It's in the constitution, I am led to believe it is so citizens can protect themselves from a tyrannical government.
An American or American history buff might explain better than that.
I like it from philosophical point of view.
Gun control
- Thread starter ukbob
- Start date
An American or American history buff might explain better than that.
I like it from philosophical point of view.
This is true. Although here's an interesting set of graphs:
1) Gun ownership per household has fallen quite dramatically since the late 70s.
2) More guns are bought when Democrats get in
3) More guns are being bought generally. Does this mean a dwindling number of nutballs are stockpiling more and more weapons?
Paranoid Delusion as Marketing Strategy
That much seems clear.
Interesting graphs, do you have corresponding gun crime stats.
You would think gun crime would drop in similar percentages if gun control is a viable solution.
I'm aware of that, I just still don't see a need.
Surely less guns, more control would have some impact on these sorts of things, and gun crime in general? It might not be instant, it might take years, but any impact is a tick in the gun control box right?
I just don't see any ticks at all in the other one.
It has nothing to do with being defeatist. It has to do with being a realist. Attacking gun control is barking up the wrong tree. It will yield nothing, your time and effort will amount to nothing.
Time, money, effort is better spent looking for other places to attack this cycle of violence.
Since you want to call me an apologist, I'll do you one better. You're a child. You are living in a land of rainbows and unicorns. Could effective gun control do something to stop the violence? Absolutely.
Is it possible to institute effective gun control in the United States of America? Absolutely not. If you think it is possible, you have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.
How many guns are in the United States? How are you going to track them all down? How are you going to convince people who believe that they have a fundamental inalienable right to carry weapons to give theirs up? How will you stop weapons being sold illegally? How will you stop weapons being smuggled in? Why do they even need to smuggle weapons in? How will you stop people with criminal intent from getting guns? Do you honestly believe any form of gun control in the United States would have prevented this guy from getting a gun?
This isn't a question of is gun control good or bad, this isn't a question of whether I personally agree with it or not. It is a question of what is POSSIBLE. The first thing you should always do is decide if something is POSSIBLE or not.
Implementing any form of gun control that would actually stop this violence without reducing the United States to a police state is simply NOT possible with the current set of cultural and social values that exist within a very large percentage of the country.
The time and money is better spent else where. Maybe, if that time and money is well spent, in a generation or two we will see a social and cultural shift in the United States that will allow for such implementation. Until then you're living in fantasy land.
Whenever anyone brings up changing gun laws all you hear from the right is "the Constitution is sacred and perfect"! These same people who insist that the Constitution is perfect and should be hard to change yet they are the ones who wants an amendment to ban abortions and an amendment to prevent gay marriage and an amendment to stop birthright citizenship.
At least I'm not living in the US.
I understand your idea that even a 1% difference is worthwhile, but without stacking it up against either the amount of effort that would be needed to gain 1% or an alternative option that might achieve a 3% improvement, I don't agree that it has to be a tick in the box.
Better education would have a bigger impact, is more viable and give a quicker result relatively in my opinion.
I am for gun control, but not the banning of guns in general which I feel is impossible.
Education needs to be done now because in the not to distant future 3D printing will allow people to make pretty much anything they choose.
That is a sobering thought.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
Seems like it is on a downward trend.
The thing that gets to me is, Loonies and criminals are responsible for these murders, but it's the "law-abiding" Americans (not all), who are dead against getting rid of them, in case they are a victim(because there are guns in their society).
I only mentioned "control" as a parallel to the thread title of gun contol.
But IMO it's less about control and more about ways of civilising, evolving and developing much better communication and relationship skills and emotional intelligence amongst the male of the species. Fundamentally it's about expanding personal consciousness and awareness.
How we go about achieving this is not a subject for this thread. However, I would add two things: 1) There's no doubt that women have huge amounts to teach us about all this. 2) A lot of the stuff - not all - said about "testosterone" is a weak excuse.
Nobody is saying that gun control would immediately sove all problems, but it's a start. Take New York for example, where the stats show how effective it has been.
Excellent post. There are far more effective ways to a problem than censure, with the added benefits of making people better too.
That is a good post. I suppose being on the outside it's easy to think it's only positive, but I'm not blind to how tough it would be in a country where it's in the blood to carry one.
And your last thought, though beyond our lifetime, is indeed sobering. Issues of humanity need to be tackled well before we get the technology to truly eradicate ourselves. Unfortunately we are all run by self serving idiots, but that's another thread.
Sorry mate but you are talking rubbish.
Why on earth not do it? Give me one good reason why. Saying it won't work is not an option. Why do we have laws on drugs? You will never get rid of drugs however at least you can regulate them to a degree and punish those who continue to use, distribute and manufacture them.
It will take time but your attitude is baffling.
That's fair enough as an opinion, and it is indeed out of the scope of this thread. But if you'd had said that in the first place, instead of brushing a deeper subject off as 'man control', you would have been understood better.
So what are you saying then, that the US has more sadistic murderous killers living there that anywhere else in the world. That is why so many are killed by guns?
The most effective and hard hitting way to tackle the issue is to ban them!
Yeah, once a month there'll be slaughter. But you probably see female bio-chemistry as "a weak excuse", as well.
The rest I concur.
I highly doubt beyond our lifetime.
I had a tour of the Bentley factory a few weeks ago and one of the engineers predicted we would have them in the home within ten years.
Not quite sure I agree with that but they are closer than you think.
They have two onsite, one for plastics and one for metals.
Very soon they will be able to fabricate their parts using them, at the moment they only use them for the model parts for life size prototyping.
It would have helped if you had not brushed off the more fundamental issue of the male propensity to violence.
Well yeah, I meant more ready available access to such a thing. 10 years? They always say that
I actually despair to live on a planet where people think we should all own, or have the right to own, highly impersonal and deadly weapons. Not only that, but some of these nutjobs are seriously arguing that massacres like today's are an acceptable price to pay for protecting said constitutional rights.
Ever recall saying "what issue"?
I know, It was like a segment of tomorrows world.Well yeah, I meant more ready available access to such a thing. 10 years? They always say that
I can't see it in ten years either, but they will be making their parts in this way by then.
Lots of industry will be clambering around it, I can quite easily see it being the next big industrial driver but that's for another thread.
My wife, who is American, is devastated by this. She refuses to ever entertain the idea of returning to the states to live now, partially because she is a teacher herself but mostly because of our son. This gun culture in the states which affords every little miserable cnut with issues who can then wipe out families at will with automatic weapins has to be dealt with!
What has this 'male propensity to violence' thing got to do with what we are taking about, and why are you obsessed with it? Yes men are more violent than women in general,
And there are various historical and physiological reasons for that. But what we are trying to discuss us reasonable options to reduce the chances of another gun massacre like today's happening. Since 'banning men' is not an option, I suggest we move onto something sensible that is, such as heavily restricting men's access to devices designed to make killing easy.
And there are various historical and physiological reasons for that. But what we are trying to discuss us reasonable options to reduce the chances of another gun massacre like today's happening. Since 'banning men' is not an option, I suggest we move onto something sensible that is, such as heavily restricting men's access to devices designed to make killing easy.
As I went on to point out, it was clearly about the 'man control' aspect.
This is silly now, time to stop.
You are wasting your time mate. His reputation is well deserved.
So this is some poorly thought out WUM? Or is he really so obtuse and, well, stupid?
It seems it's the latter. If he was a wum, then actually knowing how to debate would be the start to then faking one.
He was hardly suggesting 'banning men'.
I think education was the implication.
This mentality to control everything and everyone is not the answer. There are many reasonable options that will reduce the problem that are also feasible in a country like the USA.
If you know with almost certainty that the country could never control the guns because of history, culture etc.. at least in our lifetime why persist with the futile quest to ban guns?
Glaston is right, most murders are carried out by men. With further research it has come to my attention, that all other murders are the acts of women. Nothin to do with guns at all. So as well his idea of tighter man control, we could also have tighter woman control and the issue is pretty much sorted.
Pointless idealism. Getting rid of guns means less gun crime. It's that simple. Tome it sounds like you are saying that the best option is to undertake a project which will take longer than a century to take effect rather than pass a bloody law.
There is no argument to illustrate any more clearly the idea that the more guns there are, the more likely it is for guns to be used. 'Explaining' it only complicates it. Surely there is nothing to explain?
Well as Glaston said, 'man control'. Which could be extended to 'man and woman control', which could further be extended to other categories like race and religion.
Well don't give them guns! They're murderous fecking loonies!
The main thrust of what I said was clearly about the deeper issue of the male propensity to violence.
But you insisted on choking up over the phrase "man control" - when it was (obviously) just a counterpoint parallel to the "gun control" thread title.
If anyone's being a WUM here there's no prizes for guessing who.
qed
I advocate 'human control'
So go on then, talk about man control then. Full on ban, or do women just need licenses to have one of us?