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Post by The Curmudgeon on Aug 27, 2015 14:17:22 GMT 2
It had to happen eventually, I suppose, and I'm surprised it took as long as it did. But we now have it, a reporter has been murdered live on TV, and I guarantee the ghoulish media just loved the fact you got to see the killer pointing his gun and everything. Of course it opens up the argument for gun control in the States which, lets face it, is never going to go away.
Interesting to note that Wallmart will now no longer sell firearms to the public, which could be a major move in the right direction. It seems "the right to bear arms" is now "the right to arm fucking lunatics who shoot up schools." It's kinda telling that when I was trying to Google a cinema shooting I had to be specific about which one I meant.
I'm not in the States so I don't see the full picture of what's going on. How do you American's feel about the seemingly never ending high profile shooting cases going on over there right now? Has the world gone mad?
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Post by trashcanman on Aug 27, 2015 18:45:47 GMT 2
In reality it's the same world, different media. www.statisticbrain.com/murder-weapon-statistics/We're actually DOWN like 40% from twenty years ago. It's just now we have 24/7 media cramming every fucking horrible thing they can find into our eyes and ears non-stop and insisting something be done about it to incite arguments that ignore the real problems. The ones robbing us blind and telling us that what's wrong with the country is that poor people have too much. Anyways, there is any way to stop crazy people from becoming crazy short of an Orwellian dystopia that we don't even have the technology for (yet). The price of freedom is that it frees up bad people to do bad things as much as it does good people to do good things. And taking guns from law-abiding citizens will likely only succeed in making every criminal with a gun confident that they can go into anybody's house and know the occupants won't be able to shoot back. And the war on drugs worked out so well for us, why not add firearms to the mix? How about the government spend less money trying to take everything away from the citizenry and start using it to give something back? Just a thought. |
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Post by The Curmudgeon on Sept 1, 2015 11:13:41 GMT 2
Yeah, it's something I've said before to other people, not about gun violence, but about child molesters. That, OMG, they're everywhere now and far worse than it used to be is false. There's always been evil bastards out there, always, but we haven't had endless streams of information beamed directly into our eyeballs every time we look down on our phones.
The "right to bear arms" is a tricky one. Having a gun in the house to protect yourself is one thing, but where do kids get guns to go shoot up schools? Is it really a good idea to have guns as readily available to buy as cars?
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Post by trashcanman on Sept 1, 2015 19:19:19 GMT 2
Well, they do have laws about having to wait a certain amount of time and getting registered and not having a criminal record or psychiatric problems and all of that. Kids get guns to shoot up schools from shitty parents. I think it's illegal to have a gun and ammunition stored in the same place and they both need to be locked, but it isn't enforced to my knowledge. You can't exactly defend your home from somebody if you have to get the keys, go open two different cabinets/safes/whatever and load the gun while a maniac is trying to kill your family. But then again, how many home invasions of that kind ever even happen? Only 7% of burglaries involve violence, and the overwhelming majority of those were people they knew and unarmed. The average burglary costs people a little over $2000. Personally, I'd rather lose $2000 than kill somebody. People need to take responsibility for their toys and treat guns with respect so their 14 year old doesn't decide to ignore Johnny Cash and take his guns to town. Nobody is crashing through your window in the middle of the night to rape and murder your family in America. And if they are, there's probably something very wrong with your lifestyle.
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Post by Ben on Sept 2, 2015 18:50:36 GMT 2
I'm a gun owner myself and probably more pro-2nd Amendment than most, but there are a lot of bogus statistics and propaganda on both sides. I know nobody in Europe gets it, but guns aren't the problem. Like Trashcanman said, the media is responsible for making it seem like shootings happen all the time, but in reality, more kids drown in swimming pools each year than die in school shootings. The news also curiously neglects to report on attempted shootings that were foiled by off-duty cops (with guns) and regular citizens (with guns). The same day Sandy Hook happened (that infamous elementary school shooting), two other whackos attempted to shoot up shopping malls in separate incidents and both were stopped by people who just happened to be carrying guns.
I'm pretty skeptical of the idea that making guns harder to get will make them go away, too. Just look at Illinois or Washington D.C. There was an outright handgun ban in DC for a decade (until it was deemed illegal) and it still had one of the highest murder rates by firearm in the nation. As uncomfortable as it makes some people, guns are a part of America that is never going away.
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