@LolaKinks I’ve commented on your other thread, so if it sounds a bit harsh, please know that is not my intent and this is just me being frank
Even if it were possible to push a magic button and all the firearms everywhere on the planet suddenly went “poof”, I would not push that button. A firearm is THE great equalizer today. Consider the situation from your other thread, if no one had access to firearms, who would hold the upper hand and be able to do as much harm as he wanted and no one would be able to stop? It would resort to who is the most physically capable. Women (generally of smaller stature), the elderly, the disabled, heck even nerds like me who sit behind a computer all day would be defenseless against a physically larger or younger male let alone a pack of males.
Colion Noir says it better than I can. The relevant clip is from 2:20 until 5:15 (not sure if embedded Youtube will auto skip to the time mark)
Flawed is a massive understatement. None of the proposed laws will have any effect on gun violence.
If we don’t stand up for our rights, the time is FAST approaching where we cannot own firearms.
If you mean for voting, thats OK. Because there is more than just voting R (which usually votes pro-2A). If the rest of your idealogy lines up more with D than R, then talk to your representatives and tell them you are against gun-control and for whatever those other items may be. And if you are in a R district, then still tell them you’re against gun-control but also tell them what you DO want them to push for. That’s how our process works, and usually works well. There is no need IMO to tie 2A rights to either Leftie/Rightie politics.
But if you mean, don’t stand up for gun rights… Well, then we have no right to complain when they do get taken away. The 2nd amendment protects all the rest, and if we disarm ourselves… All we can do then is “hope” that those lovely politicians we keep electing into office don’t try to usurp another constitutional amendment or two (they’ve already been trying), that we don’t end up with only the gubment & criminals with guns (see Mexico, Brazil), or that the gubment doesn’t turn on it’s citizens (see Venezuela, Syria).
I respect your opinion and it wasn’t harsh at all.
I have called representatives before about particular issues, and I’ll mention being pro-2A when I do next time.
I do wish there was more than just R and Ds with their pretty party line typical platforms to choose from. I know there are others, but I rarely find any commonality with what they’re for, and hardly ever make it out the primaries anyway.
You make a fine point. I think ultimately it would be for the best. Yeah, there’s be awful situations to be had, but there’s awful situations to be had with guns. Even if one was carrying, it’s not promised that that will save them. In a world without guns, it’d be a lot harder for a deranged person to kill a whole mess of people at once, let alone two at a time. Pros and cons to both options IMO.
Edit for clarification: I would not vote for the elimination of all guns due to there not being a way for all guns to be turned in/taken away entirely. People will hide them, etc.
I can think of a LOT of ways to hurt a lot of people all at once without the use of guns. Granted I am not your average person without some training but, with the internet it is not hard to find the information to make crude but very effective explosive devices using materials found in most homes.
People that want to do harm will find a way and like I said it really isn’t that hard.
@LolaKinks@DBrogue
Lola, and Good morning Don,
Lola that’s simply not true; your reasoning is just not backed up by facts. On February 4, 2016 I was retired from my second long career as a Funeral home owner. I drove to my old beautiful neighborhood where I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. What bangers now term the High Hundreds. The Rosemoor-Roseland neighborhood. Now with Chicago having absolute draconian gun laws. There are in stack houses in Chicago that are better equipped than many actual gun stores. You got cash I can bring you and show you where you could get fully automatic weapons, you can buy a gun on a predetermined street
with a phone call and cash. No background check no nothing. Cash only and you drive back to your house or wherever your next destination is. That said; I went to see the house I grew up in 1950-1967 which was a beautiful large house in a then beautiful neighborhood. I was unarmed because of Chicago gun laws, in other words I was not going to get pinched in Chicago with a gun because all the Chicago cops I was buddies with are since retired. So I get out of my car my neighborhood now a gang nation as stated. I was attempted to be robbed and was not ready to die so I had an open and wrestled the gun from the banger punk while this was going on I was shot for the second time in my life and this time I lost my left index finger but saved my life. Unwilling to wait for an ambulance I built myself a tourniquet from a towel I had in the car the gun he used was empty because it locked back and I was in shock but I drove myself to my hospital still thankfull traffic was light due to the time of the day. My finger was just hanging on in my towel grateful I got to the hospital and I had my finger had to get amputated but I saved my life by getting the gun. What I’m saying is that who wants a gun can get a street gun or a drop gun anywhere. So, “elimination of guns” is never going to make you safe because you’re never going to tell anyone passing more gun control is going to take them off the streets. Gun Control is simply about Controlling Honest People. It’s essentially mind control like Nazi Germany, Venezuela, or any other country where guns are illegal. Mexico is a great example of gun violence control because only drug cartels now out gun the police and they will kill anyone they have a mind to kill, as evidenced by the family killings of that Mormon family just killed in Mexico in the past two weeks.
I think what @LolaKinks is saying is not that the government should take all the guns away, but that is given the opportunity to use a hypothetical “magic” button and make all guns (legal and illegal) disappear, it would be beneficial.
The issue with this, as stated by others, is that guns aren’t the issue. Evil hearts are the issue and this proven time and time again. Guns are an equalizer for those of us who wish to prevent or stop harm. Those who want to cause harm can do it pretty much any way they choose to.
A world without guns would put the “good guys” at a major disadvantage and make it a lot harder to stop a lot of these people before they were able to kill even more.
BTW, I pulled these events from recent history from my memory. I’m sure if I did the smallest amount of research, I could come up with a lot more. I also used left leaning news sources for the stories to demonstrate that I’m not skewing the idea of the ease of killing with these items.
I would just add that even if there were NO guns, I would be at a disadvantage, much more so than I am now - I’m 60 and female and that alone is enough to put me at a disadvantage when defending myself. For people who are smaller (women), weaker (older or disabled), or otherwise at a natural disadvantage when facing an attacker, removing all guns would remove one of the few force-levelers we have. We’d be that much more susceptible to crime, violence, and random or planned attack.
Unless we can magically disappear evil, anger, avarice, vengeance, jealousy, envy, revenge, mental illness, and all other forms of ill-will or illness that comes with a human population, along with all guns, removing all guns will degrade the safety of people who rely on them for their own protection.
Thank God: somebody thinks there may be a road toward agreement. That’s cause for hope!
I too am a registered Democrat, a gun owner, a CC card holder, and a 2A supporter. (And yeah, I’m on an iMac.)
I see the cartoons and read the comments and I am amazed at how completely polarized, how completely opposite our viewpoints have become. I spend a lot of time thinking about all this because if we continue to find and focus on our differences, it can only lead to serious trouble - really serious trouble.
Liberals focus on banning “assault” weapons and high capacity magazines. Right wingers point out how many mass murderers used registered, semi-auto handguns that were perfectly legal, and how easily the perpetrators would have passed a background check, even the “extended” background checks that some have proposed.
The problem we share, as I see it, is that we are far too focused on solutions, when we don’t fully understand the problems. What I’d like to see is a meeting of the minds, so to speak, a serious discussion among people who can refrain from arguing against what the “other side” is proposing, and start making progress toward understanding what it might take to prevent this continuing slaughter.
As a pro second amendment independent your comments are spot on.Unfortunately in this day and age I don’t see much hope for compromise which in the past has been the basis of our political system.
When issues get this complicated I fall back on trust in the system. No US President can make up a law; that’s a dictator. Even Congress can’t do it all by themselves. One house has to form it, pass it and then pass it along to the other branch. And even if both houses pass that bill it has to be signed into law by the president. Finally, it doesn’t become settled law until it’s been tested in the courts: all three branches of our government have a say in every new law, and every new law has to conform to the Law of the Land, the US Constitution. I’m a techy sort of guy so I never paid much attention to Civics. As I age I see how important these checks and balances are, and how brilliant were the minds that devised them.
The pathway from an idea to a law is a long series of compromises, and that’s (my) cause for hope.
Wish I had faith in the system. Used to but my experience has taught me different.
The problem here is the damage done to people while all that process is working it’s way through. It can take a dozen years if it goes to the SCOTUS, meanwhile some people lose their guns, their rights, their legal defense fees, and their freedom as it gets worked out. IF it does, no guarantee that SCOTUS will even hear it.
If laws had to be demonstrated to be constitutional BEFORE they were deployed, I’d have more faith. As it is, I’ve been very close to the horrendous collateral damage that post-facto qualification of laws leaves in its wake. It can be very ugly, and cost people everything, and compensatory damages, if you can even get them, cannot restore the lost time, emotional or personal damage done.
You raise good points, @zee. My only concern is the finality of your position. You don’t seem to believe there will ever be an opportunity for change; I do. Built into our system of government is a way to make changes, like introducing a new amendment or repealing an old one. I’m not going to try to justify the time it takes for a new law to become settled, but I like the fact that that length of time allows for careful and thoughtful consideration. The rapid changes affected by a dictatorship, for example, have a lot of negativity associated with them, much more so than what we have.
I think its possible but I believe it when I see it. That is, a lot of times I don’t see it. My bigger concern is not “can change come” but “what is the cost to people’s lives and freedom until it does, if it does.”
I’d be good with that if the length of time was before the law is enforced rather than after. As it stands now, the laws go into effect without vetting, and people are harmed, and that happens pretty fast (not dictator fast, but in some cases months) and vetting can take years. Meanwhile, too bad for the people harmed.
Just one more point, if I may. I understand your concerns and they are valid. I know the bill as it is initially written is not exactly the same as when it becomes law. I believe the process of a bill being reviewed and discussed in committee, then on the “floor” in both houses, is in fact vetting. Lawmakers are people. They are not perfect and they cannot think of everything that may happen in the face of this law. It is unfortunate that citizens have to be hurt in the process of a law’s exposure to “real world” interpretation. I just don’t know a better way. Again, I am not a lawyer, nor am I even a political person, but before I consider removing an existing system, I’d like to hear all about the alternatives.
I am sensitive to the damage that can be (and is being) done because the laws aren’t fully thought out. My instinct is to suggest looking into ways to improve the system so it will improve the quality of the laws that we have to live by. The first step, based on your comments, might be to impose another process between the enactment of a law and its actual implementation, a process that looks at use-cases in order to predict (and hopefully prevent) the damaging side effects that you cite.
Lastly, I want to thank you for your considered opinions. I’ve been on a few other forums where responses were, shall I say, less than polite.
It is. Unfortunately we live in a time where the very people who’s job it is to do that are comfortable saying “we have to hurry up and pass this bill so we can find out what’s in it”. Statements like that, I believe, are a bit of the unvarnished truth escaping the normal conscience filter… and they reflect intent and people’s real values. And that is deeply frightening to me.
Having seen the wrong side of “legal process” a couple of times in a very personal way, I don’t think “unfortunate” even comes close. I think horrifying is closer. I think traumatic is true, especially in its capacity to destroy faith in the process and in people’s good intent.
The existing system isn’t essentially wrong but it desperately needs fixing. I think several things should be done. Laws should have to pass a constitutionality test before enactment. Laws should have to include penalties for their willful or negligent abuse by citizens, law enforcement, prosecutors, or the court system. Laws should be reviewed to determine if the existing base of law already covers the territory and if its incomplete, the gap in the existing law should be repaired instead of new vague and untried law being enacted.
Every time something bad happens, legislators and regulators rush out to punish the uninvolved. New laws should be required to demonstrate reasonable likelihood that they would actually have an impact on the problem they are theoretically intending to address. The potential impact on individuals who are NOT the problem should be included. Not just knee-jerk reaction.
This takes a collective will I do not believe the people possess anymore, at least in sufficient numbers. Bread and circuses works, and that makes me less than hopeful.
Yep, and you are welcome, thank you as well. I may be cynical (an attitude I earned through personal experience, unfortunately) but I know while passion is powerful, blind passion is useless. Thinking and communicating effectively matters.
