Tell that to the family of the 9 victims from yesterday's shooting, to the little girl who got her face blown off. Tell it to the hundreds of victims in the 200 mass shootings this year (at this rate we will reach 400 this year) many who are children. This shit needs to be stopped. Enough is enough.
I agree it needs to be stopped. But nothing we can or will do about guns (or any mass restrictions on the rights of healthy and law abiding citizens) is going to stop anything. The most that can do is result in further decades of ineffective policy efforts while our middle and lower classes become more and more desperate and have fewer and fewer rights. This path ends extremely poorly for our population. Again I ask. What has changed about guns to cause these acts? If something has changed to cause this we can have a logical conversation about rolling back those changes. Otherwise I don't follow the logic.
Violent crime has always been higher here (except during the world wars, obviously). All violent crime, even crimes without guns. Even before the gun restrictions in those countries. The gun debate is simply a distraction to keep us from taking back the profits corporations have robbed from the middle and lower classes. There will never be enough gun restrictions in this country to make a meaningful impact on these horrific acts. I've been saying it for years. And we've had more gun restrictions in Oregon since 2015 than in our entire history. Yet gun crime in Oregon has been climbing throughout. Those restrictions obviously don't work.
Hmm, so Americans are fundamentally violent people? Is it something in the water? That seems like a stretch. Are all public safety debates (cigs, seat belts, covid, etc) a similar distraction, or just this one? We'll see. Maybe they don't work because they aren't strong enough. barfo
Who do you think is making the most money off of guns...off the daily bloodshed...corporations. Restrictions are so hard to put in place because corporate gun companies and lobbies via the NRA are paying off politicians to keep our children dying for the sake of profit and greed.
The money corporations are making off of Americans owning guns is an absolute pittance compared to the money corporations have taken from the middle class and poor over the last 50 years. Like a fraction of a fraction of a percent.
Americans have far less financial security and worse social safety nets than virtually all other developed countries. And desperate people make desperate decisions. Obviously not. The data is incredibly clear in the case of cigarettes, as well as COVID. Both of which kill far more than guns in the US, and at FAR higher rates, without any utility at all. That kind of consistent and reliable supporting evidence simply does not exist in the gun debate. Nore do the incentives for lawmakers and the wealthy align the same way. Regarding seat belts, it's incredibly clear that you should not be allowed to drive with an unsecured load. If you are in an accident, or even break quickly, your unsecured becomes a projectile. You, without a seatbelt, become a threat to those around you. Laws requiring secured loads in public areas are simply common sense, and don't put undue burden upon the population. Like not allowing people to shoot guns in cities. We have already seen. We have more gun control than at any time in our history and those restrictions haven't prevented violent crime rates or gun crime from increasing. It's very clearly ineffective. Well, as they've gotten stronger they've apparently been less effective. At least, if access to guns is what we're attributing violent crime and murder to. To my knowledge there is no mechanism with which we can realistically restrict access to guns nationwide more strongly than they are currently, at least not within the next few decades. In fact, it appears there is a better than even chance that those restrictions will be found unconstitutional by the supreme court. By what mechanism do you think greater national restrictions can happen?
Well, the post-sex cigarette has some utility. And covid did marginally reduce the percentage of idiots in the country. I think the tobacco lobby and the gun lobby are pretty similar(ly evil), actually. Sure, that's incredibly clear now, 60 years after they became law. Before that time, I'm quite sure there were people arguing passionately that seat belts could never work, that they weren't the solution, driver education was the solution, etc. It's like drinking a thimbleful of light beer and declaring 'well, I guess alcohol has no effect on me!' We have very, very few gun restrictions in this country, certainly not enough to prove that more gun control won't work. Public opinion. When enough of the population is tired of the status quo, and starts voting that way. Yes, it might take a while. But things move gradually, then suddenly. Even I might live to see it. You surely will. barfo
Doesn't really matter. The gun lobby isn't the strength behind the push against gun restrictions. There isn't much money going toward it at all. Less than $15million per year. The strength of those opposed to gun control would be the constitution and culture. There is no such thing for cigarettes. Lol, no there were no large public fights against the government mandating new cars include seatbelts. There is a reason Volvo gave away the right to the patent on the 3 point harness. It was very clearly needed. Disagree. Oregon has required background checks on every gun sale for nearly a decade. Including private party sales. Violent crime and murder rates, including gun crime have skyrocketed in that time. So much for the argument for universal background checks... There are 3 mechanisms to get this done (change the 2nd Amendment). Two of them would require around 20 of the 37 states who support permitless open carry (many if which have loosened their gun control laws recently) to change their position 180 degrees. And the other way would require the supreme court to change it's position 180 degrees, and the supreme court is likely going to be conservative controlled for longer than a couple decades. I sincerely hope we've made significant gains in access to education and healthcare long before that.
You can buy a vote for much less than $15M, as has been proven over and over. And of course that's just the official total, there's no telling how much dark money is applied to the cause. That doesn't mean everyone accepted that as true. Maybe you weren't around at the time, but there was actually quite a bit of resistance to wearing seat belts from the 'personal freedom' crowd, and it took many years to wear them down. Right, that isn't nearly enough. We both sincerely hope that, but the barriers to doing that are at least as high as the barriers that you believe are insurmountable for gun control. barfo
Right, but firearms lobbying doesn't even register. I understand you truly want firearms to be this huge horrible lobby, and I'm sure they would be if the NRA could muster it. But it's not. There is no massive corporate will to protect the firearms industry. It doesn't even register. There are probably over 100 businesses you've never heard of in Oregon alone that could each outspend the firearm lobby. Leading lobbying industries in the United States in 2022, by total lobbying spending Yes, you heard a lot of people complain about having to buckle up or getting a ticket for not buckling up. This is not close to the same. There was no constitutional protection for refusing to buckle up. There was no financial hardship placed on people in order to buckle up, and there was no downside to buckling up. Exactly my point. You'd have to virtually outlaw guns in the USA. And that's not going to happen in any of our lifetimes. Not to mention, this would require greater restrictions than even Europe has, because there are already so many guns available and guns can last hundreds of years when taken care of. Not even close. All we have to do is fund education and healthcare. And we can literally print the money to do it. Actually, it's even easier than that. We don't even need to physically print it. Funny thing is, we'll actually save money by doing so, and the better educated will actually pay more into taxes. There is literally no down side, except insurance middle men will have to find more productive jobs (and if you've looked at our demographics, you'll know this would be a huge benefit as our workforce is going to be hurting for the next 20-40 years). Everybody wants their kids to have a better education and access to healthcare when they need/want it. All we have to do is make it available. So much simpler than getting conservatives on board to restrict guns as much as you admit above will have be done to make any impact at all.
Oookay. So if it's so simple, why isn't it already done? And why are there essentially zero chances of it getting done anytime soon? barfo
My contention has been it's because we've allowed ourselves to be distracted by red herrings like gun control, border control, religious and cultural differences, etc. We're not focusing on the important things which we could actually institute with what amounts to a wave of a hand comparatively (of course, we'll have to make sure there is a direction and a coherent plan, but that's any policy). If we educate and care for our population we don't have to worry about treating them like children. People will generally take care of their own business if we allow them to do so. People who prove they can't do that can be restricted by law. But in general, a policy of empowering the population and protecting them from the abuse of corporations (gangs) will solve nearly all of our problems, or at least improve them over what we have now.
So basically, there isn't the political will to do what you want. Which is the same situation as with gun control, also. Given the political will, either can be done. Without it, neither will ever happen. barfo
Exactly. It's willingness. So, something can be done. Unfortunately, reelection and money are more important to republicans in the Congress and Senate.
People are being deliberately manipulated into focusing on unimportant red herrings in order to distract them from the changes that could be most easily implemented and would do the most good.
One direction is just will. It has fewer barriers than the other, and that one happens to help the general population more by clawing back power that has been taken by the elites (this is the only barrier). The other option restricts the general population more by giving more power to the elites, which would require half of the country to agree to change their position 180 degrees and give up rights they have cherished for generations. That option also requires a constitutional amendment. Which is incredible difficult and requires 3/4 of states to support it. Or requires that we overturn half a dozen supreme court rulings on the individual right to firearms. One is a far easier sell than the other. Do you want free services that will help every person in your family, or do you want to become a criminal?
