151 replies to this topic

[Lister]

gwgaston, on 04 May 2013 - 03:28 AM, said:

We were in the 150s on responses. I will need to go back to my own archives to see what has happened here.Seems posts have been removed. But yes I believe we have made good points on both sides.

Doesn't look like anything was hidden; it was probably one of the other mods coming through and cleaning up anything they found off topic (wasn't me as I'm too involved).

Anyways, back on topic: There is a pretty noticeable decrease in gun ownership in the states. We can talk about Gun Control all we want but what happens if people just decide to stop buying guns? What happens in the majority decide that guns are not needed and that leaves only the mentally ill, the disturbed, the angry, and the violent to own guns? At that point is gun control acceptable? Of course leaving out states that have serious crime issues; where people still feel the need to own guns for self defense.

Edited by Lister, 04 May 2013 - 10:29 PM.

[Mind]

Luminosity, on 01 March 2013 - 06:33 AM, said:

In the seventies I would have been all for English or Canadian style gun control for the US because the government didn't seem to have totalitarian tendencies.  This would have saved lives.  There was half a chance that the laws would have been applied sanely, and that criminals might have had much less access to guns.  

Now, I don't know.  The US government is abusing it's powers, and seems to be getting worse.  There is a ten year low in prosecutions of violations of the existing gun laws by the Federal Government.  (Source: Democracy Now) Hmmm.  We gave guns to Mexican cartels to shoot our our own border patrol agents.  Some of the mass shootings might be staged false flag incidents.  Law enforcement on all levels has basically given up trying to really do anything about a lot of crimes, so how would that impact gun law enforcements?  

Possibly one of the things stopping a jack-booted fascist federal takeover is the sobering fact that Americans are twitchy and heavily armed.  One of the things fueling rational people to own guns is crime and the lack of effective law enforcement.  I'd say do something real about crime and the erosion of civil rights, and the gap between rich and poor, the plutocracy, runaway inflation, and mismanagement of the environment.  These fuel crime, unrest, and doomsday visions.  After that you might stand more of a chance of getting rational people's guns away.  

Theoretically, right now you could ban assault weapons, do mental health and background checks on prospective gun owners, and institutionalize dangerous mentally ill people.  All of those powers can be abused, however.  If a preschool child is suspended from school under a "zero tolerance policy" because he formed his hand into a gun, what would compromise and an automatic weapon?  A nail gun?  Whatever the police say it is in that moment and good luck getting any one to listen to you.  Stuff like this is happening right now. What would constitute a dangerous mentally ill person?  Would the batman shooter maybe have gone free while an inconvenient dissident might locked up without a trial?

It costs around a thousand dollars a day to hospitalize someone.  Who will pay for that?  Whose agenda will be worth a thousand dollars a day per nut case forever?  Right now protecting innocent kids lives isn't worth that kind of money.  Why would it be worth it later?  If someone got a call from the President's Office about a rowdy whistleblower with too much information who was "dangerous" and "threatening to shoot people," a favor to a President is worth the money, and besides, the person is "dangerous."  

An FBI whistleblower is just starting a thirty month prison sentence for whistleblowing, prosecuted by the Obama administration.  He says he is proud to do it.  The Obama Administration has prosecuted more whistleblowers than President Bush. (Source: Democracy Now)

The theories of gun control have to be held up against the reality of the those who would enforce them.  Do you want the people who are responsible for Airport Security and the No Fly List to have more power?

To add more to this point (which is really a commentary on how comparing the U.S. to other countries is "apples-to-oranges"), the U.S. government under Bush and now EVEN MORE under Obama is restricting freedom, stomping on civil rights, increasingly violent, and growing out of control. How many other countries have a government that purchases targets for shooting practice comprised of grandmas, pregnant women, and children? Or practices for terror-shooting events by simulating "angry parents" taking over a school? I venture to guess there are no other governments of advanced nations who do this. Not Canada. Not Australia. Not Switzerland. This is just to give you an idea of how different it is in the U.S. nowadays. It is not unreasonable for some people to be scared of or wary of the government.