Ok, and you say you are opposed to getting rid of guns. So there are over 400 million guns in the US. That number is rising by 10s of millions every year. How do you propose to stop those already illegal acts of kids obtaining and taking guns into public? Surveillance in every house?
Because they are underpowered for hunting (unless you're custom building them in large calibers for hunting hogs, which I don't do.) And 22cal rounds are usually cheaper and take up less space. I don't care about the "cool" factor which is about the only real benefit to an AR.
We have a thread for this discussion, and violent crime and murder rates are something I'd like to see addressed. From all of the research I've seen, the push for gun control gets in the way of making meaningful change.
What I said is I'm not for taking everyone's guns away and I don't think most are. That's just fearmongering. But, we can make it harder for criminals and the mentally ill to buy it own them. We can hold parents responsible, like the parents in Michigan. If your kid gets access to your guns or you buy them guns and they do this shit, you need to be held responsible. A big problem here is parents are paying fucking attention. They need to pay attention. Make them. If parents know they will be held accountable then they will be accountable, they will take more responsibility with their children, they will lock their guns up like fort Knox. Less of these shootings will happen. You make it illegal for politicians to take money from gun lobbies.
I did not watch that video, but I'm familiar with the ammunition. That is just as much of a red herring. I'm 34 and want children, but I'm honestly struggling with making that leap while stuff like this is happening. I want a solution, and I understand I may never get that. That's why this is so frustrating. Besides pointing to GINI coefficient, you haven't offered any substantial solution or recommendation. "Nothing can be done" is how you come across.
Then don't let unidentified people in schools during school hours. Have an armed and trained staff member at the entrance. Problem pretty much solved.
Again, Oregon has more gun control laws than many other states. Which ones, in your opinion, are not needed. You keep saying that gun laws aren't making a measurable difference in gun deaths. But is that really a valid argument? Currently, in Oregon we have a Red Flag law, part of it is if you were to beat the shit out of your wife and were criminally charged for it the police can request that all of your guns are removed from you and your home until the disposition of your charges. Do we really need statistics to show that this is a good idea? And yes, there are cases here in Oregon where people have still gotten a gun and killed their spouse but isn't doing something better than doing nothing at all?
I have offered alternatives to the proposed gun control that I think we could pass in a year or two without too much effort. Limit anybody under 18 and without a clean ID from buying firearms. Then allow police and even doctors to confiscate the ID of dangerous people (or even invalidate the ID with a hole punch). When they get their replacement ID it can have a weapons restriction. Make it a felony to provide weapons to people with the weapons restriction. This can include firearms, swords, whatever we decide is reasonable. If you are guilty of a felony get your very own weapons restricted ID. I don't think republicans will fight this much because we're only putting restrictions on criminals. We may have to tweak it here or there to get it through, but it's a far simpler solution than universal background checks and has the same effect. I don't believe we will ever limit the number of guns in this country, and I don't think our political climate will get us closer to universal background checks. I think the evidence for that is pretty clear.
We really need term limits in the Congress and Senate so these politicians can stop focusing on re-election and focus on getting shit done... actually helping the people that fucking put them there.
I supported the red flag law. I think close family and doctors should be able to have your guns removed if they believe you are a danger to yourself and others. However, I think we should have a quick and inexpensive way for people to challenge these rulings and get their guns back in cases of disputes etc. I think we should make more efforts to prevent this from being used as a weapon (for example, because your made your cousin mad or whatever). I think our current background check system is stupid, inefficient, and expensive. It should be a mark on dangerous peoples ID or there should be an easily searchable free database of dangerous people.
And I support mostly all of that. But do you think this kids grandmother would have been more worried about getting in trouble than getting murdered by him? You don't think he would have just killed her, taken the key and gotten the guns? Killing the parents/family members is very common with these school shootings. I think this is a much bigger problem that just making parents afraid of repercussions. If my kid did this I wouldn't care about the legal repercussions. I'd care that my kid took lives and ruined/ended their own life. There is nothing worse than that as a parent, IMO. We need to help parents identify and treat these troubled kids beforehand. And that's what my suggestions are centered around.
Let me know when someone 3d prints a gun and kills 18 children in a school, btw. That argument is bonkers.
No, it's just a concern that I have and would like to protect against. It's something I wanted before it was instituted because I don't believe government should ever punish innocent people in the name of "safety", and the red flag law happens so quickly it seems like it could be open to abuse.
Why is it bonkers? 3d printed guns are an extreme minority of guns. 99.999% of guns are never used to kill anybody. Again, kids are 20x more likely to be killed by their own parents than by a gun in school. That's how unlikely it is to happen. There is no black market for 3D printed guns because there are plenty of other guns. But prohibition creates black markets. That's why I'm opposed to prohibition.