The NRA is not all powerful, their total political donations in an election cycle is dwarfed by some individuals. They may have gone off the rails (because of how their elections work) but it doesnt really help the siituation to fight stupid ideas with different stupid ideas.
I thought I had proposed some reasonable regulations (licencing and registration) and what I keep hearing from several gun control advocates is “well that might be a good place to START”
The 2nd amendment is no more absolute than any other, it is no less either.
In a constitutional democracy, “society” is constrained by the constitution.
Sorry, reverse psychology isn’t working this time. Anyway here’s a 66 year old lady who saved her life by shooting an intruder. Don’t click of you are squeamish of blood:
Though, I guess you gun-grabbers think she should have been trained in Muay Thai.
Both of us. Both Elucidator and I think the rewards of drinking alcohol is worth the risks that come with it. Elucidator (and a lot of you if you share his belief) becomes a hypocrite when they want to outlaw firearms, for which use also has risks and rewards, simply because they don’t like them, fear them, or just think they are supposed to be against them because they were indoctrinated as democrats or something. Yes?
So, you think any attempt to reduce gun violence is a failure unless it eliminates all violence? If gun violence only went down 20-30%, it would be a bad thing?
Of course not. If drunk driving deaths went down 20-30% we’d all think that’s great wouldn’t we? But none of us would outlaw alcohol to do it though, would we?
Then what was the point of linking to a single example of British gun violence? You avoided telling us what the real impact of gun control in Britain is by pretending it is a failure.
That single exception was a mass killing with a double barrel shotgun and a bolt action .22. If someone wants to kill a lot of people they’ll do it. And none of this gun control is about concern for innocent lives, else you would all champion more important causes, and you wouldn’t ignore the lives saved by guns. It’s about your fear of guns Fear Itself.
There are better choices for home security than a gun. I think guns give people a false sense of security. They think that’s all they need and that they’ll use it to fend off the intruder. But guns require someone to operate them. If the intruder is silent, the gun will sit there inert while he enters your bedroom and kills you.
Why not instead look at solutions which actively impede an intruder. She could have had an alarm, a dog, and upgraded doors/windows. All of those things would have helped prevent the intruder from ever getting to her in the first place. Even if the she became incapacitated, they will continue to work. I think that a 66-year-old woman will get more security from an alarm and dog than she would with a gun. Plus, if she doesn’t have a gun, she can’t accidentally shoot herself or a family member with it.
Well, like most people she didn’t accidentally shoot herself or a family member. Alarms and dogs are great, but cost more. And unlike an alarm or a dog, a gun stops the intruder from just moving down the line to another house without a dog or alarm.
Says who? How many home defenses with a gun result in killing, disabling or apprehending an assailant, as opposed to just scaring him away like a dog or an alarm? Oh, that’s right, we are not permitted to collect data on gun violence.
I think you may have blundered blindly within reach of my actual point, rather than the voices in your head.
Grew up in Texas, where guns were very common. Are to this day. So was alcohol, a very accepted part of life. Drinking and driving was only looked down upon by Calvinistic killjoys with a pickle up their butt. Of course, outside of greater metropolitan Waco, you might drive an hour and see no one else.
But drinking and driving is stupid and dangerous. Ought to be laws against it, ought to be disapproved by right-thinking people. A progressive notion. Met with the happy enthusiasm for change that Texas has long been envied for. Well, actually, no, it was a long hard slog. But bless their pointy little heads, the idea began to seep in.
Not gonna stop with that, you know, that’s just the first step. Next it will be seat belts! Then they’ll close up all the package stores in every county, not just the ones with an overabundance of Baptists. Church of Christ, too, they can be a real pain about it. You wait and see, first you can’t drive with a beer, then they come for your whiskey!
Its about violence and fear as central themes in our culture. Guns, and the myth of their necessity, are symptoms. That’s what I want to change, and that is not subject to law, it can’t be legislated, the only road is the slow road. I don’t want to take people’s guns, I want them to stop thinking they need them.
So, I am encouraged by what you would think of as “anti-gun” awareness, but haven’t the slightest inclination to try and take them away. Keep the goddam things if they mean that much to you.
Mine resulted in the disabling and apprehending of an assailant. So have most of the video’s I’ve posted. However you bring up a good point. The numbers of crimes stopped without making the news is much more. Maybe in the hundreds of thousands to millions. There are studies on that BTW, and you are permitted to collect any data you want.
That’s a lot of blather and you didn’t talk your way out of your hypocrisy. As I recall, you would in fact like to do away with all the black “goddam things.” But not your alcohol, no way!
