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Thanks for the help.
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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My favorite from them is "define assault weapon." My definition is "who the fuck cares? Let's regulate all guns."
I feel like whoever first started bringing the term "assault weapon" to gun debates really killed the argument.
Admittedly, the only useful argument I've ever heard on the idea of grouping them has been the thought that they are purchased for their popularity and "coolness", eg based on their appearance in some movie or video game, not specifically for their practical use of any civil kind. And, people who buy guns with no practical purpose in mind for them (as opposed to say, a person holding a restraining order expecting to defend themself) are more likely to end up letting them into an unsafe situation (by theft, jadedness, or pure accidents)
Still - not a strong argument, and I'd prefer it if we focused on how guns are used, not how black and tacticool they are.
That would be the pro gun control side. They wanted to conflate assault rifles as in the actual military rifles, and the downgraded civilian semi-auto rifles. The distinction is important, look up the process it takes to purchase a machine gun in the US sometimes. They deliberately want a culture of ignorance around guns, because the goal is total disarmament, not effective regulation.
You can see the result in this thread and others. People will claim that someone can just walk into a Walmart and buy a machine gun. Politicians talk about banning "fully semi auto assault weapons". The OP image and plenty of comments here mock the idea that someone should expect a base amount of knowledge in the subject before proposing new laws. Someone trying to define proposed regulation or correct a mistaken assumption about current laws is branded an "Ammosexual".
I’d kindly ask you not to put words in my mouth. I am pro gun control. I am not pro total disarmament - logically, such a thing isn’t even at all practical, especially because it isn’t achieved in any of the countries we use for comparisons about “what works”.
People are constantly misinformed about tons of issues across the world, including journalists. Take your blame to them. Don’t use it as an illogical thread to make a different point.
What part of my reply made you think that I was talking about you in particular?
All guns after 1899 are regulated chief. How about we fix our society instead of trying to collect millions and millions of lawfully owned firearms.
Here we can start with
Singler payer healthcare
Ending the war on drugs
Ending for profit prisons
Paying teachers more
Making a living wage law
Building more schools and funding under funded schools in inner cities where 95% of the violence happens
Creating safety nets for all kids under 18, so they don't have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or where they're going to sleep.
While we're at it, let's get RCV and ban insider trading for Congress thrown in as well.
So no more mass shooting? Thanks, chief.
You're the one who acts like more laws will stop these shootings. They're not even enforcing the ones on the books...at the end of the day, you either tell the truth and have the military go door to door and round up the firearms, causing a civil war or you put in more feel good laws about firearms you think look scary.
Or you do a gun buyback program like Australia did. Then make firearms illegal without a license and a reason.
Then, like all other first world countries, you literally see murder plummeting.
Murder rates have been dropping in the US for decades, mass shootings are a small but high profile problem
Australia has around 1mil firearms in private hands...had a 60% turn in rate, and never had the murder rate we do anyways. If 60% of the USA turned in the firearms, you'd be left with over 100 million still out there.
It’s going to take 20-40 years to get into a comparable state to other first world countries. The difference is whether we start now or in 30 years. If we start in 30 years, it will take 50-70 years.
No it would not, it would take hundreds of years a potential millions of lives, because you just started a civil war...and you're not going to like who the military sides with.
Whatever man. I don’t think you’re thinking your threats through. I think the leadership in the military; 1. Wouldn’t care about this because it doesn’t affect them, and 2. Are way more liberals than you give them credits, and 3. Are tired of the bullshit the Maga gun nuts are putting them through.
And I don’t believe a minute this would start a civil war. If Jan 6 didn’t start a civil war this definitely wouldn’t.
Most of the ground pounders are not liberals, most of the military doesn't just live on bases around the globe, most of the military lives in the same neighborhoods as guns owners...and Jan 6th was like 1k fucking idiots basically trying to destroy shit like children. Not millions of people who would over night become combatants because of a few people who want to kill people they disagree with.
I don't think a single one of the things you said would help curb gun violence or even school shootings at all. Your list is nice for everything else but how about addressing the glorification of guns and the shooters in the media? Maybe regulate the incitement of violence online and in the political discourse? How about blocking the radicalization of young men via dangerous conservative rhetoric online, eg. YouTube? Handle cases of bullying that go actively overlooked? Maybe intervene in child abuse and provide help for teenagers with poor mental health who feel ostracized? And the most important of all, block the easy access to these damn guns?
I bet someone better educated on this topic could come up with a better list. But my point is that you're dying on this tired hill of "it's not the guns" in this thread but you're failing to hit the nail on the head on everything else while being condescending towards everyone else:
Because you're not even interested in addressing the real issue (and fail to provide a reasonable, insightful solution) so long as nobody's touching the damn guns. What you're doing is akin to whataboutism. What the heck does insider trading in Congress have to do with anything?
Most "school" shootings are drug and gang related in inner cities, with handguns. Rifles are very rarely used, hell, they're very rarely used in murders in general. Most of our gun homicides are from gangs and drugs, not from random shootings. Ending the cycle of locking up drug users and keeping drugs illegal which is a major source of income for these gangs would start curbing the violence over night. Making sure kids have safety nets to go to and not gangs also would stop the flow of new members to gangs.
How do you plan on doing that? You going to ban violence in movies and video games? Or ban rap/rock music? You going to ban the press from reporting on murders?
Uhh again how do you plan on doing this? You going to setup a great wall just like china has and enforce it via draconian police?
Apparently you think only white christian male Republicans shoot people...
Sure, I'm game for that, but I'd be covered with more funding so we have smaller classes...like I said above
Yea...I said that...safety nets for anyone under 18...
And how do you plan on doing that? Most guns used in crime are not purchased legally.
I'm being condescending because the mass majority of people who want gun control, have no clue about A) the current laws and B) what our gun violence actually comes from. You clearly have shown you don't know in this very post.
I mean I did provide solutions that would actually do something, or society is broken, removing a plastic rifle that scares you, isn't going to solve it.
Pandoras box was opened, and you're not going to close it without causing a civil war. Taking rifles that make up a rounding error in the deaths each year is pants on head stupid. Because at the end of the day, you're not wanting to stop the deaths, you're wanting to get rid of something that scares you.
I mean it's not but ok...insider trading is where a lot of Congress gets their money, cut the flow means you cut their power and it means you're less likely to have greedy fucks who aren't in it to better society running the nation.
Yep, no one wants to look at the root cause, they just want to use emotions vs facts these days.
I think the one part I agree with is the rifles vs handguns debate. In spite of their prominence in mass shootings, I think the thing we need to regulate more is handguns, not rifles. They're used for concealed carry - for bringing death to another person's home. Shotguns and rifles are more than adequate for home defense or hunting, and they're much less practical to steal or transport.
I think it was Australia that even restricted personal gun purchases to that category of weapon.
Wait, what?!? Nuance? GTFO of my guns bad echo chamber with your actually achievable solutions that I would normally otherwise support wholeheartedly!
Because fix society hard, blame gunz instead.
It's ironic because guns at the end of the day are a tool to enact the will of it's user. Take the gun away, and you still have a problem to face.
All that guy is gonna do is find a gun illegally or something else to do what it is he is going to do. Mass shooters will steal box vans, people will go on knife stabbing sprees, police will become more oppressive as they have nothing to fear from the people anymore.
It's funny that I tell people this all the time. I would say I lean more toward the left, but liberals think that if you aren't 100% a liberal, you're a conservative, and that's why we will never experience the change we need to see in this country.
Always said, if the Dems ever want to control the gov. For a long time, just drop gun control and be in support of firearm rights. They'd wreck every election.
Your argument ignores the effectiveness of gun control in almost every other western nation.
Ah yes, every country and their people is the same, including their culture and politics.
The US is a unique situation because unlike many of those other countries, the US continued to be incredibly saturated with guns and now we have firearms that are incredibly easy to access even outside of gun stores.
My argument ignored nothing, the US is not those countries, it's the US. Your argument also ignores something else, that being that those countries don't necessarily have lower murder rates than the US.
Too many guns causing issues is not a difficult problem to solve.
Don't necessarily have lower murder rates? The only 'european' country with a higher murder rate than than the USA is Russia. In fact the worst murder rate in europe in 2020 (year I've got the figures for) was held by Hungary, and even then it is half of what the USAs was.
Ah yes, telling people that that they can't have guns, that'll just make the guns disappear.
Tell me exactly how you think that it should be implemented? Every approach I've ever seen has so far been either extremely unrealistic or a massive violation of several amendments.
Aside from that, removing guns is not going to lower the death rate by very much in comparison to European countries for other reasons, such as affordable healthcare, livable average/minimum wages, the people in Europe tend to live a higher quality of life than people in the US.
If people want to kill, they are going to use the easiest tool in their arsenal to do so, guns just happen to be number one on that list. Regulating guns only hurts the people, not criminals. Having a gun doesn't just make someone want to go out and kill people.
I want to make it very clear that I am not advocating for pro-gun anything, I am saying the issue lies with the many fundamental problems in the US. Living in the US today is incredibly stressful if you are not rich as shit, and it makes a lot of people crack.
Man you Americans just live in constant fear eh?
Nope, just like I don't live in fear of crashing every time I drive...but I still wear my seatbelt.