Unless the shooter was named “Bubba”; then, it would definitely be a UN thing, and the news would be announcing that “…self-proclaimed White Supremacist Bubba…”
I don’t understand gun obsession either.
I also don’t understand stamp collecting. Or why so many people care so much about who had what ERA in what season. Or Civil War history buffs. Now Doctor Who obsession, I get that.
I don’t care much about it either. A responsible gun collector, a nut in the same sense that someone is a nut about Dickens perhaps, is fine by me, and of no more danger to me, or to you. I only care that they are responsible. Most are. The vast vast majority. Some are not.
What I don’t get is why so many responsible gun collectors/users feel the need to allow the small minority of irresponsible owners to behave so irresponsibly in such an unfettered manner.
Because it’s very hard to fashion fetters that only restrict the irresponsible. And because there ARE a significant number of people out there who DO want to take guns out of the hands of even responsible people (as anyone who reads these threads regularly can see), and they are wary of giving those people tools that might in the future facilitate such a move.
We fashion those fetters all the time for almost all areas of life, including freedom of speech, another right. It is not so hard. Especially if responsible gun owners played a major role in developing the fetters instead of merely saying that any effort to make the irresponsible behave better must be opposed lest we slide down an imagined slippery slope.
And while there are people out there (and here) with extreme positions, and they are vocal, and obnoxious, they are not in fact significant numbers. Very few actually “want to take guns out of the hands of even responsible people.” Some greater minority are more afraid of guns than rational analysis would warrant, I grant. But even they are a minority and they educable.
Taking a position of essentially endorsing the abrogation of real responsibility as a response to the vocal positions held by a small minority who in truth have no power seems irrational and counterproductive to me. I apologize if that comes off rude.
But significant restrictions on gun ownership already exist. It’s facetious to pretend they don’t. And passing new restrictions is only warranted if they will actually reduce the perceived problems. Most of the restrictions I’ve seen proposed would not; they would merely burden law-abiding firearms owners to no useful purpose.
Unfortunately loudness, persistence, and (especially) money count for a lot in our political system. A persistent minority can manage to get a lot of legislation passed if the majority isn’t paying much attention (something that gun owners are well aware of).
Only if they want to be educated. Many seemingly don’t.
No, not rude, just misstaing the position of most gun owners. Right now the average firearms owner has little faith that future legislation will stop at a reasonable point. Every time some tragedy happens, there’s an automatic rush to pass more restrictive gun laws. At what point do we draw the line and say we’ve done as much as is reasonable, and any further restriction will be an unwarranted restriction on liberty? (I notice that Norway, the site of one of the worst gun massacres in history, hasn’t felt the need for more laws.) I don’t see many people calling for censorship of the internet, despite the fact that it makes it much easier for radical organizations to recruit people and for would-be killers to manufacture bombs - but I DO regularly see calls to ban some or all guns from civilian hands, or to make ownership so burdensome it would be impractical for most people. Don’t think most other gun owners haven’t noticed that discrepancy as well.
But this is getting off-topic for this thread, so I’ll stop here (before it turns into one of the usual gun thread messes). To the OP, I’ll only state that if you don’t shoot or collect, you might not understand the appeal - but that’s true of plenty of other activities besides firearms ownership. Why are you baffled by my interest in guns, but not by my interest in horses, or orchids, or travel?
Okay, so your issue is not that it is is difficult but that you believe it is already adequately done. And you fear that anything else done will lead to the small vocal extremists pushing more past the rest of us. I disagree on both fronts but I agree with that it is best to stop this aside here before it provokes a larger hijack and the usual mess that goes along with it.
It’s not the interest, it’s the apparent obsession. I’m not “baffled” by anyone’s interest in anything (well, almost anything).
I am all for new gun laws that prevent violence with guns. The problem is that there aren’t any solutions being proposed that make any sense by lawmakers who are clearly knee jerking.
What law is proposed that doesn’t punish the non-guilty? 99% of gun owners are hugely responsible, but every law I have seen proposed serves to punish those 99% while mostly neglecting the 1% of actual evil doers.
I am all in favor of laws that prosecute heavily those found illegally carrying/using guns. In Florida, the possession of a gun during a crime is auto 5 years, discharging is 10 and I believe actually shooting someone is 20. Nonetheless, here in FL, the gun violence is unabated. The reason is that those who are determined to commit crime are by definition, criminals and not known for their respect of laws. More laws mean nothing if they aren’t willing to obey the current ones. Worse, suppose a felon stupidly attempts to purchase a firearm legally…the current Govt is not prosecuting that.
I get that there are people who don’t understand guns. Again, we all don’t understand something that others believe strongly in. That is how life is. What truly bugs me is when YOU can’t understand something I believe in strongly and feel that it is fine to take it away. I cannot fathom why the entire state of New York is okay with Bloomberg’s soda ban. I despise those who feel so superior in their knowledge that they are comfortable putting aside my life’s choices to insert their own.
I see a front plate on a car that I think illustrates this problem.
“Rhetoric ignites flames”
I get the idea. The problem is that one man’s rhetoric is another man’s impassioned plea for freedom/justice…
By whose definition obsession? I own guns, I am not obsessed.
I own guns, I am not afraid.
It is quite Orwellian to label what you don’t like with negative terms.
We’re not. Bloomberg’s soda ban would have affected only NYC (he’s the mayor, after all, not the governor) and it’s currently delayed. And from what I’ve been hearing, the majority of New Yorkers are not in favor of it.
I think the word “apparent” is the key. Most gun owners (even those that own dozens of guns, like my father) are not obsessed. They just enjoy collecting and/or shooting. My father also enjoys photography and collecting antique clocks, and (when I was a child) miniature trains (he used to collect N-gauge, and had a nice track setup in our basement). The difference is, no one’s trying to legislate his other hobbies away. Nor is he constantly being accused of being some sort of dangerous weirdo because he owns a bevy of DSLR lenses. That does make a difference!