*sighs, turns over "DAYS SINCE LAST MASS SHOOTING IN AMERICA" sign to 0*

Dei

Dei

PatrThom said:
Your assumption is that he cares about the lives of children.
All he cares about is the death of guns, and if children have to live, then so be it.

Well, maybe they are now.
My high school chemistry still involved active metals, oxidizers, mercury, and open flames. We even had periodic “fun days” where we were just allowed to play around with the Bunsen burners. I even got to fry eggs in a pie tin.

—Patrick
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Since I'm pretty sure we're close to the same age, I can only assume you had very different teachers than I did.
 
Hailey Knight

Hailey Knight

I'm going to stress that I do care about the lives of children. It was seeing right-wing assholes making fun of shooting survivors that made me realize that isn't a general sentiment. I still maintain there need to be screens of who gets guns and who doesn't, but the other things being mentioned, i.e. better education, less attention to shooters themselves, etc. are also good things to have.

But for Gas's vindication, one of the kids leading the gun reform movement agrees with him (context: video of the Parkland shooter's manifesto was released today):

 
blotsfan

blotsfan

Whenever the media shows restraint on the shooter's name, the same people that complain about not publicizing the shooter then say "the media clearly isn't showing his name because he's Muslim/black/another minority and they want to push their PC agenda."
 
Null

Null

Lockdown, Lockdown,
Better Lock the Door
Shut the Lights Off
Breathe No More
Go behind the desk and hide
Shooter's here and we're gonna die
Lockdown, Lockdown, now it's all done
Bunch of dead kids and an empty gun
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Both voting and carrying guns are considered very high-priority rights in the USA.
Yet the side arguing in favor of limits on one, is against limits on the other, and vice versa.
Forcing people to go to nigh-inaccessible offices half a state away to get an id to vote? Fine. Behaving to follow a basic safety course to buy a gun? Horrible. And, again, also the other way around.
As a European, I mean, I have my view of the matter - one of those is essential to a fair democracy, the other isn't. Americans have a different view - both are necessary as a means of protecting democracy from falling to tyranny. Fair enough.
It would still seem that both need some sort of regulation to protect against abuse, while also allowing the greatest amount of people to partake in these rights without undue hindrance.
Having a basic, free type of ID to prevent voter fraud is easy and obvious. Having a basic type of safety requirement and background check to prevent selling guns to psychopaths out on bail for a previous mass shooting (I'm exaggerating, yes, I'm aware these don't get bail) seems fairly easy and obvious.
Yet half the Americans disagree with one part of that statement, and the other half disagree with the other part of that statement.
 
blotsfan

blotsfan

Bubble181 said:
It would still seem that both need some sort of regulation to protect against abuse, while also allowing the greatest amount of people to partake in these rights without undue hindrance.
Click to expand...
The difference is that voter fraud of that nature is absurdly rare, while the US has an incredibly large rate of gun deaths.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
Unresolved Login Issue Prevented Florida 'Concealed Weapon' Background Checks For Over a Year

TLDR; Tens of thousands of applications for concealed weapons permits did not receive a proper background check because an employee couldn't log into the system and never followed up on fixing the login problem. 365 of those applications have been reviewed, after news outlets started asking, and of those 291 have since been revoked.

We've got gun laws were not even enforcing properly, and people think they can take away all guns without any problems? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

figmentPez said:
We've got gun laws were not even enforcing properly, and people think they can take away all guns without any problems? Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
Click to expand...
That's like saying that throwing your trash out the window is easier then recycling...

"Violent reaction from teh public" is a way more convincing argument imo.


figmentPez said:
We've got gun laws were not even enforcing properly,
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Ever notice how almost no one talks about that, on either side?... bread and circuses indeed.
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
@Li3n said:
That's like saying that throwing your trash out the window is easier then recycling...

"Violent reaction from teh public" is a way more convincing argument imo.
Click to expand...
Well, a violent reaction from the public is part of the "problems" I was alluding to. But I meant that enacting curbside recycling laws doesn't make the highway any cleaner if you don't enforce littering laws to stop people from just throwing their trash out the window. Recycling will reduce the amount of trash in landfills, but the people who are just throwing their trash out the window aren't going to be the ones sorting their trash. Raising the fines for littering won't help, either, if the agency handing out those fines doesn't ticket anyone. Same for broadening the definition of trash. Sure, there are more things you can't just throw out your car window, but if no one is getting fined then the piles of trash continue to grow.

And, to further the metaphor, littering laws aren't as effective as educating the public and getting them to believe that they want to stop littering in the first place. Just look at the history of the "Don't Mess With Texas" campaign. There were laws against littering, but in the 80s Texas was spending $20 million a year on trash removal, with the number growing 17% every year. (source) The solution? Convince the public that littering is counter to their pride as Texans.

Of course this metaphor really falls apart when you consider the fine details, but I hope I've made the general idea of my statement clearer. Tacking on more laws doesn't help enact the original law any better. As I've said before, I'm not against better gun laws, but laws banning guns alone are not the answer. We have to changes people's attitude towards guns and gun safety. We have to change our attitudes about violent crime, "snitching", mental health, consent, education, the relationship between the public and the police, and so many other issues. But I hear "BAN GUNS!" a lot louder than I hear "improve the public education system".
 
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Null

Null

So New Jersey, already a fairly restrictive state when it comes to gun ownership - in that we require a license for both long guns and handguns, and for handguns you need a separate permit for each, and the state doesn't issue CCW unless you're a police officer, security, or private detective - has passed a few new regulations. One is limited the sale of high-capacity magazines; 10 rounds will be the new legal limit (much as it was during the AWB of 1994-2004). The other is requiring private sellers to do background checks and keep a record of sale.

A gun owner in my town was quoted as saying "This makes New Jersey into North Korea, but I can just cross the river into Pennsylvania where they respect America's freedom."

Yes, not being able to buy a 30-round magazine and having to have a background check to make sure you're neither a convicted felon nor someone who's been institutionalized or under care for mental health problems, truly make the state into a totalitarian police state. I mean, you can still buy guns; you can still own guns; you can still buy assault rifles and own the high capacity magazines you already have. You can even buy them in another state.

Ah well. All hail glorious leader.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

The funny thing is that all these drills in schools will teach kids to fear guns, and in 50 years when they're in charge they might actually just repeal the 2nd all together.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

blotsfan said:
I admire your optimism
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It's not optimism, just look at how nuclear power plants are viewed in the US by the generation that was raised with nuke attack drills...


PatrThom said:
It's not funny, and I've already proposed that this is exactly what they're trying to do.

--Patrick
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Who, the NRA, and it's republican cronies that are all in favour of that and anything else that will not affect gun sales? I mean, what did you think make it so funny?
 
strawman

strawman

DarkAudit said:
Are we so numb now that the Trenton shooting over the weekend wasn't even worth mentioning? 17 shot.
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“New Jersey was ranked by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence as second to California in having the country’s most stringent gun restrictions.”

If anything, this violence shows that stronger background checks and lower magazine capacity limitations don’t work.

So who’s going to push a narrative? Both sides are going to look away because it can’t be used as leverage by either one. Second amendment advocates because the guns were used by criminal gang members for gang violence, and they were stopped by law enforcement, not by a concealed carry person (which is rare in NJ anyway). Gun control advocates are turning away because it wasn’t someone who obtained guns legally, or a white male, and because it occurred in an already stringently gun regulated state. Plus no “military style guns” were used.

If we started listing all the mass murders due to gang violence I suspect this thread would be a lot busier.

But you’re right, all those things could be considered forms of numbness.
 
Null

Null

Well, Steinman, you see, there's a distinct difference between a number of gang members starting a fist fight that turns into a multiple person shootout, and one heavily armed person going on a rampage. Those are different types of violence. Much like domestic violence that turns into a murder-suicide.

And the lower magazine capacity law went into effect THIS WEEK, so it's hardly had time to become widespread.

Also, Trenton is literally right across the river from Philadelphia, which has much looser gun laws, so NJ's laws are easy to circumvent in many cases.

Also, New Jersey has the sixth lowest rate of gun violence per capita in the nation, despite having large urban areas with massive poverty as well as very wealthy suburban areas.

But what the fuck ever, man.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

stienman said:
If anything, this violence shows that stronger background checks and lower magazine capacity limitations don’t work.
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Weird how being able to just get a gun from next door cancels out the fact that you can't get guns in your own house...

Also, California's gun laws clearly have worked just fine, since you don't see any armed Black Panthers protesting outside.
 
strawman

strawman

I agree with both of your posts.

Thanks for filling out the discussion further, hopefully DA better understands why this mass shooting isn’t getting attention.

Hopefully fatalities remains at one. (Probably another reason why it’s not getting much attention)
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Honestly I thought the reason it wasn't getting much attention was because the news now is "Trump this" and "Trump that."

--Patrick
 
strawman

strawman

Food for thought.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-democrats-are-losing-the-gun-debate-w517287
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/15-democrats-helped-tank-2013-assault-weapons-ban/story?id=50275295

I was trying to look up the relationship between political party and "assault weapons" ownership for another thread, but couldn't find it laid out that way. Ran across these articles and they corrected some misunderstandings I've had, and gave me some additional opinions to consider.
 
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