but people today seem to have forgotten that we’ve had essentially the same gun laws for forever and mass shootings have only been a weekly occurrence for about 10-15 years. It’s not the guns or the gun laws or even mental health issues (depending on how you want to define them); it’s some fucked up aspects of our culture.
It's multiple issues:
The list is very very long. The USA's cultural fabric that is the people's common heritage is being stretched and torn by those who believe they can make a profit from the scraps.
The USA is a young anglophile country, you've only had one civil war, I reckon you've got at least another one coming.
More willing to accept licensing and denial of access to a car as punishment for breaking driving laws despite that the car is more fundamental to existing in modern US than the Gun.
Licensing to carry exists in most states, though some have removed that. We also do typically remove access to guns (or at least the CCW depending on state and infraction) as punishment for breaking gun laws.
Well, and the biggest issue of kids being radicalized into Nazis online. Every one of these mass shooters have a manifesto.
Agreed. The root cause is multifaceted. People seem to ignore the fact that the shooters are almost 100 percent male, with the vast majority being disaffected loners, white, and young. What has caused these men and boys to fantasize about killing masses of people? It's far more complicated than folks like to admit. We want a simple scapegoat, so we blame guns.
Using your timeline of mass shooting increases, an immediate reason to consider should be the assault weapon law expiring in 2004. Data would back that up. We haven't had the same laws forever. https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2022/06/15/did-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-1994-bring-down-mass-shootings-heres-what-the-data-tells-us/
Your own source shows that mass shootings weren't as high as they are now prior to the assault weapons ban, thus demonstrating it wasn't repeal of the law that caused the recent uptick. If it was, we'd see a similar amount of mass shootings prior to its enactment as well.
You still have mass shootings prior to the 2004 law. For instance, there was the University of Austin mass shooting back in the 1960s. The Columbine shooting in '99. We've been at this for a long time.
In fact, the frequency of mass shootings as defined by four or more people being shot in an incident has basically been flat since 1980 was only a slight increase from about 15 to 20 shootings per year.
It's a big difference is media reporting.
A Comprehensive Assessment of Deadly Mass Shootings, 1980-2018 (pg 12) https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/305090.pdf
Yes, but that doesn’t change my point. If it really was the law that made the difference, we would’ve seen more of an impact. Given that there are plenty of other factors contributing to mass shootings as well, I see little reason to credit the law with the prevention some people like to give it.
I’m a liberal and I definitely think we need tighter restrictions on guns in the U.S., but people today seem to have forgotten that we’ve had essentially the same gun laws for forever
Sure but the same party that works so hard against increased legislation for gun control gutted our mental health infrastructure and votes against funding and rebuilding it at every opportunity. They aren't interested in solving either end of the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980
https://sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html
This last one is a ddg search - you can just pick which article you want to read about Republicans voting against mental health funding.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=republicans+vote+against+mental+health+funding
You're missing my point. Mental health issues aren't the primary problem when it comes to firearm violence and deaths. Republican resistance to laws that attempt to address mental health issues deserves pointing out, but not so much in this context, because that's not the main issue at hand. Liberals can be commended for attempting to do something about the problem more than Republicans are, but what I've seen of their views on the topic indicates to me that they too are missing the point. The problem isn't guns or severe psychiatric problems; there's a cultural element that no one (including Democrats, for some reason) aren't willing to address. Until we identify and focus on the actual problem, no progress will be made, because we'll just continue to fight about stuff that isn't that relevant.
You’re missing my point.
Sorry, and thanks for claifying.
there’s a cultural element that no one (including Democrats, for some reason) aren’t willing to address.
Is that cultural problem something other than "a good chunk of gun owners fetishize their guns and the 2A itself to the point where preserving those things matters much more to them than the fact that we've now traumatized a generation of kids with active shooter drills, and death by guns has become the top killer of children" - because I can certainly agree that this is a cultural problem, but can't begin to imagine what we'd do about it that doesn't involve changes to our gun laws.
Clearly empathy and logic hold no sway with folks who feel that way sooo...
While I do think gun fetishism contributes, the vast majority of gun fetishists aren't shooting up schools, and many people who are really into guns are also really into gun safety.
If I had to point a finger at any one cultural contributor, I'd say it's actually mass shootings themselves and the way our society has reacted to them in the past. These are always (understandably) treated like major tragedies, but people always want to know what was going on with the shooter, why they did it. There's ironically this huge outpouring of empathy (not sympathy) for the shooter, and these are often people who were very isolated and alone prior to their rampage. I think a big part of the reason we're seeing the rate of these mass shootings increase is that other loners are seeing that going out in this manner draws attention to whatever their personal cause was. So, it's a suicide method, but one that makes it likely people will finally start paying real attention to the issues the person felt plagued by, which is obviously attractive for a suicidal person.
The reason I don't think mental health issues are that relevant, despite what I just said, is that most suicidal people wouldn't even dream of going out in this manner. For those who do, I think there's other factors that make them prone to going out violently. Having problems with society and disliking the direction of cultural change is a big one, for example. There's a reason most mass shooters are conservative--traditionalism is on the way out in many respects, and a lot of people aren't happy about it.
Outside of mass shootings though, I also think there's a different kind of gun fetishism prevalent in poor, urban, cultures—and as much as people may not like acknowledging it—predominantly Black communities within those contexts. Some branches of rap have glorified guns and thug culture in general, and I do think this has contributed to the prevalence of gun crime in the U.S.
There are certainly many more cultural aspects that are relevant, but I think those are some of the strongest contributing factors.
I think that it is murky to wade into the division of blame when a shooting happens. I say that, but I want to clarify I'm not just referring to mass shootings - but also accidents, minor crimes that escalate, etc.
I think that malicious actors get much easier access to guns due to the pervasive nature of gun fetishists, and the common availability they provide of those arms, be it by legitimate purchase, theft of poorly-secured guns, or otherwise. I think more accidents happen with guns because gun fetishists are using them more often, and a certain percentage of them are acting irresponsibly - sometimes ignoring one or more of the rules for gun safety.
There are other countries out there with a high number of firearms, but absolutely no cultural devotion to them. A frustrated, mentally ill person wishing death on a community might not even know that three of their neighbors own guns, because they're always stowed in a safe, unused for most of the year unless they're getting cleaned.
Take two people - one who has a 25% chance of making a fatal mistake handling a gun due to clumsiness and lack of knowledge. Another, a gun professional who has a 0.01% chance of making that fatal mistake due to years of training. If the first person never handles a gun once, the chance of shooting someone is zero. If the second person handles their gun 8,000 times, the chances become much higher.
there’s a cultural element
Yup, it's the sick concept of firearms culture, where holding a weapon becomes a character trait and the right to military arms is somehow necessary to protect one's home. It's fucking deranged.
no what? no brains in your fuckin gun fetish head? no fucking sense to see the dead children would be alive today but for your fucking AR fetish? no balls to even try to explain your hopeless, selfish, child murdering hobby isn't so bad?
get fucked, "No." you fucking disgrace to the species
Exactly. Access to guns isn't the issue, lack of education and failed parenting is. I'm pretty fucking liberal but even in the single generation I've been alive I'm pretty sure parenting has gotten significantly worse. I go out of my way to make sure my kids let me know if stuff is bothering them and explain how to respond to things that frustrate them. I'm sure this is going to go into parents working 24/7 but that also isn't anything new.
seem to have forgotten that we’ve had essentially the same gun laws for forever
this completely disregards the Assault Weapons ban and it's repeal. Which match with the numbers in a stark manner.
you call that address? let me put it in gun terms your tiny brain can comprehend - that's all pop no kick son, your can't just say "I already fought this battle I ain't doing it again" and expect people to respect your 'position'. stand up and fight or fuck off with your gun fetish.
Okay fine, it's some fucked up aspect of American culture. Honestly, blame it on whatever you want because until that problem is fixed, the current gun laws are clearly inadequate and need to be immediately addressed.
They can have their dogshit gun laws back when they've finished solving the problem, be it mental health or Marilyn Manson.
They can have their dogshit gun laws back when they’ve finished solving the problem
You don't mean that though. No liberals do. That's why conservatives won't budge on this issue, because they know whatever ground they give will never return and liberals will always be pushing for more.
And honestly, the mass shooting stuff is our best chance at convincing conservatives to change, because they're actually occasionally affected by that crap. Even with the increases in mass shootings, the vast majority of gun violence is down to crime, which mostly affects poor, non-White people living in urban areas.
This issue is really complex. It's affected by different cultures in the U.S., political alignments, demographics and wealth levels. The mental health stuff is only really relevant if you're talking about how psychological and sociological issues contribute to extremism and social isolation, but most people just picture some schizo on a bad day, which is a microscopic drop in the bucket (and most people with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia are not actually vioelnt, that's a bad stereotype).
I understand why most liberals want to get rid of guns; it's just that that's not actually the problem, and conservatives know it, so they fight back hard and we get nowhere. Sadly, I think more conservatives have to become victims before there's any traction in terms of putting appropriate safety measures in place that still afford conservatives the freedom to practice their favorite hobby.
So it goes. Meanwhile, we're killing the planet. Small potatoes in the long run....
You don't mean that though. No liberals do. That's why conservatives won't budge on this issue, because they know whatever ground they give will never return and liberals will always be pushing for more.
Conservatives won't budge on this issue because they're cunts. They don't genuinely believe the "mental health" excuse and will actively fight any healthcare reforms because they will cost money that they could be shoving into the pockets of the lobby groups that own them.
The entire purpose of the line is to create the illusion of being reasonable by pretending they'd entertain the idea of gun control if only these damn progressives would meet their impossible requirements first.
We are at least 100 years from a mental healthcare system that is capable of quickly and cleanly curing "I want to murder people", let alone one that is free and available to everyone (even if they don't want help).
There's 20,000 mass shootings and 100,000 preventable deaths between us and that bullshit goal but Republicans couldn't care less. The voters will have their guns and the politicians will have the $1.6 billion dollars the lobbyists slipped in their pockets.
Even with the increases in mass shootings, the vast majority of gun violence is down to crime, which mostly affects poor, non-White people living in urban areas.
That's not how their cult works. When children survive school shootings and speak out against ineffective gun laws, the pro-gun community unite to spit on them.
Not only did a legal gun owner put them through the most traumatic thing they'll ever experience, more legal gun owners queue up to abuse them for having the gall to be traumatised.
This issue is really complex
It genuinely isn't, the pro-gun community just works hard to ensure the issue is so wrapped up in bad-faith bullshit that no progress is made.
They've spent decades lying and pretending they alone know the "one true cause" of gun violence, finally settling on "mental health" so they didn't have to give up their video games and rock music either.
The whole "cause vs symptom" argument is nothing more than a way to waste more time. They're fully aware that not only does it not matter, it's not even how doctors work -- they'd lose their license immediately if you turned up with a clearly broken arm and they denied you painkillers because "pain is just a symptom" and insisted on checking "the real cause" wasn't menopause or feline aids first.
So fuck em.
Introduce firearm licenses like the rest of the world, requiring a background check, safety training, mandatory safe storage, gun registration and actual waiting periods.
Make it a felony to buy or sell a firearm without one. Confiscate the guns as evidence of a crime then try them in court. They get their due process and when they're convicted, they lose their second amendment rights just like every other convicted felon.
If they'd rather follow through on their threats to become domestic terrorists than demonstrate their ability to be the "responsible gun owner" they claim, they can be gunned down by police like every other domestic terrorist.
Since 80% of mass shooters are already legal gun owners, I'm not even sure we'd notice.
Your calm and well-reasoned debate style, free of profanity and name-calling has shown me your infallible wisdom.
LOL, I'm not wasting my time on you. Have a good night.
your salty language is more than they can handle. another school full of dead kids? price of freedumb.
I underestimated the Marilyn Manson problem, which itself is a massive issue with attention-whore narcissists in general but distilled into a no-talent onanist fame-whore of almost (kan)ye proportions.
We need to remove these people to a safe space - safe for us - and resolve the issues clinically before returning them.
Huge difference between Switzerland and the US. Switzerland has a lot of weapons because, more or less, everyone is in the army and they keep their service weapons at home. And there are very strict rules regulating those weapons as opposed to the non-existent regulation in the US.
Switzerland has pretty restrictive laws about the ammunition that people use in their guns as well. Most of the gun owners have little to no ammo available to them at any given time. And most of those Swiss gun owners have also been conscripted into the armed forces and been through rigorous training and the use of firearms.
Can confirm. You can see more about Switzerland's gun control here:
From Switzerland: "Depending on the type of weapon, you will require a sales contract, a weapon acquisition permit or an exemption permit."
Semi-automatic weapons require a permit, and fully automatic weapons and firearms with large capacity magazines are banned and only allowed under special, petition able circumstamces.
--
For military service issued weapons: The Swiss don't allow their citizens access to ammunition (they used to issue a single magazine IIRC), all weapons are only distributed based on compulsory military service, and are to remain locked away except for when transported to the firing range for your annual qualification or practice.
Also, I do t think they allow swiss to keep their rifles anymore; I believe they are currently stored in the armory.
Huge difference between Switzerland and the US. Switzerland has a lot of weapons because everyone is in the army and they keep their service weapons at home. And there are very strict rules regulating those weapons as opposed to the non-existent regulation in the US.
I just read the entire article, and as a left leaning voter, the article was poorly written with factual issues and misinformation.
It now makes me want to buy the Ruger SFAR to protect myself from the violent right wing MAGA morons.
As a progressive Democrat, that's my #1 reason for being a gun owner.
I don't want these assholes being the only people armed:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Prayer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Boys
Which is sad, because the only winners are the gun manufacturers. They want you to fear your neighbors
I WISH they were our neighbors. They are out of towners who come here purely to stir up trouble, AND, in many cases, they're actively working WITH the police. So it's not like you can expect the cops to do anything.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/portland-police-proud-boys-training-1290583/
https://theintercept.com/2021/08/23/portland-police-proud-boys-protest/
You forgot
Which once activated will only be stopped by bullets.
That's the truth, a 2nd Trump term will result in a literal civil war.
Where's John Titor when you need him? ;)
Now THIS is attitude all the super left anti gunners on Lemmy should have !!
We are waaaay psst the point of even trying to get rid of guns. You might as well leverage their existence agaisnt the ones who already picked them up and swole violence/allegiances to that traitor.
I can't actually tell if that's meant to be satire, but I doubt the people upvoting you can either. So just to be safe..
Congratulations, you've fallen for the same idiot hero fantasies as the right-wing gun cultists have. The gun lobby wrote a version of them just for you and you swallowed it without a single critical thought.
Do you know who is going to win when you and the MAGA morons face off with your cool guns?
Whoever is the biggest piece of shit, just like always.
You're right, the multiple white supremacist militia groups that have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their attempt to overthrow the government at the behest of the previous president trying to desperately cling to power is just a boogeyman created by the gun lobby
If you think it's the gun lobbyists who're making the right wing extremists look like violent, dangerous fascists, you really really have not been paying attention
I really enjoyed this comment. Not because it was in any way insightful or entertaining, but because you couldn't actually create a logical link from my comment to your own, but you were so desperate to push exactly the propaganda I was talking about that you went ahead and posted it anyway.
You're right, the multiple white supremacist militia groups that have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their attempt to overthrow the government at the behest of the previous president trying to desperately cling to power is just a boogeyman created by the gun lobby
Yet here you are, leaping to the defense of the companies (and laws they've written) that sell those groups all the semi-automatic weapons their black little hearts desire.
I wonder who is the most grateful for your service?
The violent, dangerous far-right extremists that are responsible for the majority of mass shootings and actively target minorities with them?
The gun lobby members banking record profits even as mass shootings, domestic homicides and impulse murders surge?
The Republicans who have been enjoying $16 million a year in open bribes ever since Sandy Hook doubled them, plus a small army of single-issue voters who will tolerate any amount of bigotry, stupidity, oppression and exploitation as long as gun safety remains optional?
Or the minorities who are told "If you don't want to be murdered then buy more guns and carry them with you everywhere and be ready to kill another person at any moment", like that's an existence aspired to by anybody except bloodthirsty gun-owners (and one that isn't a requirement in any other wealthy, progressive country with functional gun laws)?
Nobody outside of a deeply stupid, easily manipulated and heavily astroturfed pocket of social media believes you're helping anybody besides extremists, greedy psychopaths and yourself.
You won't go down in history with the likes of climate change deniers, you'll go down in history with the people who claimed that "I only want what's best for black people and that's actually being enslaved by white men".
I wrote a bit of a response to this, but I honestly can't really be bothered, I'm sure your waxing poetic will save you from the wall if they take power though
But you're going to shoot them all with your cool guns if they try right?
You're just waiting for the perfect moment that for some reason -- despite you openly acknowledging the danger of them -- isn't now nor when there were high profile state executions of unarmed minorities nor any other time in the last decade.
Or is the idea that they're supposed to be intimidated? Because with America far closer to the brink of fascism than comparable countries with gun control, it looks like it was nothing more than yet another slice of unfit-shifting pro-gun bullshit.
But you’re going to shoot them all with your cool guns if they try right?
That's the idea, and hopefully anyone else who believes in things like democracy and civil rights.
At the end of the day, ideals will only look good on our epitaph (if we're even allowed one in this scenario), might makes right, and if you also care about those sorts of things, you better damn well make sure your side's got more of it.
You’re just waiting for the perfect moment that for some reason – despite you openly acknowledging the danger of them – isn’t now nor when there were high profile state executions of unarmed minorities nor any other time in the last decade.
Because (despite the Republican's best efforts) we still nominally live in a democracy governed by the rule of law, and our institutions, while definitely damaged as of late, are still intact
A democracy will naturally have some turbulent periods, but as long as it's still actually a democracy, things are always recoverable non-violently through one of the first three boxes (soap box, ballot box, jury box). It's only once it's clear that we live in a democracy no longer that the fourth box comes out (the ammo box), and even then, the last stopgap before all out civil war would be the civilian leadership of the military and the top officers + soldiers who serve choosing a side.
Or is the idea that they’re supposed to be intimidated? Because with America far closer to the brink of fascism than comparable countries with gun control, it looks like it was nothing more than yet another slice of unfit-shifting pro-gun bullshit.
Honestly who in their right mind would be intimidated by the Democrats? Fascists don't care about peaceful protests and Rolling Stone articles, they only know violence, and we can't make the mistake of not being ready and willing to speak their language. America is clearly very politically sick, I honestly think it's incredibly silly to some how blame that solely on gun lobbying of all things.
But you’re going to shoot them all with your cool guns if they try right?
That's the idea, and hopefully anyone else who believes in things like democracy and civil rights.
🤣
Which differs from "I bought a gun to kill anyone who tries to break into my suburban home and steal my iPad" how exactly?
Is anyone who becomes law enforcement falling for hero fantasies?
Pretty sure nowadays they are power and domination fantasies.
No thankfully, since CCW holders are statistically more accurate, fire less shots in encounters, and commit less crime than the US police (by convictions), who barely even get convicted due to qualified immunity which CCW holders don't have.
Probably because CCW often requires getting a permit that demands actual knowledge of safe handling, storage, de-escalation and demonstrated ability to hit a target, in some kind of half-assed approximation of functional gun laws (which I guess is why the pro-gun community opposes CCW permits).
Of course, that doesn't stop them from routinely executing their partners or any nearby cashiers when they lose control of their emotions, leaving their guns in public toilets or arming criminals by leaving handguns in sock drawers and gloveboxes.
And unlike police reforms, they also have zero positive, measurable impact on crime rates, so they're really asking a lot from society in return for intervening in 3% of mass shootings (and always after people have been killed already).
This is a ridiculous question. The cops aren't hovering over you 24/7, and in fact take quite a long time to show up, if they show up at all. And just because they showed up doesn't mean they'll do anything other than stand around while you get shot and killed.
It isn't the cops' job to protect you.
When there are 24 million guns of that type sold and only a handful used illegally each year, is that really a problem on the manufacturer though?
Seems like the vast, vast, majority of them are used legally or simply not used at all.
When your product's only use is to commit mass murder and you advertise it as making you an invincible badass then yes.
Your point is irrelevant. "Only a tiny fraction of the land mines I placed outside a school killed any children."
That's the thing, that's NOT the only use for the platform. If it were, it wouldn't be the best selling rifle in the US.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/america-s-rifle-why-so-many-people-love-ar-15-n831171
The primary reason for choosing one is weight.
My grandfathers Remington 721 weighs 8.4 pounds (3.8kg), carries 4 rounds, and in .30-06 is arguably a stronger caliber than the .223 in an AR platform.
My Henry .45-70, the caliber rated for all big game in North America (and jokingly rated by Marlin for T-Rex), weighs 8.1 pounds (3.67kg) and carries 4+1 rounds.
Something like the Ruger AR556 weighs a relatively svelte 6.5 pounds (2.95kg) and comes stock with a 30 round capacity, making it easier to carry.
I know, I know, 1.9 pounds (0.86kg) doesn't SOUND like a lot, but it FEELS a lot heavier when you're marching around the woods with a rifle strap digging into your shoulder.
And being able to pick up something fast and use it in a home defense situation makes all the difference in the world.
And make no mistake about it, the Supreme Court has ruled over and over that the primary reason for the 2nd Amendment is self defense.
(2008)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/554/570/
"Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia."
(2010)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/742/
"The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment extends the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms to the states, at least for traditional, lawful purposes such as self-defense."
(2016)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/14-10078/
“the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding,”
(2022)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/
the "constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need.
Sadly, no one will read this, those that do don't give a shit. Thanks for leaving all this info anyway.
The primary reason for choosing one is weight.
It is not true that cutting food is the primary use of a funco brand model A kitchen knife
The primary reason for choosing one is weight
You don't require any other use besides the desire for self defense. That's the position of the Supreme Court.
The supreme court says whatever the fuck they want. It's not some sacred institution that should be respected.
The Supreme Court is the arbiter of what the constitution means and they set the landscape of the current law of the land.
Their opinions can change (abortion), but it takes generations to make that change.
No it doesn't. It just takes putting your political toadies in the seats. They just say whatever the fuck they want to say. It's not an institution that means anything. Not any further than 'they get to say whatever the fuck they want' that is. Have you read their decisions? They're barely even trying to pretend anymore. Why are you?
But honest question, why do you buy a gun like that if you're never ever going to use it? For what purpose do people buy these things anyway?
If police and proud boys have them...
I do use mine for target practice though. I shot competitively when I was younger and really appreciate the skill aspect. I have fond memories of my grandpa teaching me how to shoot, but hunting has never been on my radar.
January sixth, probably played a pretty big role in me actually "pulling the trigger" tbh. That and a PB demonstration down the street from me.
If I was honest, it's basically a super dangerous bowling ball to me.
Sorry I'm seeing your reply after writing a veritable essay to someone else above you. :)
But the primary reasons are weight and self defense.
A traditional hunting rifle has a stronger caliber, but is around 2 pounds heavier and has a lower capacity.
In terms of self defense, you want a lighter weight and a higher capacity. Makes it easier to carry, easier to control, and easier to defend yourself against multiple intruders, something which, unfortunately, has happened multiple times:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/home-invader-fatally-shot-florida-pregnant-woman-ar-15-n1076026
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-man-uses-ar-15-kill-three-teen-home-intruders-n739541
Quick! While you're doing numbers, compare the number of times a gun didn't "solve" that problem vs the number of times a gun was misused and someone died. False-negative vs false-positive. It's just numbers and not relevant, but see how it goes.
All we can go by are the overall numbers and how often guns are used illegally, either for suicide or offense, and it's actually surprisingly small.
There are over 474,000,000 guns in the United States, of all types.
https://www.thetrace.org/2023/03/guns-america-data-atf-total/
On average, every year, there are 25,000 suicides by gun. 6 out of every 10 gun deaths.
https://www.everytown.org/issues/gun-suicide/
25,000 / 474,000,000 = 0.005274%
So if 25,000 is 6/10 that means the other 4/10 is somewhere around 16,666. (25,000 / 6, *4).
Of those, a further 800 to 900 are people shot and killed by police.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
Each death is, individually, a tragedy, but when you're talking 474 million guns and 330 million people, it's not a statistically significant number (0.003516% of guns and 0.005050% of people). There are a lot of stupid people out there and IQ is not a barrier to gun ownership.
If the guns themselves were the sole problem, the number of deaths would be in the millions, not the low thousands.
Defensive gun use numbers are hotly contested, but low-end estimates are in the hundreds of thousands of instances per year in the US source 1, source 2. Those numbers include times when simply pulling a gun was enough to stop a situation from escalating into a overt violence. Obviously people that oppose 2A civil rights wish to downplay defensive firearm use as a way to prevent violence, and people that support 2A civil rights want to champion those numbers. Per my second source, it is disputed that those instances of defensive gun use 'saved lives'--many of them might have been used to e.g. scare off burglars--but there's it's harder to dispute that defensive gun use is quite high. It should also be obvious that it's impossible to know whether a life would have been lost or not without defensive gun use; there's no reasonable way to know if, for instance, a home invasion robbery would have turned into a murder if you were unarmed.
With all the guns around in US I am genuenly surprised that most of these shooters just go on random killing sprees instead of political assasinations. In japan a DYI gun was enough to kill former prime minister Shinzo Abe so would think country so divided as United states would have far more of these cases.
Guess the people on top truly are untouchable at least for most of the time.
Most people like their politician. When they are polled about Congress and rate it unsatisfactory, it's because they want all of Congress to be like their rep (or exactly their rep's opposite, if they're a minority voter in the area).
It's a lot easier to assassinate your local rep than it is to shoot a senator from West Virginia or whatever, so the impulse to kill them is lower. Add in their significantly greater security and you can see how this lessons the odds of attempted assassinations.
They may like their politician but that still leaves out a lot of the congress who they may dislike and target with their radicalized outrage.
But yeah the fact that these people are protected by greater (armed) security the chance for failure is far greater.
But still quite surprised how little actions or lack of have backfired on people in power.
Guess things will need to get way worse for more shit to start piling on their backyards.
I don't disagree, I was just offering my best explanation. With the way rhetoric is accelerating, I wouldn't be surprised to see more political violence as 2024 approaches.
Also likely that it just comes in waves - bigger cycles will mean a higher chance at crazy.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The industry’s alpha-male sales pitches promise buyers the power to “control your destiny.” According to law-enforcement records, Card had been haunted by phantom voices — including taunts that he had a “small dick.” The Ruger SFAR, with its thick barrel, is marketed without subtlety as “Bigger and Stronger Where It Needs to Be.”
Wilson Combat sells the “Urban Super Sniper.” Franklin Armory markets assault rifles in its “Militia Series.” An ad from Patriot Ordnance Factory-USA features a hooded man with an AR-15 standing in the ruins of a city, with the tagline “When corrupt politics fail, our guns won’t.”
But it doesn’t take many people to execute a military mission, to shatter families and communities, and create national panic and anxiety.” In the case of Card, Koskoff adds, “He’s one person, one weapon — and the entire state of Maine was frozen.”
(The AR prefix stands for “Armalite Rifle.”) The Pentagon sought an infantry weapon that was light, lethal, and versatile — that could match the “killing power” of the bulky, World War II-era M1 in close combat, but still be capable of “penetrating a steel helmet or standard body armor at 500 yards.”
But in a quest to make the rifle lighter and more maneuverable, it developed the AR-15, with smaller rounds — fired at extraordinary velocity to create “maximum wound effect.” Though marketed today with a cachet of manhood, the military prized the AR platform because its feather weight and minimal recoil were well-suited for the “small stature of the Vietnamese” allies whose “average soldier,” one document stated, “stands five feet tall and weighs 90 pounds.”
The department then sent regional law-enforcement agencies a warning that Card “made threats to shoot up the National Guard armory in Saco” and was “committed over the summer … due to his altered mental health state.” It advised that he should be approached with “extreme caution.”
The original article contains 4,150 words, the summary contains 314 words. Saved 92%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Making Americans suffer the consequences of their sowing FUD for profit is good business.
Their children don't get mutilated beyond recognition at school, because their children's schools are very, very expensive.
Maybe we should hope for a few shootings on expensive boarding schools, then? What a time we live in when you're Actually wondering if you should wish for a bunch of kids dying gruesome deaths to make things better...
Unfortunately, beyond just being immoral, the trauma wouldn't "teach" them a thing anyway.
More than likely, they'd double down on their rhetoric and claim its because there wasn't enough guns and abusive manipulation. Best case scenario, they'd demand some of those tuition fees went towards turning their school (and only their school) into a bulletproof fortress.
If they actually started regretting their actions, they'd just be gagged and buried by their peers.
We can already see this in action -- record numbers of teenagers are blowing their brains out with their daddy's "keep my family safe" guns.
So where are the gun owners publicly pleading with other gun owners to properly secure their firearms? Where are the people haunted by the memory of teaching their child how to load and fire the round that killed them as they patted themselves on the back for being a "responsible gun owner".
They either don't care about their dead kid (unlikely, even for the real pieces of shit), don't acknowledge their role in enabling their suicide or simply don't have a space to talk about it without being attacked.
The reality is that there's no shortage of volunteers willing to play Good Guy With A Gun and sit themselves in the lobby of a private religious school with their gun tacticool gear and defend the school from a shooter.
I know a guy who does just that and sees no problem with it. Same kind of guy who likes the idea of bullet resistant backpacks and bulletproof safe rooms in public schools but doesn't want to be taxed for any of it.
There's no need to be rhetorical. We know what schools have been targeted by mass murderers and whose children were killed.
For example, the Ulvade shooter used semi-automatic rifles that were purchased from for-profit company Daniel Defense, founded by Marty Daniel, whose children have never been mutilated beyond recognition
As soon as I see the pedant arguing semantics, their credibility goes right out the window.
Dismissing someone's argument over semantics is trivial objection that doesn't engage in the actual argument. You understand perfectly well what the argument is, and that it's addressing a different issue than categories of armament.
Plus, declaring your opponent an "incompetent fool" to dismiss their argument is a bonus ad hominem fallacy.
It is not semantics. People honestly don't know what defines an assault rifle vs a semi auto. Also looking incompetent isn't me saying that to dismiss their argument it is them simply looking like they don't know what they're talking about and thus their own actions make them able to be disregarded.
You really don't understand logical fallacies or how they work it seems.
Well I will agree that one of us does not have a grasp on logical fallacies.
People do not NEED to know the textbook definition of an assault rifle to know that a weapon designed for maximum carnage should be regulated. You also don't NEED to hear an accurate reference to a specific weapon to understand their argument. You know what they mean.
By outright dismissing them because they haven't defined a term to your satisfaction, you are not engaging in good faith.
If you really were interested in discussion, you would respond to establish a standard definition and then, based on that definition, provide your counter argument.
Don't forget the fearsome "deadlier-than-military-weaponry, AR-15 style assault shotguns"
I spent about two minutes trying to come up with a good joke about this one, but honestly I think it speaks for itself
What's really funny is that the 12g built off the AR frame doesn't actually qualify for the "assault weapon" description, so said AR-15 style assault shotgun is a greenlight.
They characterize semi-automatic shotguns like they're this brand new, evil gun lobby invention, thought up to sell to crazed lunatics who can't get their kicks just shooting regular bullets into school children any more
Meanwhile, people have been shooting ducks with the Browning Auto-5 since literally the year 1900, and it only stopped production in 1998
But that's made of wood and doesn't have the shoulder thing that goes up, so it's not scary
Would an attacher be any less credible if they murdered people with a handgun rather than a rifle ? what is the point you're trying to make ? don't people still die ? is the ammo type really relevant here ?
People who don't like the term "assault rifle" think it basically means "scary-looking rifle" rather than "particularly deadly rifle". In New York state law, for example,
Assault weapon means a semiautomatic rifle that has the ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least one of the following characteristics: (1) a folding or telescoping stock; (2) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon; (3) a thumbhole stock; (4) a second handgrip or protruding grip that can be held by the non-trigger hand; (5) a bayonet mount; (6) a flash suppressor or muzzle break or muzzle compensator or a threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor or muzzle break or muzzle compensator; or (7) a grenade launcher.”
So a semiauto rifle in .223 Remington with a wooden stock is a "varmit hunting rifle", but simply giving it a black folding stock makes it an "assault rifle".
Honestly, things like NYS's limits on magazine size makes more sense to me than banning telescoping stocks or a second pistol grip.
More "mass shootings" actually DO happen with hand guns, it's just not part of the agenda the media wants to push.
I didn't say anything about ammo type. See this is the problem. You have no clue what you're actually talking about here.
Arms manufacturers pushed more than 24 million assault weapons onto the American streets, one for every 10 adults, each designed with a single purpose — to kill lots of people as fast as possible
And there's the very first problem, right there. The point of all arms is efficiency. Stone spear points were developed because they were more effective than flame-hardened wood. Atlatls were invented to throw spears farther than an arm. Swords were more effective than clubs. The first guns were more effective than bows. From the first matchlock rifles, we get wheel locks, then flint locks, and then percussion caps. By the time of the US Civil War, cartridges were being developed, and you had revolvers so that you could shoot more people without reloading. Winchester Repeating Arms Co. made the lever action rifle wildly popular because you could 'load it in the morning and shoot all day', and they were widely used by cavalry. When The Great War rolled around, we wanted even more effective arms, and switched to bolt action rifles with five and ten round magazines loaded far more powerful bullets than existed in the era of black-powder lever action rifles. When WWII rolled around, we started using autoloading rifles with stripper clips--the venerable M1 Garand--because bolt actions were just too slow to load and fire. By Vietnam, we'd switched to the detachable box magazine fed M14, only to discover that a full-power battle rifle cartridge in a wooden-stocked machine gun in the jungle was not a winning combination, and adopted a military version of the AR-15 with it's plastic stock and lightweight 5.56mm cartridge. Since the 1960s, the AR-15 has changed very, very little; the rifle of the 60's is still nearly identical 80 years later.
All weapons in human history have been designed to kill as many things as quickly as possible. All tools are refined to get better at their job over time. The car that I drive now is far, far more efficient than straw sandals, a horse, or even the first cars. It is less efficient than the mass transit systems that are used in many large cities.
It’s simple, gun companies in America want to be as rich as they can be. If they have to do things like take time to evaluate who should be allowed to buy weapons or how long it should take before an individual receives them, they make less money than they would have. So instead, they make sure the time from wanting a gun and getting a gun is as little as possible.
The claim is further that going through someone’s mental history, or being disclosed details of treatment would be violative of HIPPA laws. I say, when you’re about to give someone a weapon that is basically designed for nothing else but killing humans, maybe you look into past treatment if someone saw a doctor because he was having dreams of killing every school child. Ask the question of the health professional first, and if it meets the criteria when you get more details.
guncompaniesin Americawant to be as rich as they can be
That's the cause of most problems in this world
That's what is even taught in business school in germany at least. First goal of every company is maximizing profits and to attach your whole thinking around it.
Interesting take on the subject. I can't wait for the book to be released.
Professor Buzzkill History Podcast: Gun Country: Gun Capitalism, Culture, and Control in Cold War America
Episode webpage: https://www.spreaker.com/user/16373114/gun-country-audio
Media file: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/57535678/gun_country_audio.mp3
For god's sake, the SFAR and the AR platform ARE NOT ASSAULT RIFLES. It's so hard to take any writer seriously when they can't even get the fucking basics straight.
Let me start by saying I may be more liberal but I grew up in WV so I’ve been around guns all my life. I like shooting them, but not necessarily hunting because I can buy all the food I need. But I could do it in a heartbeat if I was hungry.
To me the best way to address stuff like this is to educate people. I’m sure you know but not everyone does is that the AR is AR-15 stands for ArmaLite Rifle. Most people just assume the AR means assault rifle or automatic rifle. Now the AR-15 does use the 7.62×51mm NATO round which was and still is primarily used for war, i.e. killing things. This round is verify similar to a .308 Winchester, and its slight longer cousin, the .30-06, or as any deer hunter would call it a 30 ought 6. Now I guarantee you’d never hear of a .30-06 being described as an assault rifle. But guess what, the .30-06 was designed specifically as a military round.
So as my debate couch told me in high school, it all comes back to definitions. How do you define assault rifle? And I ain’t touching that one 😀
Now the AR-15 does use the 7.62×51mm NATO round which was and still is primarily used for war, i.e. killing things.
Uh. No. No, it does not.
The AR-15 uses (primarily) the 5.56x45mm NATO bullet, although you can also use .300Blk, 7.62x39mm, and a whole bunch of other intermediate cartridges by swapping out your barrel, bolt, and possibly buffer spring/weights.
The AR-10 uses the 7.62x51mm NATO (e.g., .308 Win) cartridge. (And also the 6.5 Creedmoor.) 99% of the time, .308 and 7.62x51mm are interchangeable, much like 5.56x45mm NATO and .223 Rem.
Yeah you’re right. It’s basically the .223 right. I misread the article I was referring to.
It's all good.
.223 and 5.56 are a little different, but it's mostly in case capacity and o/a cartridge length. Once can be higher pressure than the other, but I can't recall which without consulting one of my reloading manuals. In almost all situations, they're interchangeable. You can get into some other differences with o/a length when you're talking about hand loading for bolt-action v. semi-auto, but that's more of a specialty difference rather than a general purpose difference.
FWIW, the AR-10 came first, because Eugene Stoner was trying to directly compete with the M-14. It really didn't go anywhere at the time, and it's only become somewhat popular in the last 20 years or so. And it's still not popular because 7.62x51mm is significantly more expensive to shoot than 5.56. But a 6.5CM AR-10 can be incredibly accurate to a very long range; it makes a great longer range hunting rifle.
Assault rifles have selectable full auto. It's not a complicated definition. The caliber is irrelevant because a side effect of developing an effective deer round is developing an effective human round, white tail and humans are roughly the same size.
But most civilians can’t get full auto in the first place. And having fired full auto on several occasions they are damn near useless anyway. It’s a waste of ammo because they absolutely suck at being accurate because of the recoil and muzzle jump. Burst fire is a different story.
Now was the full auto fun? Hell yes it was.
So anyways, if most civilians can't get full auto, then most can't get an assault rifle. The definition isn't complicated, and the writer I'm sure knows that too.
I wholeheartedly reject the Maine mass shooting is a product of gun manufacturers. Maine literally already has yellow flag laws where this guy should have been separated from his firearms when he was admitted to the psych hospital. The Maine mass shooting was a failure of the state and people do not want to accept that. The Sheriff that should have stepped in did not do so and THAT is unacceptable. I'm so over people using tragedies to prove their unrelated points. If gun manufacturers were really the problem we'd see millions of domestic murders based on the fact that there's like 100 million more guns in circulation than there are citizens of the US.
red flag laws cut suicides and murders. I feel like I read 10% reduction once. That’s… not a lot. Also, Maine’s yellow flag law is weak
At this point I'll take 10% reduction over 0%. And I think I highlighted the weak point of Maine's yellow flag law. There was literally a person who could have created distance between the person and his guns, and they didn't. What would you like to have happen?
That American liberals focus on rifles in regards to gun violence more than 1/20 as much as they do handguns or 1.75x as much as the president's recommended shotgun, nevermind the fervor for AWBs, betray the lack of concern and understanding of the issues truly driving America's culture of violence beyond "big ones are scarier".
All compounded by their laws' universal exemptions for police current and former, on-and-off-the-clock demonstrating no fear of arming the most violent among us as long as they swear fealty to minority oppression and dissident suppression in the name of maintaining capital's status quo, sleeping sound assuming those barrels won't turn inwards towards them. Hell, that the fight against gun violence now includes banning armor to protect oneself from it shows how important it is that we be obliged to let them indulge.
The body armor regulations are the real WTF for me. It's just a bold faced admission that they (i.e. the police and government) don't like the notion that maybe the police can't just roll up and kill you whenever they want.
The other reiteration I'll add to your point about police exemptions is (in case anyone missed the "former") that most of these bans and gun regulations not only exempt the police, they also exempt retired policemen. So if these guys are off the force, why do they need machine guns, switchblades, big magazines, > .50 caliber, etc., etc., etc., exactly?
It's the same reason the FAA has such stringent safety regulations for aircraft, while tens of thousands of people die in traffic accidents every year: Mass shootings are huge amounts of death and also rare, compared to crimes of passion or suicides by gun.
The problem is that to solve any of these problems will involve two things that Republicans hate: Providing social services and confiscating guns from people who shouldn't have them. Both of those are far less likely to pass than a simple ban on a small subset of guns.
So until Republicans put up or shut up about "it's mental health" nothing will get done.
So by this logic, do we start blaming the cutlery industry for people making the choice to not put down the fork? This article is written entirely by someone who has no idea how living in a low income area feels. Fucking reeks of privilege.
That's an idiot argument. Wtf does "put down the fork" even mean? Wielding a fork has hardly ever been of significance in a person's actions. You can't compare just anything.
The day forks are used to pick locks and mug folks, sure.. I'll blame the cutlery industry.
Wtf does “put down the fork” even mean?
That means blaming the cutlery problem for obesity, or blaming the food industry for making garbage food, rather than addressing why people are opting for fast food more than good food, dealing with food deserts, and so on. It blaming the tool for the result.
You realize knives fall under cutlery, right? Additionally people get mugged with the threat of a hammer to the head, so we banning hammers next too? Also, criminals breathe oxygen, so you want everyone to stop breathing oxygen cause the criminals breathe oxygen too?
Additionally people get mugged with the threat of a hammer to the head,
It's really hard for an unstable person to go on a mass hammering.
Right, but even if we banned hammers and guns, people would still 3d print them or buy them on the black market. The VAST majority of gun violence is conducted by people who ALREADY should not own weapons according to the laws on the books and bought them from a gun show/black market unregistered.
This is a clear problem of enforcement, not legislation.
The latest mass shooting was conducted by a man who LITERALLY stated weeks prior that he heard voices in his head. Weeks. This is reminiscent of more than 95% of other mass shooters.
Card — who, according to his relatives, had been drinking heavily in the lead-up to last week’s mass shooting in Lewiston — had become so paranoid that people were calling him a pedophile that he’d talked about wanting to hire a lawyer. The Maine National Guard, too, had become so concerned about the US Army reservist that it had urged local authorities to carry out a welfare check because fellow soldiers feared Card would “snap and commit a mass shooting.” Card’s son and his ex-wife had also flagged their concerns about his deteriorating mental health to the local sheriff’s office back in May, an initial incident report shows.
The military and the civilian oversight failed to get this man mental help or restrict his access to firearms while he was lamenting the need to kill people because of the voices in his head and we have the audacity to stand here and blame legal gun owners, the majority of which do in fact follow standard gun safety and etiquette, for crimes committed by people who shouldn't have access to weapons in the first place.
We pay an exorbitant amount in taxes every single day to have these services and personnel do their fucking jobs and all this 'blame the gun manufacturers' is pushed by police unions in order to prevent people from properly pointing out the absolute FAILURES of these departments and officers to actually follow up on tips and issues in the community.
Big irony that these criminals can access weapons from the legal market by gun shops and shows that don't follow the laws as they stand or directly off a black market arms dealer, maybe two points of contact off from the original manufacturers.
So, if these individuals who shouldn't have guns can have guns as the laws stand now, what difference is a whole-sale ban going to make?
This is a clear enforcement failure across the entire united states and adding more laws on people who already follow them just incites them against the issue instead of having everyone focus on the crux of the problem which is cost of living, access to healthcare and failure of regulatory oversight on a vast majority of official systems, from policing the streets from violent crimes to regulatory frameworks around the financial services sector, all of the enforcement bodies are understaffed, underpaid, overworked, and abused with intent to push them from the job and rotate personnel to younger/less experienced personnel to allow further lowering of pay and increase of workload which allows larger companies and firms to skirt the rules for fines because these regulatory bodies don't have the personnel to complete serious investigations of the largest players, so the largest players just get fined for their behaviour and continue to abuse the loopholes and system. Specifically in this case, because of a lack of oversight from the FTC, several companies supply the black market with weapons through merchants of death
We wanna see this industry change? We need to annul police unions and force a national training standard. Every cop goes to the same training facility and learns to be a professional cop, no exceptions, and is then sent back to their local community to work with them. If they do not live in the community, they do not police the community.
Additionally, every individual should be able to access healthcare. We pay way too much in taxes to not have every man, woman and child covered by FULL RANGE medical care. There is no reason in which universal health care should not exist in the USA (aside from the ridiculous number of people who could collapse the system under their obesity, the public would need to begin to care for themselves more so they don't overburden the systems unnecessarily).
The cost of living situation would change overnight if corporations and investors were barred from owning more than 5 residential properties.
The example used in your first comment was "fork". "Put down the fork". -- @trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com.
Stay on topic.
I explicitly used the term cutlery to get ahead of incompetent morons that would red herring the argument.
Thanks for being an example of someone that's being wholly disingenuous or ludicrously incompetent.
Drunk driving is a choice, the alcohol industry made it. Ban all alcohol, it kills 100xs the amount of people than scary black rifles.
Don't bother. Check their comment history and just move on. What hurts them most is being ignored like they are in the rest of their life.
Cool...to use the car on public roads...you can also transport them across state lines with no issue.
I can buy a car with cash, from private hands, across state lines, have it shipped directly to me, and I don't have to insure it nor do I need a license for it...also can buy one at any age.
So trying to compare gun ownership with owning a car is naive.
I mean, I absolutely can. I own track cars, no insurance on them, no license for them, not registered and I trailer them to the tracks. I can also drive them here on my property, I've got a old military jeep that isn't road legal and use it driving around here all the time.
I'm not the one being ignorant of the laws.
Tell that to the 40k+ people who are killed every year in the USA from basically negligent people driving (large portion of that being alcohol related). My guns have never taken anyone's life, and the odds of them doing so is so damn small, that I'd probably win the lottery before they're used against another human.
Tell that to the 40k+ people who are killed every year in the USA from basically negligent people driving
Drunk driving and our terrible drinking culture is an entirely different crisis altogether. I don't understand why you're trying to draw parallels here (no matter how weak)? Both are bad things.
My guns have never taken anyone's life
Neither have mine but I don't have my head so far in the sand to not understand that guns are designed to kill things.
Yall seem to have forgot that the right to bear arms as originally written, was also the responsibility to bear arms. They didn't have cops. The real root of all these mass shootings is nobody shoots back, all you fuckers are supposed to be armed.
Let's play a game of guess the active shooter and their accomplices in a crowd of armed citizens.
In that game, there is no active shooter - and if there was, they would be dead instantly.
Okay, you are on the street when you hear a gun shot and see a man go down. You draw your gun and look for the shooter. You see a crowd of people who have also drawn their guns. Which one do you shoot?
I don't offer pole-lease a lot of operating room emotionally in the US.
But I do think that pole-leasing in the US must feel different to lots of other places.
Just so many freaking guns with all types of people. And it makes even a traffic stop just as dangerous as going to a domestic dispute or an armed robbery. Fucking guns.
That is not at all true. Being a cop in the US rarely crosses the line into the top ten most dangerous professions. The top ten most dangerous professions include being a fisherman, being a garbage colllector, being a professional driver, things like that. And just for some more fun, the danger levels of these jobs are radically skewed.
Here’s a report on job related fatalities in the US. I’m not sure why fishermen aren’t included in this particular one as they normally top these lists, but it says they selected from about 250 professions so they might have just been excluded.
In any case, the list starts with loggers at over 100 per 100k and airline pilots at over 50 per 100k. Scroll down past farmers, delivery drivers, construction workers, landscapers, and mechanics, and eventually you’ll find police at position 22, with 14 per 100k. These numbers remain pretty constant year to year, with the exception of Covid related fatalities.
The problem is that there is a specific school of training for police that amps up their perception of danger far above what reality actually shows. They escalate encounters which increases both the chance of themselves bringing injured and very much the chance that the person they encounter will be injured or killed.
It doesn't matter that being a cop is less dangerous than other jobs, it matters that being a cop is more dangerous than in other countries.
Considering guns didn't protect either Breonna Taylor or Philando Castile and not a single cop was killed in either incident, is it really more dangerous to be a cop in America?
It's a social issue not a gun issue. Shitty parents, shitty economics, shitty education and a shitty social structure are what makes America a higher crime nation in general and a higher gun crime nation specifically.
Available guns can make it more easy, but we also sometimes see other forms, like explosives, poison, etc. I live in a country where guns are heavily restricted and that obviously helps, but it's just the tip of t iceberg. Bullying, extremism, hate speech, stress, medical care, therapy. Those are more important IMO
What other country, at least Western country, has, per capita, explosives or poisonings or things like that at the level of murder as the U.S.?
Third world shitholes maybe. I'm sure it sucks to live in Syria.
Exactly, if a country is filled with rocks there will be more rock related deaths but a country that is filled with rocks but is effectively governed and educated will have fewer.
I imagine people are going to claim me to be against gun control but that isn't true, I'm for reasonable gun control. License, register educate and own a tank for all I fuckin care, a big part of the issue is they're less controlled than my what 3000lb Honda Civic that could run through a crowd at 100+ and do the same damage. Most people aren't going to use their car as a weapon because it's attached to them, the same would apply to guns.
Sure, just not with the same access and instead other crimes are more prolific and arguably more heinous. How many cases of acid attacks happen in the us every year adjusted to population? Now how many for say India or for instance England.
Nah different. Acid attacks are most normally done towards women as a form of punishment. Not intended to kill.
Obviously violence will happen. But why are you ever arguing to make the violence easier?
If there was one item you could remove from society that truthfully they don't need, and acid attacks wouldn't happen. Wouldn't you do that? Especially since acid attacks are so awful?
It's one example, notably stabbings are higher in basically every other county by orders of magnitude.
It's no easier to get a gun than a car, one just happens to be easily and effectively tracked back to the owner.
If we're doing theoreticals that item would be ignorance.
we aren't doing theoreticals? this is about guns.
so you agree then removing guns would help resolve America's issues with gun violence
If there was one item you could remove from society that truthfully they don't need, and acid attacks wouldn't happen.
That sir is a theoretical, and notably not at all about gun violence as you stated it.
A knife can kill one person per minute. An AR-15 can kill dozens within that same time.
It's a false equivalency fallacy.
Not at all true, swords are still an execution method and I can guarantee you it doesn't take half a minute let alone a minute.
It isn't, but hyperbole is your path to tread if it makes you happy I suppose.
You are actually proposing that one idiot with a sword can slaughter dozens of people in less than a minute. LOL
It's time to turn off your video game and touch grass.
Is it even proportionally at the same level? Are you claiming that, adjusted to per capita, acid attacks in India are on par with mass shootings in the U.S.? And if so, are there mass acid attacks on schools at the rate of mass shootings in U.S. schools?
No I'm saying the human monster will use whatever is available. When guns are less available other crimes are more likely, and gun crime persists anyway. For India specifically they have about a third of the gun crime the US has.
Not at all what I said and actually that's specifically the opposite of what I've suggested.
I'm for registration and licensing, I dunno maybe read a bit before you decide to douche it up for no reason.
The sub-headline of the article claims there is no purpose for "assault weapons" other than killing people.
each designed with a single purpose — to kill lots of people as fast as possible
Is this article trying to tell me I'm using mine wrong? Because I use mine only for things that don't involve killing people.
What do you use it for?
I think the idea trying to be conveyed is that guns are indeed meant to kill. People use guns for good, like defense, but it is undeniable that the purpose of a gun is to cause death.
Can you tell me what an assault weapons purpose is that isn't killing people? Edit: just killing, damage.
They are useful for defending a medium sized area, versus pistols which are useful only for defending a small area. They are simply more effective defense machines.
I explained it well enough already. But since you want to be pedantic about it, defense would be using the rifle to eliminate threats to your life or the lives of others.
My question was to illustrate that the positive use of guns, defense, is done through the use of destruction.
I am not trying to fight you.
Guns are built for the purpose of destroying a target. There is no positive impact on society.
Saying that guns kill people that want to hurt society is the benefit of guns is still saying that death is the benefit. What if society didn't isolate and disenfranchise the people? Our world, overflowing with resources, is choosing guns to defend their stuff and ignoring how we wouldn't have to defend ourselves from our neighbors if we actually shared.
Not even thinking of "forgotten money" which is money that people dont even think about because they don't have to, how much money is sitting in bank accounts as emergency funds because a hospital can destroy your life? The money sitting around could help a homeless family get their apartment deposit. Will you get equal returm from ot? Maybe. Our world is our home. Isn't it our duty to see our whole family is taken care of?
But society says you're on your own (usa) if you're in trouble. No wonder people don't share wealth. One broken ankle can lose your home. Must make sure to have money in case i am hurt, because my society will not help.
We are all doing fine as for me and mine, so you have no need to worry about us. The overall society is something I have zero control or influence over, so it's basically none of my concern.
You seem to be looking at the big picture like you're meditating on it from Cloud 9 and imagining the way things could be if you had the powers of a magical genie to reform everything into a peaceful Zen tranquility. That's simply not reality, it's wishful thinking.
Flying was wishful thinking. Being able to stay underwater for 3 hours was wishful thinking. Talking to your friend when they are 300 miles away was wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking is what improves society.
I explained it well enough already. But since you want to be pedantic about it, defense would be using the rifle to eliminate threats to your life or the lives of others.
Target shooting? Pretty sure more ammo is spent putting holes in paper every day than ammo spent trying to kill someone. So yea...common use says, target practice.
more ammo is spent putting holes in paper every day than ammo spent trying to kill someone
That's probably true, but what percentage of that shooting range ammo is used in preparation for shooting people (whether offensively or defensively)?
Hold on I did some similar math to this the other day..
How many gun owners become mass shooters? Lets see, 333,287,557 people, 50% (generous, it isn't quite 50 but for easy math) ownership for 166,643,778.5 people owning guns, and I'll be generous and include gang shootings (because I know the number) at 547 for the year, turns out, 547 is 0.00032824507756826% of 166643778.5, meaning 0.00032824507756826% of gun owners are likely to pull off a mass shooting in any given year.
S'not exactly what you asked but we have almost no way to ever figure out the answer you seek. We'd need to know how many range trips they make and count their ammo off video surveillance, assuming we can get the angle, and they never shot off camera on private land or something. Or look at their ammo purchases, find a roundcount from their shooting, find out what's at home, and the difference is the estimation. That stuff just isn't tracked like that.
How many drunk drivers end up killing people? Considering how often I see the parking lots of bars full, I'd say the vast, vast majority don't. That doesn't mean we shouldn't make drunk driving illegal.
I don't think guns should be illegal, but that's not a good argument.
Your making this into an argument about what the legal status of guns should be, and that is a good and separate argument to have, but the entire point of my original comment was just pointing that the article's use of the words "sole purpose" is opinionated and inflamatory (and objectively wrong). "Sole" means "one and only" and so that's obviously ludicrous given that the vast majority of gun owners aren't using them for their supposed "sole purpose".
Of course, murder is illegal, I wasn't suggesting we legalize it. I'm saying we don't need to ban alcohol simply because some people drive drunk, and we don't need to ban guns because .0003% of people who have them "mass shoot."
And I'm saying we regulate cars and part of that regulation is taking away people's right to use a car when they do reckless things with it. That is becoming less true of guns with virtually every high court ruling. I would say that most Americans do not want guns completely banned, we want them to be out of the hands of people who would go out and kill innocent people with them. And that can be mitigated with regulation.
Way way way less than .00000001%
People don't practice suicide at the range
Cops who on average kill 1k civs a year also practice very little
And gangs and drug violence is the same... you're not seeing them go to the range.
I shoot long range mainly, it's a lot of fun trying to hit a small target at hundreds of yards. It's not easy at all. It's a hobby, people shoot bows for hobby as well, or slingshots or air rifles.
I also hunt and own a farm. I keep an AR10 in the utv Incase of wild boar, which are fucking scary... I'd rather face a bunch of pissed off coyotes than a single wild bore.
More paper is used for practicing sketches than the paper used for museum displayed art.
Target shooting is valid in its own way. It is a sport of accuracy. So is archery. And basketball. And video game. And corn hole.
Lawn darts were banned due to danger.
Dangerous things should be banned/regulated/controlled to minimize any danger.
Better ban alcohol then, it kills more people than rifles of any kind used in homicides by around 5xs the numbers...knives as well, since they kill around 2 times what rifles of any kind do.... hilarious that you bring up lawn darts though....do you want to wrap everyone in bubble wrap? Let's keep all drugs banned as well since they kill basically more people than anything else.
Living life to it's fullest can be dangerous...if you want to live in a nanny way, do it to yourself but leave the adults the fuck alone.
I am trying to have a conversation and you are insulting me for talking about gun safety.
Edit: Oops. This post got cut off weird. But I see no need to remain in this conversation. I tire of conversations where the goal against me is submission. I won't bend. Bye.
I use a butter-knife to open paint cans with, but that's not what it's for.
What is the gun equivalent of that experience?
Edit, to be specific: what is the gun equivalent of using a butter knife to open a paint can in which a gun is the best option.
Shooting down a tree limb to recover a stuck ball or boomerang or drone from up high. A small bore shotgun like a .410 is pretty good for taking down tree limbs like that.
I'm talking about higher up than any stick or ladder reaches you goof. Embarrassing is you not being able to imagine that.
I was imagining a stick that is long enough. "Embarrassing" was rude of me. Sorry. I still don't see how shooting a branch down is a positive solution. It is still destruction of life.
"Destruction of life" - we are talking about a branch or two on a tree, so what? Trees get trimmed and pruned all the time out of necessity of landscaping.
Imagine the countless microorganisms that live and die each day, whose cellular membranes could be disrupted by the soap you bathe with. There could be billions or more living things that you murder on a daily basis by washing yourself. Imagine if your house was infested with roaches and fleas and you had to hire an exterminator to exterminate those lives.
Death and taking of life is simply a part of life, and we are inherent members of the food chain which perpetuates it, so it's not productive to worry about every minuscule effect that every action has as a result.
Hey, you're right. I also use my butter knife for a lot of things other than butter, such as: brie, jelly, jam, nutella, spreading mayo, cutting my over-easy eggs, etc. Yeah, it turns out it's useful for a lot more than just butter. It's almost as if it's a multipurpose tool that has many different and acceptable uses. I think you're on to something.
I already replied to a similar comment hours before you posted this one. In summary, you are moving the goalposts of the specific comment chain I replied to, and in any case pretending these are not weapons designed to kill doesn't strengthen your argument, it makes it look disingenuous.
If you want to argue in favor of gun rights, be as honest as the other guy. You are arguing for the right to kill people in specific situations. I'm not saying there isn't some merit to that argument, I'm saying be honest about it, because this whole "nuh-uh they weren't really designed to kill people" thing is dishonest and doesn't serve your purposes.
Okay, you named six alternatives there to butter.
What are the six uses of your semi-automatic rifle that don't involve the threat of killing people? Because I can think of two- target shooting and hunting. And neither of those require the sort of rifles or handguns used in most modern mass shootings.
Please define your new take in the interpretation of the word "sole".
The actual sole purpose of what most people refer to as an "assault rifle" is just to be a modern, reliable, modular platform that can be customized to fit the needs and use cases of the owner. It's good at that, and so it's good at being customized for a lot of different uses.
The hunting argument you make is dumb. You would need to turn around and argue that any advancement of any produce anywhere that allows it to perform even marginally better than absolutely necessary needs to be undone. The fastest posted speed limit in the united states is 85mph, and yet every modern vehicle can exceed that by a lot...some of them by double. It doesn't mean the sole purpose of the car is to break speed limits.
If you break it down by time used for any one specific purpose, then the primary use case of an assault weapon is to be stored in a box or a case, unused (that is what the vast majority are doing the vast majority of time). I would argue the primary purpose is synonymous to the use case of an insurance policy (something you have in case you need it but don't actually ever use it). The next most common use (by time spent performing in the role) is to exist solely as a show-of-force without even being fired -and that seems to work pretty well because just imagining the appearance of one tends to get people upset and agitated. For the rifles that actually get used regularly, practice is another common use (using it to maintain proficiency with marksmanship skills) and also shooting for fun (which isn't always/necessarily practice) is a common use case. In the past, I have used mine for both hunting and for protection against potentially dangerous wile animals while hiking through the vast wilderness of the pacific northwest - I personally don't like the idea of having to mess around with a clumsy bolt action in the event I might need to fire multiple shots.
From the gun manufacturer's perspective, the 'sole purpose' of "assault rifles" isn't to "kill people as fast as possible", it's to: sell weapons and make profit. The "sole purpose" of a thing is defined by the user...and at least in the united states that means a lot of things other than killing people.
I didn't say anything about purpose. I specifically said use. As did you. So that's all irrelevant. You named six uses for a butter knife. You have not for a gun. I wonder why?
I don't care whether you said "purpose" or not. RTFA - "sole purpose" came from the article, and that is what I my original top level comment was challenging.
Get back to me when a butter knife hurts someone from a range more than 50 feet. We're not talking about butter-knife-to-paint-can people; we're talking about "shoot the lock" types.
I'm surprised the ar15 is so light. My c7 was 7lbs.
Interesting philosophical debate. Is it not for whatever I'm using it for, regardless of its designated purpose? If I have a lighter, and someone asks "what's that thing for," and I answer "lighting candles," am I wrong because the bic was designed with tobacco smokers in mind? Would I have to have answered "to expend and ignite butane" to be correct? If I have a bottle of booze and someone asks what for, am I wrong if I say "Tom's party" instead of "consumption and subsequent expellation?" I say that butter knife is "for opening paint cans."
Also, do you have a designated poop paint knife, or do you use a random one every time? If it is designated I'd argue that is yet another reason to say it is for opening paint cans.
The fact that I have found an alternative purpose for the butter-knife does not satisfy this phrasing from the comment you replied to:
each designed with a single purpose — to kill lots of people as fast as possible
My butter-knife was designed to cut and spread soft food that does not require anything sharper to work with. Those guns are designed and marketed to kill.
By the way, I'm not anti-2A nor anti gun. But I am anti-deflection, among other things. An AR-15 is designed to kill people. Pretending it's not doesn't strengthen your position, it makes your argument seem disingenuous.
Oh well my actual argument is "some people need killin' it's called self defense." But I'm more interested in if things are "for" something other than their designation if they're being used for it and are now designated for it by it's actual end user.
For sure no problem. I'm definitely a proponent of the right to self defense, but also a proponent of imbibing on whatever substances please you so long as you don't hurt others. Substances which may or may not make one interested in pondering on things like fate even concerning inanimate objects, I suppose.
An AR-15 is a completely modular rifle platform so that you can build it for your needs. Of which yes, building one for killing people is one. But it is definitely not the only one.
Are you telling me this hammer is built for pounding lots of nails? I only use mine for pulling nails and securing staples that have come loose.