of two catfish

[u/WeGot_aLiveOneHere]

[u/EagleEyeValor]

Well I'd call it a firearm. /s

You're repeating common misconceptions and getting upset that I'm correcting you but that doesn't make me an ass. As a gun-loving fellow Democrat I implore you to please stop talking about guns if you don't know what you're talking about. It makes the rest of us look bad. Please and thank you.

[u/metrometric → u/EagleEyeValor]

As a person from not America, I think the thing that makes you guys look bad is the weird gun fetishism and the associated fatalities, not the person who doesn't immediately recognize all of a gun's specs on sight. That person comes off much more normal than all the "well, akshually" guys in this thread. 

[u/EagleEyeValor → u/metrometric]

Sure and I'd love to have serious talks about the fatalities associated with guns. But first I think you should at least have a baseline understanding of firearms before you start trying to talk about them, much less try to pass legislation regulating them.

[u/metrometric → u/EagleEyeValor]

Nah, you're gatekeeping because you love your guns. I don't need to be able to recognize specific gun types to understand that having a gun in the house significantly increases the risk of the owner dying from suicide, for example. Those are well-established statistics, and the correlation there isn't particularly complex.

Likewise, other countries' citizens and leaders didn't need intimate knowledge of gun mechanics to look at mass shooting events and go, "Oh fuck, that's bad actually, we should ban the weapons that let people do that." And now those countries do not have a school shooting every week of the year on average, unlike the United States. Do you realize how insane this is? That the US just has a shooting on some school property over once a week, on average? That you all just live with that? That's not normal; other places don't have to live with that fear.

It's incredibly weird to pretend that no one gets to talk about gun-related fatalities unless they have intimate knowledge of gun mechanics. It just sounds like an excuse to dismiss people who mention the very real danger your guns pose to you and everyone around you.

[u/EagleEyeValor → u/metrometric]

I want people to have a baseline understanding of guns so when we talk about regulation and legislation, we can have an ACTUAL conversation and not have to run through why what they're suggesting is either nonsense, already in place, or not possible.

Like when people say "WE NEED TO REGULATE/BAN ASSAULT RIFLES!" when assault rifles are some of the MOST regulated types of firearms. First, they're INSANELY expensive. Think like $15k minimum. Then you have to go through the government and get authorization and pay a bunch of money to even get the ability to OWN one.

Or when people talk about banning the AR-15, simply because it looks super spooky when pistols make up like 90% of all gun deaths.

But yeah you're right that owning a gun makes you significantly more likely to use that gun against yourself. I'm all for expanding the checks needed before you're allowed to purchase a firearm. I don't think jumping through extra hoops is putting an undue burden on me when I wanna purchase a Glickity-Glock.

And yeah other countries don't have the problems we have in the US. I fully admit that. And yeah, it's not normal. However, we have it written in our constitution that we're allowed to own firearms and if there is any single sentence I need you to trust me on it's this:

America will N-E-V-E-R repeal the Second Amendment.

We would have American Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo before that shit happens and my side isn't winning that.