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| quote: | Originally posted by Sushipunk
[edit] I do realise that the US can't do the same thing that we did, because of the high population and the sheer number of guns there in your country... but you have to change something. It's getting nuts. |
You have to change a lot of things. I think changing our gun laws would be a great start but that's only part of the solution. American culture, in particular, seems to promote social inequality as an ideal. When you have companies like Walmart who treat their employees poorly so their investors have a larger share of the bottom line, it only contributes to economic/social distress. The result is a lot of angry people with access to weapons - many of whom should not have them.
I'm not for a ban on assault weapons but I do think they should make it much harder to get. I'm pretty sure that 100% of the weapons used in these massacres were purchased legally, at one point. It seems like a gun purchased on the black market is less likely to be used in mass murders such as this incident and the recent one in Colorado.
I actually plan on owning an AR15. Most of its use would have to do with recreational target practice. To that end, however, I'm not ignoring the possibility of having to defend my home with it. That said, I wouldn't mind having to jump through some considerable hoops to get it.
Part of the problem is that the NRA has managed to corrode the intellectual merit of the debate to such a degree that it is damn near impossible to have a realistic conversation about who should and who should not be able to purchase a gun let alone what measures should be taken to enforce new legislation that actually has some efficacy to it. Every time something like this happens and people start talking about gun control, NRA's response has been to stifle the discussion with outrageous claims (almost always slippery slope fallacies) that the second amendment will be eroded when people are forced to prove they're sane enough to purchase a firearm.
Many of those who oppose the NRA indulge in the same level of unreasonableness, arguing that a 30 round clip is completely unnecessary to protect ones home on the assumption that all tactical situations are easily resolved with six bullets or less. Both NRA and anti-gun activists seem to operate with the same black-and-white hedging strategy. It either has to be the most restrictive law on the books or the least. There's no room for middle ground reasonableness. Anti-gun proponents are only willing to let you have a pea-shooter but the NRA wants to make certain that the paranoid personality disordered are free to stock-pile 500 AK-47s with drum-fed magazines. It essentially rules out a compromise that would have legitimate efficacy and probably work to stem the increase in mass-murder by gun.
China had an attack in a school, today, as well. The man was armed with a knife rather than guns; that probably ensured that most if not all of the children will survive their ordeal. The fact remains that getting rid of guns isn't going to prohibit people from being violent. There are any number of factors contributing to such violence and while reasonable, efficacious legislation concerning guns is a good start there are a host of other issues that, were they adequately resolved, would alleviate the prevalence of such massacres even if gun laws don't necessarily change.
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Now with extra singles!
my old stuff, not quite up to snuff - but I still dig it - UPDATED 9/23/2012
Last edited by EddieZilker on Dec-15-2012 at 17:05
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