What is better, no guns, or more guns?

[jrober38]

3 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

It's a good question.  Do these extremely isolated people whose only real interaction is with like minded individuals in some radical online forum have the social skills required to acquire a weapon like the AR-15 off the black market? 

 

I'm not sure, but I've always been in favor of raising the gun buying age until 26 as your brain's cognitive processing isn't fully developed until that point.  If you want to be able to purchase a gun before that age you should have to pass a psychological background test, have a clean criminal record, and receive a gun training course.  It'll pry never happen though given the slippery slope argument that many 2nd amendment advocates make.

 

I don't think they do, because if they did mass shootings would still happen all over the world. It's not like the US has a monopoly on mental illness.

 

What they do have is a monopoly of developed countries allowing people with mental illness to access firearms.

 

These type of people don't navigate the black market anywhere else in the developed world, which shoots down the idea that these people will continue to access guns.

 

I think your average career criminal, who either deals drugs, steals, etc, can probably continue to access firearms, but I think the 24 year old loner with zero social skills will have hardly any luck doing so. 

 

If anything, I think the government would feast on finding these guys who want to buy guns online and compiling them into a database. The lone wolf shooters do everything online so I'd think that's where they'd try to find their weapons, and I think the FBI or whoever would feast on trapping them and stopping these shootings before they happen.

Edited August 5, 2019 by jrober38

[BeginnersMind]

This line that criminals will get guns is curious. It's true for a lot of gang-related crime for sure. But it can't be put the test in many of these cases of the mass shooters because the guns were legal. 

 

Whether these people would have had the social acumen to navigate an illegal firearms market to get the guns is unknown, but it at least could have been harder. 

 

I am not for banning firearms but reducing the number and ease with which people can acquire them, especially weapons like this that are not for hunting, seems prudent. 

 

Trump's role? Don't know. He's a symptom of a problem on this front. Joking about shooting illegal aliens looks pretty bad right now. 

[jrober38]

9 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

I think the young person you’re describing is becoming increasingly common, created by the internet obsessed society that we now are. I don’t know the percentage of these shootings that are carried out with illegal or legally obtained weapons. It’s just not any one thing , it’s a perfect storm of things from what they are taught at school to decreased social interaction due to internet and smartphone addiction along with other influences. I don’t think it’s pure madness in the way of say a Dahmer or some other serial killer. Just a violent lashing out due to other psychosis brought on by environmental factors. I still think that most anyone could get their hands on an illegal high powered weapon fairly easily.  That’s just my opinion though. While I am not a “ gun person “, there are substantial constitutional, cultural and political barriers to any sweeping changes via legislation. 

 

The young person we're describing is common all over the developed world, but that guy only commits mass murder in the United States and I'm convinced it's because the gun laws are too relaxed. 

 

Other factors play a part, and you will certainly not stop all of these atrocities, but I think eliminating the easy access to guns and ammo would go a long way in reducing the number of shootings that do happen. 

Edited August 5, 2019 by jrober38

[SoCal Deek]

I’m not a gun owner and don’t have a problem with those that are, either for sport or self protection...but something has to change. No? Seems to me we should try a particular legislative remedy for a while and see if it has an impact. Consider it a scientific experiment. Change a single variable and record the results for two or three years.

[3rdnlng]

24 minutes ago, BeginnersMind said:

This line that criminals will get guns is curious. It's true for a lot of gang-related crime for sure. But it can't be put the test in many of these cases of the mass shooters because the guns were legal. 

 

Whether these people would have had the social acumen to navigate an illegal firearms market to get the guns is unknown, but it at least could have been harder. 

 

I am not for banning firearms but reducing the number and ease with which people can acquire them, especially weapons like this that are not for hunting, seems prudent. 

 

Trump's role? Don't know. He's a symptom of a problem on this front. Joking about shooting illegal aliens looks pretty bad right now. 

WTF?

[BeginnersMind]

Make of her as a presidential candidate what you will, but Marianne Williamson has the best solution to these. What they need is a lot more love and compassion. From everyone and to everyone. Hate breeds hate. 

Just now, 3rdnlng said:

WTF?

 

I agree with you. That line looks terrible. 

[3rdnlng]

3 minutes ago, BeginnersMind said:

Make of her as a presidential candidate what you will, but Marianne Williamson has the best solution to these. What they need is a lot more love and compassion. From everyone and to everyone. Hate breeds hate. 

 

I agree with you. That line looks terrible. 

If I'm not mistaken, you wrote it.

[jrober38]

19 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I’m not a gun owner and don’t have a problem with those that are, either for sport or self protection...but something has to change. No? Seems to me we should try a particular legislative remedy for a while and see if it has an impact. Consider it a scientific experiment. Change a single variable and record the results for two or three years.

 

Yeah, the status quo cannot be an option anymore.

 

Something has to be done, even if it's on a trial basis for a couple years and then expires. 

[Tiberius]

George Conway reels off a damning indictment of Trump. “Even if Trump didn’t incite it, he utterly lacks the moral authority or credibility to address it, which it’s his job to do. He lacks the moral authority and credibility to serve generally — but especially on this. This just pathetically highlights his total unfitness for office.”

26 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I’m not a gun owner and don’t have a problem with those that are, either for sport or self protection...but something has to change. No? Seems to me we should try a particular legislative remedy for a while and see if it has an impact. Consider it a scientific experiment. Change a single variable and record the results for two or three years.

Make illegal all military style rifles? 

[leh-nerd skin-erd]

3 minutes ago, jrober38 said:

 

Yeah, the status quo cannot be an option anymore.

 

Something has to be done, even if it's on a trial basis for a couple years and then expires. 

One of the challenges is, in spite of the narrative to the contrary, there are people and politicians looking to take away the right to personal ownership of firearms.  For the millions upon millions of sensible, lawful gun owners in the country---that's a deal breaker and any further movement away from the right to bear arms is not so much a slippery slope but a gaping chasm. 

 

 

[Tiberius]

2 minutes ago, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

One of the challenges is, in spite of the narrative to the contrary, there are people and politicians looking to take away the right to personal ownership of firearms.  For the millions upon millions of sensible, lawful gun owners in the country---that's a deal breaker and any further movement away from the right to bear arms is not so much a slippery slope but a gaping chasm. 

 

 

Just certain types of guns. No one is saying hunting rifles, shotguns or pistols are going to be banned, just military style assault weapons. 

[jrober38]

2 minutes ago, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

One of the challenges is, in spite of the narrative to the contrary, there are people and politicians looking to take away the right to personal ownership of firearms.  For the millions upon millions of sensible, lawful gun owners in the country---that's a deal breaker and any further movement away from the right to bear arms is not so much a slippery slope but a gaping chasm. 

 

 

 

Agreed. 

 

Banning things will never work. But making it harder to access weapons should be the goal.

 

It shouldn't be an inconvenience for someone to take a course, get vetted and prove that they're actually a responsible gun owner. If the trade off is making people safer, how can that not be something everything is on board with? 

 

If you have to get licensed to drive a car, why should you not have to get licensed to own firearms?

[Tiberius]

10 hours ago, Boatdrinks said:

I think the young person you’re describing is becoming increasingly common, created by the internet obsessed society that we now are. I don’t know the percentage of these shootings that are carried out with illegal or legally obtained weapons. It’s just not any one thing , it’s a perfect storm of things from what they are taught at school to decreased social interaction due to internet and smartphone addiction along with other influences. I don’t think it’s pure madness in the way of say a Dahmer or some other serial killer. Just a violent lashing out due to other psychosis brought on by environmental factors. I still think that most anyone could get their hands on an illegal high powered weapon fairly easily.  That’s just my opinion though. While I am not a “ gun person “, there are substantial constitutional, cultural and political barriers to any sweeping changes via legislation. 

Honest question here. If this guy was yelling allah Akbar, your opinion would be completely different, though, right? You would not be trying to make it about lonelyness or the internet, it would be in a thread literally entitles "Islamic Terrorism" Where have we seen that? 

[jrober38]

1 minute ago, Tiberius said:

Honest question here. If this guy was yelling allah Akbar, your opinion would be completely different, though, right? You would not be trying to make it about lonelyness or the internet, it would be in a thread literally entitles "Islamic Terrorism" Where have we seen that? 

 

I agree with this. 

 

There's a clear double standard when it's a white guy who does it.

 

If it had been a Latino, Trump would be saying build the wall.

 

If it had been a Muslin, Trump would be talking about his travel ban.

 

When it's a white guy, it's just thoughts and prayers and then radio silence from the GOP until the news cycle changes. 

[Taro T]

16 minutes ago, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

One of the challenges is, in spite of the narrative to the contrary, there are people and politicians looking to take away the right to personal ownership of firearms.  For the millions upon millions of sensible, lawful gun owners in the country---that's a deal breaker and any further movement away from the right to bear arms is not so much a slippery slope but a gaping chasm. 

 

 

 

This in large part.

 

There are enough on the "stronger gun control" movement side that have admitted that their goal is a total gun ban in the past that there is extremely little trust of them from the other side.

 

Perhaps, if that side proposed actual legislation that ONLY included items such as better gun safety education and we saw how that actually got enforced and whether that was effective, then we might have a basis for deciding how / whether to bring additional modifications to existing gun laws.

 

It also might help build trust across the sides if new legislation proposals weren't reflexively in reaction to a hyped shooting &/or if there was an acknowledgement that there are a lot of gun laws already on the books.

 

IMHO, the biggest impediments to solving the problem of mass shootings is a lack of trust from both sides and an insistence of looking for major sweeping changes to one aspect of a multifaceted problem primarily when emotions are raw eroding even more trust.

[ALF]

8chan goes offline after Cloudflare pulls support for website used by El Paso suspect

 

The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths. Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit," Matthew Prince, Cloudflare CEO wrote in a blog post.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/tech/cloudflare-8chan/index.html

[B-Man]

 

 

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

by Stephen Hayward

 

Two more mass shootings, but Twitter is on it! And I am sure Twitter will bring out the best in everyone as it always does, and produce consensus solutions by tomorrow morning.

 

As Glenn Reynolds reminds us every time there is a shooting, initial media reports are often wrong and usually incomplete, but the first media themes often take hold and are hard to dislodge later. (The most persistent is one of the oldest—that JFK was killed because of a “climate of hate” in Dallas, whereas the actual killer was a devoted Communist.)

 

So here’s one suggestion I’ve made before: if the media really want to help stanch the contagion of politicized mass shootings, stop publishing the manifestos these nutcases put out. The El Paso shooter apparently (I’m not going to read the thing) referenced the manifesto of the recent New Zealand shooter.

 

The mish-mash of themes (anti-immigration along with environmental Malthusianism??) that have appeared in these disturbed rantings seem deliberately calculated to spark a futile debate over which political faction “owns” the shooter. So instead of mourning we just yell louder. You’d almost suspect these manifestos of being a Russian operation. I see that Beto O’Rourke wasted no time in blaming President Trump and Fox News, just as Bill Clinton blamed Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing back in 1995.

 

Could this work? Probably not. With the open-access internet, trying to suppress these manifestos would make wack-a-mole look easy. On the other hand, when TV networks stopped televising people who run onto the field at major league baseball and NFL games, fewer people did it. It couldn’t hurt for CNN to give it a try.

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/08/what-is-to-be-done-9.php

 

 

[MILFHUNTER#518]

1 hour ago, jrober38 said:

 

Agreed. 

 

Banning things will never work. But making it harder to access weapons should be the goal.

 

It shouldn't be an inconvenience for someone to take a course, get vetted and prove that they're actually a responsible gun owner. If the trade off is making people safer, how can that not be something everything is on board with? 

 

If you have to get licensed to drive a car, why should you not have to get licensed to own firearms?

Driving a car is a privilege, not a constitutional right.

[Tiberius]

wow 

 

Murdoch-Owned New York Post To Trump: Ban Assault Weapons Now

[OldTimeAFLGuy]

10 hours ago, Hedge said:

 

I would assume that the systematic shuttering of mental institutions, along with the rise of those taking (or needing) behavior modification drugs plays a large part. I have no idea what is going in other countries in those regards.

 

 

...helluva good point..........