What is the definition of failure with the second amendment and gun control laws?

News & Current Events
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I woke up this morning and began my usual news reads across different platforms. I try to read across the spectrum and assemble my own version of “the truth” from the whole. This headline immediately caught my attention from a Right Leaning outlet. Reading the headline alone I asked myself “What was the failure?”

Did this man publicly speak against second amendment rights only to be killed by a gun?

I read the article and…. nothing. The only thing I can think of is that the man lived in California. The man lived in California so someone decided to make him a “That’s What you get” for Second Amendment rights. If the sole point was to celebrate the misery of another, or to claim that this man deserved what happened to him for living in California, or to claim California’s laws are why he died…..the first two I have nothing reasonable or rational to engage such a mind. Lets talk about the third.

If California having gun control laws but people still dying because of guns means they failed… does that mean those of us who say that we practice our 2A rights, if people still die around us, if we die while practicing our rights… does that mean 2A fails? How did most of handle people reacting to the Uvalde School shooting as they watched video of police with guns clearing delaying their entry into the school? Was that a second amendment failure?

Or did we change the rules? Did we say “thats different”, even though it isn’t and suddenly become rational. Did we say (correctly) that that was not a failure of the second amendment but rather of men. Those specific men failed.

I am and will continue to be a 2A advocate with the opinion that denigrating those who are ambivalent or against the Second Amendment is not going to help close the divide. I argue that engaging such individuals with transparency and earnest dedication to protecting human lives is the way. I think we can, and should try to win people in those camps over.

Instead of declaring them subhuman, or fools…. ask questions. Ask them why they think how they do. Present ourselves in front of them while carrying (I do this often. My state is conceal carry but I purposely open carry to normalize discussion and engagement ) and ask them “Do I come off as a threat to you or your family?” They always say no, so we continue talking.

These types of articles may feel good for a moment… but I don’t think they do much really useful. Instead of talking about each other, or worse AT each other…. I think we need to normalize talking TO each other, in order to get more citizens to realize that the 2 Amendment is not what fails when things go bad…. its men, and we are not afraid to talk about that with respect to the 2nd Amendment for the purpose of protecting us all against ALL FORMS of those men, not just the versions of bad men we are comfortable engaging on. The reality is, most Americans killed by a gun are killed by someone they know…. so spending the majority of our time talking about the wanton act of violence by the unknown criminal, leaves a gap in the conversation that I feel may be contributing to the gap between us and the anti-gun community.

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Brother, that looks like nothing more than a clickbait headline to a tragic story of random crime. While California does have onerous and unconstitutional gun control laws, that headline and story does nothing for our Pro2A cause. Now, had the story said something to the effect that the victim had tried to arm himself because of rising crime in his neighborhood, but was unable to because of California law, then the headline would or could have some credibility.

Anyway, I do believe that as more and more people are witnessing crime across all areas of the country, more and more people who have not been armed in the past are also quietly arming themselves, it’s just that the politicians on the left haven’t caught up, and still believe that disarmament of the population is good for themselves. I don’t believe any politician actually believes gun control stops crime- all statistics prove otherwise, and most politicians know this.

As I’ve said on here in the past, the only truth in gun control is the control part. All else is a lie. In Florida where I live, the less restrictive gun laws have gotten, the more we’ve seen crime go down.

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I find from a personal observation, anti-gun / anti-2a is generally fueled by emotions / feelings. If those emotions / feelings can be set aside and let logical thought ensue, you’ll likely find advocates of 2A. The article comes from a strong Pro-2a outlet, so it’s not too surprising they get their “digs” in when they can since California is known for their egregious laws against our 2nd Amendment.

One thing is for certain, gun laws that restrict law abiding citizens are infringements, nothing more, nothing less.

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Obviously the failure of “gun control” laws to prevent firearms being used in the commission of crime. I believe all, or likely at least 99.99% of regular posters on this site agree with that.

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Agreed in the clickbait Brother. I guess I pose the challenge to our community…. For who? Who among us is liking and loving and wanting this stuff? We know the left isnt. So who is it?

Also, Where have you seen stats of crime rates increasing in gun control counties or cities or states? Most of what I am finding is statistics showing violent crime rates going down across the board. The only rates I am seeing going up are gun suicide rates. Guns are now number one for child suicides, and also number one for all child deaths.

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I think the failure was not being responsibly armed.

Yes

No it means we have to be more responsibly armed or we have to not do things to make people angry. People need to think critically about being anti-2nd amendment.

All we could do is pray. I think that is what the 2A is for. I think children can learn to be responsibly armed and the ones that can should be.

I don’t think any rules were changed.

We all failed. If the shooter would have gotten the love they needed this would’n’t have happened. Once it did, there should have been somebody responsibly armed in place to stop it..

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I haven’t done the research in a while, but I looked at states and cities overall violent crime rates, then I looked at states and cities with the highest and lowest levels of gun control, and found no statically significant correlation at all. Some cities or states with very unrestrictive gun laws also had very low crime, while some had very high crime. The reverse was also true. What it told me is that it’s socio-economic factors, or other factors I didn’t dig into, that are causing high violent crime. In any case, easy or difficult access to guns by law abiding citizens makes no impact whatsoever on violent crime.

You’re right, crime is generally down across the board. Over the last few years, Florida has gone from requiring carry permits to permitless carry, then from concealed-only to open carry. During that same time, according to a quick google search, Florida’s violent crime rate has decreased by 8.7%, vs. the national average of 5.4%. These numbers fly directly in the face of the gun control advocates who say that easier access to guns, and more armed citizens, will lead to more crime. The opposite is happening in plain sight.

Regarding the suicides, I’m afraid we have a massive mental health crisis in the country for our young people that is apart from guns all together. That’s a tough problem, but focusing on guns isn’t looking at the real problem, and is bad for the kids who are suffering. It’s easy to point to the tool used to commit suicide, but much harder to point at the desire for suicide and where that’s coming from.

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You say that, not Breitbart.

You equated the incident with second amendment failure, not Breitbart.

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Cracking the door open just a little and looking at what is going on. Tombstone, Arizona the carry law was initially enacted in 1881 to curb the violence and maintain order in a lawless region. Now, we all have seen the movies how this was supposed to work and how it ended up. If those who are trying to curb the violence are thinking that if you get rid of guns, then the bad guys will not have them to do bad things, and we all know how that turned out. It is said that after the town got more populated and “civilized” that the need for this law was not needed therefor it was no longer needed.

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Agreed. Focusing only on guns is a hyperfocus. Ignoring it is bad as well. They are simply opposites of the same bad thinking.

Not trying to make things too “mathy”…… but the difference between 5.4% and 8.7%…. is not automatically statistically different.

Regarding socioeconomic indicators, the only ones that have withheld academic scrutiny is literally economic opportunity. No matter where you go in the world, if the economy is bad and the population is younger, you see more crime.

Unfortunately, I see many people and groups accidentally (and some intentionally) misuse math. It especially bothers me as a data scientist. The discipline is meant to improve lives and better things for people…. not mislead and manipulate them. It is like when I see someone claim that the cities are more dangerous than rural areas, or that your highest crime rates are in places with gun control. Its lies. Louisiana has some of the loosest gun laws in the country, but a rape, murder and robbery rate 4 times higher than Chicago. You only hear about Chicago because of partisan news reporting (aligns with peoples feelings…they only sell what people want), the higher raw number population.

Only place I don’t quite see eye to eye with you on… is when you want to pray and when you want someone else to do something. If someone failed by not being responsibly armed, then consistent logic would be someone failed at Uvalde, and people failed not “thinking critically”. On the flip side….if you pray then always pray. Pray for the man in California as you pray for Uvalde police officers. Whichever you chose…. I think that level of consistency will be a better demonstration of what you believe in. When I publicly talk to people who are “anti gun”, this is very similar to my conversations with people who are “anti church”, in both cases they label me (well us…it just me standing there in front of them") as hypocrites. They label us as assigning everyone we don’t like as their worst actions, and assigning ourselves as our best intentions.

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I totally agree. The point I was making was to refute the gun grabbers arguments. Over the 20 years I have lived in Florida, when the conservatives wanted to eliminate the requirement for carry permits, the left side of the state house predicted awful outcomes. I remember one lady standing in front of the camera stating that “people will be shooting each other over parking spaces.” Well, permitless carry happened in spite of them, and exactly nothing changed, except crime dropped a little. Not saying the crime drop was because of permitless carry, but the scary results predicted never came to pass. Life went on just like before.

Then, for several years, the right side of the state house tried putting through open carry, but it died in committee, basically over the same dire predictions of Florida becoming the wild west. Well, one day, a guy was arrested for open carry, and the DA refused to prosecute, stating that the law banning open carry was unconstitutional. Poof, overnight Florida was an open carry state. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, again. Since that move by the DA, violent crime has dropped that 8.7% I mentioned above. I’m pretty sure open carry has not contributed to that drop, bit it hasn’t hurt it, either. The gun grabbers arguments simply don’t hold water, yet in many parts of the country they continue making the same failed arguments, and passing unconstitutional laws based on those arguments, in spite of statistical evidence that their laws are doing nothing to reduce violent crime.

Amen to that brother. I see it so badly in medicine and the way the drug companies manipulate numbers. A drug that reduces your risk of heart attack by 50% sounds great, until you realize that they mean it makes your overall risk 2% instead of 3%, and it comes with a long lost of side effects.

I never mentioned praying or Uvalde, so not following you there.

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