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School shooting: but don't mention guns!

Halfcentaur said:
Why stop at welfare and service industry jobs? Let's have mandatory regular drug tests for gun owners as well as initial mental health check ups for every purchase of a fire arm as well as annual mental health exams as a follow up. :D Weeee.
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This is not a bad idea at all. We could tax the guns to pay for the logistics of it all.
 
Cain said:
Suppose it could be demonstrated that stricter gun control laws would lead to significantly fewer homicides per year. Would any of the pro-gun people present then support stricter gun control laws?
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Ranb said:
Maybe. Can you present any examples that have worked?
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I wish could revise "homicides" to "fatalities." Do I have any present examples? Not off hand. That's not the point.

I think my post asks an important question missing from this discussion. I hope that people on the gun control side would answer "yes" if posed a similar hypothetical: "If it could be demonstrated that relaxing gun restrictions and increasing firearm ownership led to a significant decline in fatalities per year, would you then support such policies?"

On balance, I would not be surprised if the gun control side said "yes" to their question more frequently than the pro-gun people said yes to their's. Even here, Ranb you're only ready to concede a "maybe."

If fleshed out, I think this line of questioning would confirm my suspicion: the gun control people are more directly concerned with public safety whereas pro-gun have other commitments. If you guys just came out and said "freedom is messy," or "my individual liberty" then we could put aside a lot of this pointless discussion.

The two sides are coming at it from different values...
 
The occasional gun massacres are mostly due to the intersection of two rights: the right to own guns, and the right to not be involuntarily committed for mental illness if one has not committed a crime.

The former dates back to the founding of the country; the latter is surprisingly recent. One seasonal movie, Miracle on 34th Street, was released in (and is set close to) 1947. Though the movie has its share of fantasy elements, one aspect that viewers of the time did not find fantastic was the prospect of a lucid adult being committed by a court due to exhibiting delusions, with no solid proof of his actually presenting a danger to anyone. That didn't really change much, either, until (IIRC) the 1970s.

I wouldn't want to go back to those days, exactly. (For one thing, I'd miss many of my American JREF friends. :D) But currently, parents and associates can report to the police that a person is collecting guns, describing violent fantasies, exhibiting mood swings and altered personality, and the police can take no action. By the time an actionable crime has been committed, it's likely to be so serious in nature (e.g. making "terroristic" threats if not an actual killing) that the person's mental health is now a secondary issue.

A disarmed populace can be abused and exploited by a tyrannical government. So can a system of involuntary mental health intervention, as was clearly shown by the former Soviet Union. Weighed against that, people do (and always have; this is not a new phenomenon) sometimes become mentally ill and flip out with guns, if they're not locked up and if they have guns.

I don't know what the right answer is. Some degree of risk seems unavoidable; all we can do is shift risk from one type to another.

For instance, what can we do about those lethal metal child killing machines, that Americans not only insist on having as much access to as possible, not only insist they couldn't live without, but also romanticize to the point of fetishism? (I'm talking, of course, about automobiles.)

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
joesixpack said:
"We could prevent spree killing by banning the means"

"We could prevent spree killing if we understood better why people do it"

This discussion (and every other discussion) seems to be about only doing one of them. Can you tell me where the work is being done to determine the other? Do they have a lobbying organization? A celebrity spokes-person? What laws are being proposed that will address the questions that I've asked? None, as far as i can tell. It seems that most commentators on this issue wish to see guns deeply restricted or banned, and most don't even bother to pay lip service to the question of "Why?". I'll be happy to talk about gun control once my question has been seriously addressed.
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Mental health care should be added to Obamacare, I agree.
 
lionking said:
I can't speak for Scarlett, but I don't live my life worrying that something like this is even remotely possible. It must be debilitating to live with such fear.
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Your estimation of your own risk doesn't apply to everyone. Some people really do live under significant risk of being attacked, and yes, I'm sure the fear they experience is debilitating. Yet Scarlett wants them to have no recourse.
 
lionking said:
Why should I own anything for self defence?
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I'm not asking you what YOU would own for self defense, as your wants and needs don't affect others. I'm asking you what you would allow others to own for that purpose.
 
joesixpack said:
Then you shouldn't buy a gun for self defense. Other people feel differently, so they still have the right to "believe in owning guns for self defense", and act on that belief.
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You must have missed my earlier posts. You can't legally own a firearm for self defence in Australia. I know guns are held for this purpose in the US. I'm glad this isnt the case here.
 
Because those contemplating committing a gun crime think a lot about how having the gun will add to their sentence if caught?
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No, no, no, you're not supposed to generalize. Keep trying;).

I'm not asking you what YOU would own for self defense, as your wants and needs don't affect others. I'm asking you what you would allow others to own for that purpose.
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Stop dodging, please.

A disarmed populace can be abused and exploited by a tyrannical government.
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As can an armed populace, given that most civilians are just that, civilians. As in, non-combatants. As in, not going to have the motivation, know-how or combat proficiency to organize huge rebellions against their overlords.

If you don't believe me, look at all the countries out there who are ruled by tyrannical governments or otherwise in chaos, and where everyone is armed. Funny how Baghdad is so dangerous when most everyone owns an AK-47 -- you'd think John Doe would simply go out there and pull a Rambo and restore order, no?
 
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Chris L said:
I'm not asking you what YOU would own for self defense, as your wants and needs don't affect others. I'm asking you what you would allow others to own for that purpose.
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I'm not talking about allowing anyone to do anything. I'm expressing a view that a nation where the (perceived) need for self defence is so prevalent, is somewhere I'm glad I don't live.
 
lionking said:
I'm not talking about allowing anyone to do anything. I'm expressing a view that a nation where the (perceived) need for self defence is so prevalent, is somewhere I'm glad I don't live.
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On behalf of the American people, I thank you.

BTW, it's spelled "defense" not "defence".

[EDIT]
Apparently it is spelled that way in gun free Australia.
 
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