Gun control wouldn't have stopped what happened in Vegas...should we do it anyway?

She. Gotta read the article before responding.

Basically, we should probably just focus on hammering home the well-established fact that owning a gun makes you more, not less, likely to be killed by a gun and trust that people will make decisions in the best interest of themselves and their families. As this message takes hold, owning guns will become less common and socially acceptable. It will take time, but it’s what’s worked for reducing deaths from tobacco, drunk driving, and not wearing seat belts.

:smack:

Missed yours. Sorry.

yeah ok. She.

Again, this was in the quote posted by Bricker: “Almost no proposed restriction would make it meaningfully harder for people with guns on hand to use them”

That doesn’t seem to be what people are discussing in this thread at all. I’m questioning the relevance.

Well, people in this thread are largely talking about mass shootings, which represent a tiny fraction of gun deaths annually in the US. But two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides, and short of banning guns entirely, there’s no gun control measure that’s going to make too much of a dent in that.

I doubt it. Cars are not as easy to sneak into a crowd as a gun. Cars are not as easy to snipe with from 30 stories up and across the street. Cars are a one shot. Once you’ve hit the crowd, it’s pretty hard to get any more damage done.

Cars can also be stopped. It is not that difficult to put up concrete barriers that will stop cars and even speeding trucks from entering into a crowded area.

None of this is true of guns.

Are you talking within the second amendment, or after it’s repealed?

Within the second amendment, I don’t see a whole lot that can be done. Not without some level of cooperation of the gun advocates, anyway. Every step that is taken with an attempt to curb gun violence is challenged and ultimately overturned on a 2A basis.

Once the second is repealed, there are other options. Outlawing open carry and requiring people to have a reason and a harder to get than attend a 6 hour class CCW would be an interesting first step. That would make it harder for criminals and soon to be criminals to move around with their weapons while blending in with the rest of the legal gun carriers.

I personally wouldn’t want to go too far. I don’t have a problem with guns, I just would rather see them in the hands of people who are more responsible and less mentally unstable.

Of course, if there is no 2A anymore, then the anti-gun folks can just make guns illegal, and go round 'em all up. I have the feeling that once that’s done, there will be a touch less gun violence. This is not the position that I advocate, but it is the position I see as eventually inevitable if the gun advocates refuse to give an inch in compromise.

(post shortened)

The mass-murderers who planned, and carried out, the Columbine High School massacre were bombers who chose to use firearms as their backup plan.

In addition to the shootings, the complex and highly planned attack involved a fire bomb to divert firefighters, propane tanks converted to bombs placed in the cafeteria, 99 explosive devices, and carbombs.

Would it be possible to ban semi-automatic weapons under the second amendment?

I’m just going by the article. It seems like she came to the conclusion that no proposed restrictions on guns would prevent people who already had guns from using them. Well, that seems self-evident.

I don’t even know where to start, and don’t have the time right now to go back over every single item, so only hitting the main ones here:

By all means, please cite how many children die from unintentional use of ‘knives, matches and poisons’.
For some reason I seem to have missed the multitude of ‘6yr old boy finds matches, sets 4yr old sister on fire’ articles.

They also have beneficial uses - you know, the things they were specifically made to do.

Am I an expert on suicide? I don’t know that I’d qualify as a proper expert.
But I do think I know more than the average person.
And yes, my cites would 100% back me up.

Making suicides even just a little bit harder almost always results in a sharp drop in suicides.
Quite frankly I’m shocked this isn’t common knowledge. It’s certainly not controversial in the slightest.
Simply adding slightly higher barriers that are harder to climb over often immediately reduce attempted suicides by 50% or more.
The increase in jumping suicides at other nearby locations is usually much smallerthan the decrease at the site in question.
Here’s just one(of many) articles that discusses one of the studies:

In the UK, suicides fell by 30% when ovens were converted from coal gas - which emits carbon monoxide - to natural gas…and suicides stayed at the lower rate.
In other words, once an easy way of offing yourself was no longer easily available, people just…stayed on living.
Turns out someone contemplating suicide is probably not the most motivated person in the world. Who knew?

Suicides tend to be impulsive, spur of the moment decisions - something we only know by talking to people that have survived serious suicide attempts.
And yes, we know that people that survived a suicide attempt usually don’t attempt it again.
Problem with guns, of course, is that you’re very very likely to be very successful on your first attempt.

If someone really really wants to off themselves, they’ll find a way.
Far to often, however, it’s someone suffering from crippling depression or otherwise in a temporary bad place.
And that becomes a permanent solution because they had access to a gun.

I have no idea what point you’re trying to make. Are you assuming that anyone without a gun is just going to sit there and let you kill them?
Sure - if you really are that bat-shit crazy determined to kill me and my family and are that determined to get into my house, with my home security system and alarms - sure.
Maybe you’ll force your way in.
Although I’m not sure why you think I’m also not perfectly capable of defending myself in my own home, which I know better than you do.
Remember all those dangerous objects you mentioned - knife, bat, hammer, axe, garden tool, extension cord, flammable liquid?
I don’t have them on hand for protection, but I can damn well use them for that purpose if I have to.

Anyway, I’m comfortable with the idea that a visibly working home security system prevents 99.99% of potential ‘home invasions’.
If I was involved in activities where there was a high likelihood of someone wanting to specifically kill me, maybe I’d think differently.
But I’m not, so I’m good.

It’s not just my thoughts or ideas, pumpkin. The rest of the developed world is looking at the US and shaking their collective heads.

Once again - in order to repeal the second amendment, you have to fundamentally change the US society first. Once you do that, it won’t be US anymore. So yes, there will be a plethora of “other options” in this not-United-States-anymore country.

Sorry you’re tired of trying to make absurd points that make no sense. Your OP started off by poisoning the well and you went on from there.

Why do you think he used a bump stock? Was it a style choice?

If it didn’t help him kill more people he might have passed on the option to do that. Common sense says you are making excuses here but I have no idea why.

I saw someone on Fox news last night say the same thing you are saying about silencers. (Sorry but it was Brian Kilmeade. This is not to cause offense to you. Just the truth) Saying that no silencer was used therefore there is nothing to see or think about here!?

You have already been explained to about why they are the shooters good friend and the victims mortal enemy. You have been explained to why there would have been many more deaths if he had had a silencer, the kind that Dump junior has promoted very recently… You can hear and see something of what it was like in the footage. Every second counted for them. I’m sorry you can’t understand that. But really dude, how do you think you are supporting this ridiculous OP?

By saying without any support at all, that you think he could squeeze off enough shots manually to compete with an automated gun? (Guess you never heard the the song John Henry?)

By saying he didn’t use a silencer? (again)

That’s it?

So let me get this straight. You think you have made an inarguable point and you are confused as to why anyone would argue past your first thought? You shouldn’t be so confused.

A total ban on all semi-auto weapons? I don’t think that’d fly after Heller and McDonald, but the answer probably depends more on the make-up of the SCOTUS than anything else. (Yay Trump!)

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but semi-autos are really common. A ban on semi-autos would be a ban on hundreds of millions of guns already in the hands of citizens.

I find it amusing that you think that if the US decided not to allow there to be guns anymore it would stop being the US. By that “logic” we stopped being the US when we stopped allowing slavery, or stopped allowing unlicensed cars, or stopped allowing booze, or restarted allowing booze, or, or, or…

But hey, if banning guns caused you to move away in search for the “true” america elsewhere, then more power to you. I hear travel is broadening.

I’m well aware that it would be next to impossible to pry the existing guns from everybody’s warm, living hands. (As they’re “common”, as you say, I assume everybody but me has one, or ten.) I was just vaguely curious whether such a ban would be possible to do at a legal level. It certainly would be a more coherent approach than trying to ban “assault weapons”, whatever the hell those are. At least “non-single-fire” has a coherent definition.

A US in which two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate vote to repeal the Second, and then 38 states’ legislatures vote to repeal it is not the United States I know. Or anyone knows, really.

Where are the gun fans who feel like they would have been better off in that situation with a gun?
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What happened to our greatness?

Is it because reality often throws monkey wrenches into peoples wet dreams and theories.

And where is the shame and anger? This OP started out poisoned, and nobody on either side is angry about the cycle that we are in, or that you are arguing a poisoned premise? WTF.

My feeling is I agree with the insurance liability treatment of guns. So when we have a record shattering mass killing it will cause the industry to revisit the cost of owning such things to be more in line with the the cost that we put on 60 lives and 500 peoples health. I’m saying that if you want to have a gun you should be willing to pay a large portion of your annual salary for the coverage, commensurate with the risk.

I would think if you want that not to happen you would be worrying about about something other than that some progressive politician is going to take away your guns.

True, but the article only focused on proposed restrictions. Not on actions that could be taken if there were no longer a second amendment shield.

Without 2A, A state could just make guns illegal and come take them all. This is a nightmare for gun advocates, but is why I think that it is a better course of action to negotiate before the second amendment loses favor in the public.

I don’t think that there needs to be that fundamental of a change. I really think that you overstate the number of people who are willing to continue seeing this level of violence without being willing to do something about it.

Especially since it would be left to the states, if 2A were removed. If you want a gun, you can live in a state that makes it easy to have a gun. If you don’t want to be shot, you can live in a state that makes it illegal to bring a gun in. If you want a mix, then live in a state that has managed to find a middle ground.

Now, one of the things that gun advocates say about that, is if you make having a gun illegal, then only criminals will have guns. Well, there’s an advantage in that. Now we know who the criminal is, the guy with the gun. Right now they blend in with the law abiding gun carriers. Without open carriers volunteering to camouflage the actions of criminals, it will be much easier to see a guy walking into a restaurant/school/bank with a gun and know that he’s up to no good.

And it is not I that will be making changes to society. It will be the people who abuse guns, and the people who defend them and give them cover that caused that shift in society.

It’s not the United States I currently know.

It’s the one we can aspire to, however.

A United States without slavery was not a United States people in the 1850s knew. It didn’t stop the right thing from happening.

I’m of the opinion that you could replace the entire population of both the house and senate with turnips and it would not effect the rest of the country one whit. Well, okay, we’d all probably feel a bit calmer if those folks were literally vegetables, but other than that, I’m pretty sure my commute to work in the morning would be largely unaffected.