# As a responsible gun owner, we as a country need to fix this gun violence problem! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 5, 2022, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697 "2022-06-05T14:01:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/143 "2022-06-07T00:47:21Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > it’s still the person with violence issues that kills someone. We don’t need to make the most powerful handheld weapons ever devised readily available to this person with violence issues. They don’t actually have to be something he can buy in a store when his issues bubble to the surface. We are not inanimate objects, we have a choice here. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/144 "2022-06-07T01:27:02Z")
Bingo! Next year we all submit to a national mental health survey along with a permit process requiring letters of recommendation and mandatory training for firearms. It’s a new health mandate designed to screen and mitigate isolate violent tendencies in our society. Right ? Keep your weapons as long as you pass our mental health standards for responsible firearm ownership. Are you in? ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/145 "2022-06-07T01:42:13Z")
Bullitt is orders of magnitude more likely to accidentally shoot himself or his wife hours away from medial care while camping than of needing to defend themselves from humans (or wildlife). There’s also a non-zero chance he’d shoot another person out of imagined fear or due to impairment. These are not the allies that gun control advocates need. This person is delusional, he’s justifying his wanting to carry a gun for the feels based on a fiction. That is why we will continue to see children murdered on the regular. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/146 "2022-06-07T01:42:22Z")
> [@chela](#): > > Bingo! > > Next year we all submit to a national mental health survey along with a permit process requiring letters of recommendation and mandatory training for firearms. > > It’s a new health mandate designed to screen and mitigate isolate violent tendencies in our society. > > Right ? Keep your weapons as long as you pass our mental health standards for responsible firearm ownership. > > Are you in? The above being a case in point of @JRDelirious concerns. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > > [@Dinsdale](#): > > > > I think that even a lot of 4s - and likely 3s - fear that ANY registration/licensing opens the door to eventual confiscation. How realistic that fear is, I don’t know. > > It probably is not realistic in a _practical_ sense writ large, as long as the 2A is still there, _but_ many may be left with the not entirely unjustified gnawing doubt of whether then by dribs and drabs _their_ specific weapon may wind up on a list of disallowed articles _or they themselves will wind up among the disqualified_ due to some redefinition of terms, and they’ll only learn of the change in status when they get a summons to the effect (of course candidates that go around blustering _“yes, we’re gonna take your AR”_ aren’t helping). I’m not picking on @chela precisely, but this baiting is going on all the time. It is full of loaded language, that is antagonistic and confirms the worst suspicions of all the moderates about the intents of the other side (1’s especially). The blanket assumption is that if you own a gun, you ipso facto have violent tendencies. And that by that assumption, you cannot possibly “pass _our_ mental health standards for responsible firearm ownership.” [emphasis added by me]. I can’t imagine anyone considering this a good faith argument. And so the 5s get baited, the 2s and the 4s wince, and the 3s still don’t care. TO BE CLEAR: Chela is entitled to their opinion that people who own firearms may have undue concern about violence, in terms of suffering from it or inflicting it on others - but this sort of language wins no additional supporters, and often pushes moderates away. Which is FINE if all you want to do is vent, but if you want to build towards fixing legislation and with it gun violence, is very counterproductive. ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/147 "2022-06-07T01:56:22Z")
Tongue in cheek rhetorical response to a best we can do is nothing from @Magiver Say the funding is there how does it negate gun violence immediately? It doesn’t it can’t it won’t do any thing. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/148 "2022-06-07T02:06:54Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > This person is delusional **Modnote** : this is an example of attacking the poster and not the post. Do not do this again. This is borderline for a warning. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/149 "2022-06-07T02:10:07Z")
Sorry just came from the PIt…forgot where this was. I stand by the rest of the argument. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/150 "2022-06-07T02:34:02Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > entitled to their opinion that people who own firearms may have undue concern about violence, in terms of suffering from it or inflicting it on others TBF that would better describe the gist of **Riemann** ’s posts and **Omniscient** ’s modded one more than **chela** ’s even if taken at face value. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/151 "2022-06-07T02:38:11Z")
I think “undue concern” understates it a bit. There’s a fantasy element here where they imagine themselves as heroes in their own action adventure. That said I wouldn’t qualify this as some mental illness which is grounds for blocking gun ownership. It’s just a toxic personality trait like many others. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/152 "2022-06-07T02:44:09Z")
> [@chela](#): > > Say the funding is there how does it negate gun violence immediately? First of all, the problem is the person holding the gun. You seem to think that removing guns would stop people from killing each other. Again, the recent school shooter could have simply plowed through a crowd of children, and then driven to the next school and repeated it. The kids would still be dead but instead of bullet holes there would be tire tracks. Something has changed considerably in my lifetime. We didn’t have this kind of violence yet we carried knives in grade school and there were gun clubs in high school. In other words, it was easier to kill children. Doors weren’t locked, there were no police officers around. This didn’t happen overnight and the necessary psychological help isn’t going to fix it immediately. It’s going to take time. It comes down to defining the problem. Taking a gun away from a crazy person who is intent on killing people is not going to stop them from killing. The best you can hope for is that it stops them from killing with a gun. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/153 "2022-06-07T02:44:38Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > There’s a fantasy element here where they imagine themselves as heroes in their own action adventure. > > That said I wouldn’t qualify this as some mental illness which is grounds for blocking gun ownership. It’s just a toxic personality trait like many others. That still comes across as making it the base assumption that there is no reason for someone to arm themselves and that there is something “wrong” about it. Yeah, it’s better if people with toxic personalities stay away from guns. It does not mean that per se owning a gun means a toxic personality. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/154 "2022-06-07T02:49:34Z")
Circumstances matter. I posted my comment specifically about the OPs proposed scenario of camping in the wilderness. This is a remarkably safe activity in terms of violent encounters with other humans. A person thinking that being armed is a rational approach in that scenario is wildly misguided. But that’s not to say that there’s never a condition where being armed would be a defensible calculation. Statistically it’s usually at best a wash, but it’s not as kooky as thinking you need it miles away from another soul (and a place where those few souls tend to be affluent folks with the discretionary income to travel). Edit: For the record, just because there might be a narrow set of circumstances where arming yourself could be prudent doesn’t mean I agree that this justifies gun ownership as a right. If some people who frequently encounter dangerous situations on the regular have to chaige their behavior in order to save the lives of kids…I’ll make that trade. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/155 "2022-06-07T02:54:18Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Something has changed considerably in my lifetime. We didn’t have this kind of violence yet we carried knives in grade school and there were gun clubs in high school. In other words, it was easier to kill children. Doors weren’t locked, there were no police officers around. > > This didn’t happen overnight and the necessary psychological help isn’t going to fix it immediately. It’s going to take time. It comes down to defining the problem. Taking a gun away from a crazy person who is intent on killing people is not going to stop them from killing. The best you can hope for is that it stops them from killing with a gun. Which makes it a bit harder to kill a dozen people in a matter of minutes, unless you drive your truck right through the middle of a crowd. Society can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can attend to mental health AND make it so that it’s somewhat harder for the person with “issues” to get easy access to the tools to do harm. … I suppose having grown up in an environment where it was understood that but of course you’d get a license to own, requiring background check, a permit to carry requiring its own application, plus a registration of each weapon, it doesn’t feel that alien to me to accept that there be such requirements in general as long as the terms are nondiscriminatory. But I understand there are those whom that worries. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/156 "2022-06-07T03:14:13Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > > [@chela](#): > > > > > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > > > > > […] As mentioned, I am against any and all additional restrictions on the possession, purchase, and sale of firearms. (I am actually a proponent of _less_ restrictions.) There’s no quick solution or easy answers to curtailing gun violence, IMO. The best we can do is provide better funding and access to services that address mental health, drug dependency, and the needs of children & teens. > > > > Why less restrictions on the possession, purchase and sale of firearms? > > > > How does that help people, children already at risk of violence in their community, or family? > > > > Waiting on funding to identify and help someone who is prone to committing gun violence is NOT the best we can do. > > I agree with @chela on this. > > @Crafter_Man how will fewer gun restrictions help the gun violence problem? Perhaps it may enlighten us better by asking, how do you define “the gun violence problem”? > > While yes we do need to provide better resources for mental health, drug dependency, and the needs of children & teens, I refuse to accept that that is the best we can do. > > Far from it. I am especially dubious about that stance because—although I don’t want to pin down any poster to something they said five years ago (or longer) and may have changed their minds about since—over the decades we’ve had very consistent input from Crafter\_Man about his strong opposition to government “funding” and “services”. As in [this statement of positions he supports,](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/unpopular-opinions-you-hold/787007/62) from back in 2017: > [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Medicare should end. > Medicaid should end. > Social security should end. > All schools and libraries should be private. > All forms of welfare should end. > The U.S. Department of Labor should be shut down. > The U.S. Department of Education should be shut down. > All gun control laws should be done away with. > The minimum wage should end. Maybe Crafter\_Man has had an epiphany in the intervening time and changed his position on the issue of whether society has a duty to “provide better funding and access to services” to address some of the problems that are contributing to our gun violence epidemic. Or maybe not. But whatever his personal views, ISTM that there are probably very many gun-regulation opponents out there who are currently just paying lip service to the idea of “better funding” for mental-health services in order to deflect attention from the issue of regulating guns. If somebody who opposes increased gun regulation claims to have an alternate solution to gun violence involving better societal policies for dealing with mental illness, I think we need to see some specific, concrete proposals for legislative action that they’re supporting, and steps that they’re taking to implement their support. Otherwise, I fear that “better funding for mental health” will just be the next “thoughts and prayers” buzzword. How can we tell when it’s more than a mere gesture toward virtue signaling, uttered by people who have no intention whatsoever of seriously advocating for more mental-health funding (and may even be ideologically opposed to it), but who just want to deflect some flak away from their opposition to gun regulation? ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/157 "2022-06-07T03:21:14Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > But whatever his personal views, ISTM that there are probably very many gun-regulation opponents out there who are currently just paying lip service to the idea of “better funding” for mental-health services in order to deflect attention from the issue of regulating guns. They get lampooned for “thoughts and prayers” now, this is the new bullshit boilerplate that the wacko fringe media is spoon-feeding the hivemind. It’s deflection pure and simple, its fundamentally dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/158 "2022-06-07T03:31:47Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Society can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can attend to mental health AND make it so that it’s somewhat harder for the person with “issues” to get easy access to the tools to do harm. Yes, and we already have laws against people with mental issues attaining a weapon. But we aren’t addressing basic mental health. If the news reports are accurate the recent school shooter had no prior issues yet he killed young children for reasons unknown. Why? That question is important. Something has changed significantly in the fabric of life in the US. If that isn’t addressed then it will continue to get worse. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/159 "2022-06-07T03:33:41Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Something has changed significantly in the fabric of life in the US. Like gun fetishism? Agreed. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/160 "2022-06-07T03:58:59Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think we need to see some specific, concrete proposals for legislative action that they’re supporting 2+2=4. We teach that in school as an accepted curriculum. It shouldn’t require a vast financial investment to teach children basic social skills. You can’t legislate morality. We exist as a society entirely on the contract of accepted behavior. We codify that behavior but we exist based on people following the rules set down. When I was a kid in the 60’s we dressed up to fly on a commercial plane. I couldn’t imagine passengers exposing themselves, peeing on the seats, or attacking flight attendants. It was literally beyond imagination. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/161 "2022-06-07T04:01:18Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > Like gun fetishism? Agreed. We’ve always had guns. It’s not a fetish to own one. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2022, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697/162 "2022-06-07T04:07:35Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > 2+2=4. We teach that in school as an accepted curriculum. It shouldn’t require a vast financial investment to teach children basic social skills. So, the “specific, concrete proposals” for addressing the problem of gun violence through “better funding and access to services” for mental health support are… we should demand that schoolteachers teach kids not to shoot people? But only if it doesn’t “require a vast financial investment”? This is practically caricaturing the sort of un-serious “tots and pears”-style lip service to speculative improbable alternatives to gun regulation that I was talking about in my post. Nah, thanks, I think I prefer to continue the conversation with Bullitt and his fellow gun owners who are willing to talk seriously about better gun regulation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/as-a-responsible-gun-owner-we-as-a-country-need-to-fix-this-gun-violence-problem/965697.md?page=9)