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School shooting: but don't mention guns!

lionking said:
So much for increased mental health care. If Adam Lanza was referred to a health care professional in Florida (and several other states), he couldn't even be questioned about his access to guns. This was a NRA sponsored bill. This organisation truly has blood on its hands.
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Bull. The Florida doctors protested that the law violated their 1st Amendment rights, a judge agreed, and there is a temporary injunction barring its enforcement which will soon become a permanent injunction. ETA: Correction -- the permanent injunction was granted last summer.

The NRA was wrong to lobby for this law, the legislators were wrong to pass it, and it isn't the law in Florida.

None of the other states in which similar legislation was introduced managed to pass it.
 
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lionking said:
Well that is a relief. My point about the NRA stands.
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Then eliminate lobbying. All of it!

Believe me you wouldn't get an argument out of me if we did. HOWEVER, you have to eliminate ALL lobbying, no cherry picking. It's either fair for all, or fair for none.

You can't complain about the effectiveness of one lobbying group while supporting another. That's not how it works.
 
joesixpack said:
I try to be as respectful of people on the internet as I am in face to face conversation. When someone accuses me of taking advantage of anonymity while "sitting behind a computer screen" to make my position clear, it implies that there would be other consequences were we face to face.
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No. I'm simply pointing out that many people tend to be much more polite in face to face conversations. I admit that my post was more pith than data, but you neglected to consider that possibility.
 
Belz... said:
Except that a gun is designed as a weapon.
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Which is part of the very definition of a weapon. To quote Wikipedia: "While ordinary objects such as sticks, stones or cars can be used as weapons, many are expressly designed for the purpose – ranging from simple implements such as clubs to swords and guns and on to complicated modern intercontinental ballistic missiles, biological and cyberweapons." I think that to continue that one thing can be used as a weapon is purest sophistry.

There seem to be two common arguments for owning guns. One, self defence, undeniably means it is a weapon; you intend to use a gun you own as a weapon. The other is for target shooting for leisure; since there are many other things that can be used for this purpose, and even actual firearms don't need to be automatic, semi-automatic, and so on, to insist that these weapons must be available for target shooting is disingenuous. I suppose a common third purpose is hunting, but that's not what's commonly been used here for debate, and guns are available for hunting even in the UK (and presumably in Australia and elsewhere).
 
thaiboxerken said:
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's not even a conspiracy. This really happened, and it's not something the NRA or politicians are hiding.

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...gress_blocked_gun_control_studies_at_cdc.html

In the 1990s, politicians backed by the NRA attacked researchers for publishing data on firearm research. For good measure, they also went after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for funding the research. According to the NRA, such science is not “legitimate.” To make sure federal agencies got the message, Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) sponsored an amendment that stripped $2.6 million from the CDC’s budget, the exact amount it had spent on firearms research the previous year.
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Why should the CDC, The Center for DISEASE Control, be researching gun deaths? That's absolutely NOT a disease.

Here's what the NRA had to say also.

“Our concern is not with legitimate medical science,” Mr. Cox said. “Our concern is they were promoting the idea that gun ownership was a disease that needed to be eradicated.”

And I'd agree. Let others focus on that. CDC should spend every dime it receives on diseases and such. Injuries from firearms is not a disease.
 
Kestrel said:
The NRA sponsored Privacy of Firearms Owners Act that was eventually passed by the Florida legislature is another oddity. Would any other country try to limit what physicians could say to their patients about firearms?
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Because it's none of their business. It's none of their business if I have guns in my house or not. If my son has a bullet hole in him, it's relevant. If he has an ear infection, it's absolutely IRRELEVANT. However, making a law seems.....silly. Make it so it's not recorded in patient histories, ok, fine with that.

ETA: US District Courts have ruled the law unconstitutional, and have issued a temporary injunction.
 
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Belz... said:
Except that a gun is designed as a weapon.
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All guns are designed as weapons?
122979.jpg

Not sure if anyone has ever committed a crime with one of these unless it was a British resident trying to squeeze in some last minute practice before the Olympics at home instead of France.

Ranb
 
Ranb said:
All guns are designed as weapons?
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u320/ranb40/122979.jpg
Not sure if anyone has ever committed a crime with one of these unless it was a British resident trying to squeeze in some last minute practice before the Olympics at home instead of France.

Ranb
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So presumably you'd be fine if all guns were banned that could plausibly be used in a crime. The point is that guns are weapons, and it is flagrant sophistry to suggest otherwise. There are items that aren't weapons that can be used as weapons; similarly, there are items that are weapons that can be designed or used in a way that makes them unsuitable as such.
 
Only if all things that could be used in a crime are banned too.

So basically we'd be a thingless society....
 
triforcharity said:
Only if all things that could be used in a crime are banned too.

So basically we'd be a thingless society....
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Yup, we can't do everything, so we should do nothing. I know this is not exactly your position, so you needn't call strawman, but that's how it sounds when you post that in response to the posts that have been made. Guns are weapons; other things are not; to pretend otherwise is flagrant sophistry.
 
Rat said:
Yup, we can't do everything, so we should do nothing. I know this is not exactly your position, so you needn't call strawman, but that's how it sounds when you post that in response to the posts that have been made. Guns are weapons; other things are not; to pretend otherwise is flagrant sophistry.
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Honestly I don't think I'm going to care one way or another if a loved one is killed with something that is designed to be a weapon or a stillson wrench. The fact that they were murdered is going to be the larger issue. Perhaps if we addressed the issues of why so much violent crime happens in the US?
 
joesixpack said:
Honestly I don't think I'm going to care one way or another if a loved one is killed with something that is designed to be a weapon or a stillson wrench. The fact that they were murdered is going to be the larger issue. Perhaps if we addressed the issues of why so much violent crime happens in the US?
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No, you can't prevent an individual from killing another individual with no warning. I'm not sure what this has to do with the current conversation.

I hope that you can reduce violent crime in the US. I hope that we can here, as well.
 
Even the gun nuts in this forum seem to be against scientific research that may come up with facts that contradict their beliefs.
 
Rat said:
Yup, we can't do everything, so we should do nothing. I know this is not exactly your position, so you needn't call strawman, but that's how it sounds when you post that in response to the posts that have been made. Guns are weapons; other things are not; to pretend otherwise is flagrant sophistry.
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I agree, guns are usually used as a weapon. However, to ban guns because they could be used in the commission of a crime, is useless.

I'm not against additional measures to keep people safe. However, knee jerk reactions that most likely will do nothing, and based on emotions and nothing else, are useless and only prevent legitimate gun owners like myself from freely exercising my right.

And I honestly don't think many people are advocating doing nothing. Obviously something needs to change, but it needs to be looked at from many angles, and not just regulating guns, as that is only a part of the whole problem.
 
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