Yeah, I'm sure they are, and I don't think they they are all necessarily "bad guys". The point of the punishment wouldn't be just to place blame, but to make it publicly absolutely clear that we expect our law enforcement to intervene and help people who are at risk if necessary to save lives. IMO, it's not necessarily the individual officers who are the problem, but the overall system which needs to be completely re-imagined and revamped nationwide. However, that will demand getting rid of any police officer with the wrong background. Including any officer with history of domestic violence. Obviously there is no mechanism to enforce this currently, but this is how we should have things set up. Police should be compelled to take fire upon themselves if necessary to reduce the risk to civilians. And in an active shooter situation, anybody in police leadership should know that when police show up and PUSH the killing of civilians stops immediately. This is a problem with the way our police are trained and the culture of police we have. It's where ACAB comes from. Not every individual is a bad person, most likely are not. But the system they are in forces them to be an enemy of the public good far too often.
There's a pecking order for police accountability but any soldier or policeperson can say no...I said no to throwing garbage in the ocean I didn't think you should throw in the ocean...cost me a paygrade and two weeks confinement to the ship. Old cans of lead paint don't belong in the ocean.
We shall have to agree to disagree on that. I believe one is a mindwarp of a religion. The other largely parental neglect. Paths are much different even if they end up the same.
I am not sure i follow this? So lets say 1000 guns are turned in, then are you saying only 1000 guns can be sold the next year? If so, how is that a removal instead of an exchange?
Thing is, all of those changes (the delays in airports, car rentals, the violation of rights to privacy, etc) didn't prevent any terrorist attacks... I think terrorist attacks are actually harder to prevent because they often come from other countries that we have less ability to impact. I think the mental health aspect (getting every American health checkups for free, including follow-up checkups if deemed necessary, and including trained mental health staff at every school) could radically reduce domestic terrorism as well as mass shootings. I think that should be our #1 priority. I love the idea of a mental health staff member at school instead of a police officer. As well as a behavioral expert if it's not the same person. Though it seems like a federal funding to get teachers better training in behavioral studies would be a good thing as well.
One of the biggest arguments against doing anything is the "we have 400 million guns, it's too many to do anything." So instead of doing anything, we're going to add 20 million more guns to this in new gun sales. So in 5 years the number of guns will be 500,000 million, 5 years after the 600,000 million. So the problem that is already too big to fix is only going to get bigger and bigger. So yes, if only 1000 guns are turned in only 1000 can be sold. But let's be honest, that's not going to happen. It would be a huge financial incentive for manufacturers to get old, nonworking, and illegal guns out of the public so they can sell new and better guns.
Three Arizona police officers are placed on leave after looking on as a man drowned Forget leave, they should be prosecuted. They won't be, and they'll probably get a nice severance instead. I think it's relevant to the conversation we're having a couple posts above.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wmtmv3ldhakJ:https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2018/04/30/that-time-the-cdc-asked-about-defensive-gun-uses/ &cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/society I would submit that society is more about helping people be healthy than it is about controlling people. My proposal is that we first focus on helping people be heathy (as much or more than other countries) before we try controlling people as much or more than other countries.
Oh i understand. This is pretty much the giant conundrum we are in. We have lots of guns and people who like guns. To deal with it we need more guns and people who know how to use them. If we take away the guns? Only people who are not supposed to have guns will have them. Not to mention half the country will want to take up their guns and shoot people who don't want any guns. Then of course we have those people willing to pick up their gun to stop people from having guns. The United States is in a pretty messed up place right now. No easy answers.
If we reduce our violent crime rate to 1/2, 1/3 or 1/4 of what it is, less defensive gun use is needed. This is not a bad thing. The only reason for society is to make more people be "better" in many aspects, health, safety, wealth, happiness. As there is no indication that I have seen that Americans have a larger portion of mentally ill people than other comparable nations, I would say the obvious first step is to get us closer on par in access to death tools so that we are closer to these other countries that have much lower rates of violent crimes. It does not mean that healthcare is not a concern, it certainly is, but you can not control what you can not measure - and from what measures we do have, there is one statistic where we are way out of whack - and that's access to death tools.
This is what I struggle with. How can that be the first step if it's the hardest step to take? Shouldn't we start doing things that actually have a chance to get done in the next couple of decades? We need 34 states to agree to a constitutional convention. And then we need 38 states to vote to approve actually changing the constitution. But at least 30 states now allow permitless open and concealed carry, after a recent increase of around 25%... so I seriously doubt they'll be changing their mind any time soon... We would need 60 votes in the senate to get an age restriction. And we're not close. And even if we did, the (decidedly liberal) 9th Circuit Court of appeals just recently ruled that it's unconstitutional to prevent people over 18 from buying guns. What do you think the "conservative" Supreme Court will say about it? https://abc7.com/ca-gun-ban-semiautomatic-ninth-circuit-court-of-appeals-laws/11838571/ And even if those weren't in the way, most police support the rights of individuals to own guns. They are refusing to do their jobs all over the country. It's hard to believe they are going to risk their lives to disarm people who will fight to the death to keep their guns. They are probably more likely to join them in the (oft threatened) civil war...
I do not think the political reality is that this is the first step we can make. I argue that it is the first step we should make and thus, fixing that obvious flaw in the constitution is of utter importance. I would never argue against health reform and more mental health support, but my belief has been and I can not see anything that predicts otherwise, that these will just be a band-aid to fix cancer, unfortunately. I would actually argue that the electoral collage is the #1 problem in the constitution. Once it is fixed and every one's vote is worth the same, the 2nd amendment issues will be fixed. A 2019 Fox News poll of registered voters found 90% of respondents favored universal background checks, 81% supported taking guns from at-risk individuals, and 67% favored banning assault weapons. The people have spoken, but an outdated legal document that favors land to people is standing in the way. It's a shame, but it's the truth. You fix the electoral collage issue, you let the people vote on what they really want and the 2nd amendment will be fixed to reflect the 21st century instead of the 18th century. I have said it before and I will say it again, I am just glad the founding fathers did not put outhouses in the constitution or we would not be allowed in-house plumbing.
Some people dismiss it, but im not a fan of comparing us with other countries. There are too many X factors like geography and population. For example: If 15 of 20 people have a gun in one country and another country has 1500 of 2000 people with guns, the percent is the same but to get rid of the 1500 will be much harder than the 15. I have not studied up on all the comparison gun reports regarding other countries, but I just do not see how we can be compared. Another example would be if a country only has 20% of crimes commited with a gun, but only has 30million people, and another country has 400million people and 50% of crimes committed with a gun, it would be much easier to get a country with 50 million people from 50% down to 20% than it would the 400million person country I would think? Meaning its easier for smaller countries to tackle the problem than larger countries? Then you add in how vast and large our country is geographically(not populous) compared to most others and I see another geographical hurdle.
If you don't study countries where gun control has worked then you are not willing to see how it works...regardless of the population...Mao's children Red Guard disarmed an entire largely populated nation as did the Allies disarm Germany and Japan post WWII.that didn't take long and they dismantled their entire militaries.....all this idea that it takes decades to disarm a civilian population is just coming from pro gun enthusiasts. The issue here is the type of clips, guns and amount of ammo civilians can purchase...that's where you start...damage control ...plenty of countries allow you a hunting rifle or shotgun but no other form of weaponry or rapid fire weapons. Here it's gone over the top and we need to make the guns people can have less capable of massive murder before they can be countered by peace keepers.
