# So what will it take for there to be serious gun control debate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2019, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166 "2019-08-04T09:51:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/21 "2019-08-04T14:10:23Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > What will it take for there to be meaningful (i.e., Republicans actually on board) gun control debate in this country? Or are we stuck for another couple of decades waiting for the current old guard to die out? When you say debate, do you mean something else besides debate? Because there seems to be plenty of debate. The merits of any given argument shouldn’t hinge on a given current event. That’s the rationale behind not wanting to politicize a tragedy. But hey, never let a tragedy go to waste, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/22 "2019-08-04T14:15:05Z")
Who pays the bills for the people that get shot? I don’t have health insurance and I wonder what would happen if I got shot in one of these things. See if I get hit by a car, the other driver’s insurance will pay, or if they don’t have it, my uninsured motorist rider will. Who pays when little Timmy steals Dad’s gun or something and shoots me? Honest question. I don’t know how that works. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/23 "2019-08-04T14:16:49Z")
Even if sweeping legislation was passed tomorrow it’s still very much, “closing the door after the horse has bolted!”, in my opinion. There are millions of legal, private arsenals in your country. After each shooting the nutjobs flood the gun stores, to buy the assault weapon used, out of fear they will soon be removed from the market! Now add in all the illegal weapons in play, and good lord, it could take decades before you begin to see any effect, I should think. Maybe start making strident education requirements, etc. You have to take x courses to get a rifle, and then escalate to hand guns and assault rifles, requiring several expensive courses over several years, and accuracy shooting updates like cops have, for the worst class of weapons? Or maybe just tax the shit out of them. An expensive permit for each weapon, old or new, the nastier the more costly, renewed every year. Children in the home? Means extensive/expensive insurance required. And, of course, a HUGE fine for any unaccounted weapon, plus loss of all weapons and permits if one of your guns is used in the commission of a crime? Maybe instead of buy back only, offer every ghetto kid a years college tuition for each gun they bring in! (Now imagine kids thirsting for an education, start robbing muggers and taking down gangs for the tuition, ha ha ha!) Unfortunately good governance is about making the right decision at the right time. Trying to undo things seems ever so much more difficult to me. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/24 "2019-08-04T14:24:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Gun manufacturers would love this scenario. Because they know fear drives gun sales. > > If black militants were buying guns, the average white gun-owner response wouldn’t be “We need gun control.” It would be “I need to buy more guns.” I’m afraid you’re right about this. Much of the opposition to gun control, it seems to me, stems from fear. If you take my guns away, you take my power away. And anything that makes me more fearful, makes me clutch my guns more tightly. (That’s a rhetorical “me,” in case you can’t tell. I, personally, don’t have any guns.) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/25 "2019-08-04T14:37:53Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > When you say debate, do you mean something else besides debate? Because there seems to be plenty of debate. > > The merits of any given argument shouldn’t hinge on a given current event. That’s the rationale behind not wanting to politicize a tragedy. But hey, never let a tragedy go to waste, I guess. Post 9/11 foreign policy was almost entirely driven, at least for several years, by that event. It was mostly bad policy, thus supporting your caution to argue on the merits rather than on immediate events. But if you’re asking or expecting gun control advocates to ignore ongoing mass shootings, then ISTM that you’re asking them to be superhuman. That’s just how humans work. What do you think can reduce these types of mass shootings? ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/26 "2019-08-04T14:40:17Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > I suspect having a bunch of black people walk around proclaiming and displaying their ‘right to carry’ would have a pretty rapid reaction…after, of course, several dozen POC being shot for demonstrating said right. > > > [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > > > This is, historically, what has led to gun control. Not just the famous Reagan example, but more generally when politicians imagine the assailants to be Black then they will legislate. > > > > As you say, though, in this climate such a thing is just as likely to spiral into widespread violence as to lead to meaningful policy change. So the answer to the OP is probably: civil war or something similar. If I remember my history, when the Black Panthers showed up armed on the capitol steps in Sacramento, gun control became a reality in California with the [Mulford Act](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act). However, the backlash to those laws triggered a backlash that brought us the politicized NRA, the gun lobby and the modern [gun rights movement](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/the-secret-history-of-guns/308608/). > [@](#): > > The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership—and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers—the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there’s no resolution in sight. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/27 "2019-08-04T14:46:44Z")
The so-called serious debate has been and is ongoing. The complaint is that the outcome desired by one side has not yet been realized. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/28 "2019-08-04T14:51:40Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > When you say debate, do you mean something else besides debate? Because there seems to be plenty of debate. > > The merits of any given argument shouldn’t hinge on a given current event. That’s the rationale behind not wanting to politicize a tragedy. But hey, never let a tragedy go to waste, I guess. A tragedy is not being politicized. A seemingly never ending stream of tragedies, for which nothing is being done, is being politicized. Big difference. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/29 "2019-08-04T14:52:41Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > The merits of any given argument shouldn’t hinge on a given current event. That’s the rationale behind not wanting to politicize a tragedy. But hey, never let a tragedy go to waste, I guess. Sometimes that’s true, but not always. It depends on the magnitude of the tragedy and how it’s perceived. After the Dunblane mass shooting in Scotland in 1996, the UK passed a Firearms Amendment Act in direct response, significantly tightening already strict gun regulation. After the Port Arthur massacre, Australia passed sweeping new gun legislation and a gun buyback program. After the mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, the parliament there passed strong new gun legislation literally within weeks. Yet in the only country in the world where mass shootings occur with stunning frequency, they have not even moved the needle on gun control. Shockingly, not a thing was done after Sandy Hook. How many mass shootings have there been since then? (According to [this](https://www.vox.com/a/mass-shootings-america-sandy-hook-gun-violence), there have been 2,189.) There have been three in just the last week, and two in the past 24 hours. Surely a consideration of this unique frequency of mass shootings that occur over and over and over again, and seem to happen almost exclusively in the US, goes far beyond merely “politicizing” some one particular current event? ---
**Author:** ![Kimera757](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kimera757/32/3765_2.png) [@Kimera757](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimera757)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/30 "2019-08-04T14:54:18Z")
What would it take? A Democratic majority in the Supreme Court, a Democratic supermajority in the Senate, and a Democratic Congress. A Democratic president would be nice, but not required, as presidents don’t pass legislation. (A supermajority would not only stop a veto, but override filibusters.) And even these might not be enough. Some of those Democratic Senate seats would be in “pro gun” states and those senators would not vote in favor of gun control. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/31 "2019-08-04T15:01:52Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > We need to peacefully take to the streets. All of us. > > We have to bring the country to a standstill. This sounds extreme, but I think it’s the only thing that will work. I think Gandhi(a victim of gun violence) would have approved. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/32 "2019-08-04T15:07:20Z")
Imagine using the “never let a tragedy go to waste” criticism in the context of any tragedy that wasn’t a white American shooting a bunch of people. Tornado kills thousands? Dam breaks? Massive earthquakes and fires? Outbreak of disease? Ship sinks? These are times for reflection, let’s not be hasty and pass any new laws or anything. The only reason it’s any different is that there’s implicitly another “side” to the anti-gun-massacre movement. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/33 "2019-08-04T15:24:26Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > The so-called serious debate has been and is ongoing. The complaint is that the outcome desired by one side has not yet been realized. And the outcome desired from the other side that _has_ been realized-are you happen with it? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/34 "2019-08-04T15:29:03Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > When you say debate, do you mean something else besides debate? Because there seems to be plenty of debate. > > The merits of any given argument shouldn’t hinge on a given current event. That’s the rationale behind not wanting to politicize a tragedy. But hey, never let a tragedy go to waste, I guess. Too soon? I’m sorry, but the double disaster from yesterday points out that “too soon” just doesn’t apply anymore when the heat from the gun barrels far outweigh the heat of the argument. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/35 "2019-08-04T15:36:21Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > What will it take for there to be meaningful (i.e., Republicans actually on board) gun control debate in this country? Or are we stuck for another couple of decades waiting for the current old guard to die out? It does occur to me that, yes, we could have a serious gun control debate if there were fewer opponents of gun control. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/36 "2019-08-04T15:50:26Z")
> [@Caldris\_bal\_Comar](#): > > In my opinion, if Sandy Hook didn’t lead to meaningful reform, there is nothing in the world that will. The only question is how much political capital will be lit on fire by Democratic politicians calling for wide ranging gun restrictions. Democrats aren’t going to do this. Oh, they’ll come out for background checks or the like. You know, the feel good measures that might save some lives here and there, but not for the kinds of restrictions that address the root of the problem: too many people with too many guns. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/37 "2019-08-04T15:59:27Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Tornado kills thousands? Dam breaks? Massive earthquakes and fires? Outbreak of disease? Ship sinks? These are times for reflection, let’s not be hasty and pass any new laws or anything. You are correct. Hasty do-somethingism is not appropriate in those situations. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/38 "2019-08-04T16:03:09Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > You are correct. Hasty do-somethingism is not appropriate in those situations. If we refer to current disasters it is “too soon”, and if we wait until it dies down there are other current events to talk about that are “more important”. I’m sorry, but this hypocritical approach just doesn’t fly any more. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/39 "2019-08-04T16:11:47Z")
> [@Fiddle\_Peghead](#): > > Democrats aren’t going to do this. Oh, they’ll come out for background checks or the like. You know, the feel good measures that might save some lives here and there, but not for the kinds of restrictions that address the root of the problem: too many people with too many guns. I honestly don’t know whether the root of the problem is “too many people with too many guns,” or whether it’s the _wrong kind_ of people with guns, or whether it’s people with the _wrong kind_ of guns. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2019, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166/40 "2019-08-04T16:12:27Z")
> [@Ruken](#): > > You are correct. Hasty do-somethingism is not appropriate in those situations. It’s only appropriate in those situations where an existing gap or oversight in the legislative framework led to the conditions in which those disasters occurred. Which is to say all of them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-what-will-it-take-for-there-to-be-serious-gun-control-debate/838166.md?page=3)