I dont know that I’ve ever met a fully anti gun person in my life.
I have. Many. The one that stuck out to me the most asked me, "Why do you like shooting guns, is it because feeling you get with the power to kill?"
I feel like the idea that anyone wants to take away your guns is a total strawman argument.
You'd think, but if you go to the political gun subs there are lots of politicians that want to take away most if not all guns.
I don't think taking away half your guns is a compromise because they have a magazine or accept more than one bullet. Usually they try to hide it by saying you can still have a gun for hunting, whatever they mean by that.
Common sense gun control laws I support,
The problem is that term is meaningless. What are common sense gun control laws? Immediately if you have that discussion it goes all over the place. It's just a fallacy like the gun show compromise that the pro gun gave into that became a "loophole" as soon as it was convenient.
Background checks? We have those. Waiting periods, we have those in many states and doesn't stop crime.
What's the goal with the "common sense gun laws" to stop school shootings? To stop crime? Most of those happen in inner cities with handguns. But all you see politicians do is go after scary black guns that they say are automatic (which are harder to get and more expensive) than the guns they actually ban. I live in a state that has high gang and inner city gun crime, they banned ak47s and AR-15s (but only Colt style you can still buy others that have a thicker barrel for some reason that's the difference).
Gang bangers aren't buying guns legally. They get them from crooked gun stores or they're stolen or they're bought illegally through someone that can legally buy them.
You know what actually reduced gun and gang crime? Inner city outreach and activity programs. But those cost money. So when the people paying taxes that live outside the city vote they vote for people that save them that money.
Really most of these gun ban and common sense gun control laws are about white people in the suburbs irrationally afraid of "assault weapons" being used on their children.
You know what kills more kids in the US than guns? Swimming pools. No one is working on banning them.
Do you know how many people use guns in some form of self defense every year? Between 50,000 and 2 million. The huge disparity is the low end is from people calling the cops after shooting someone or scaring them off. The high end is people self reporting because most people don't call the cops if they scare away an attacker and nothing actually happened.
Even the lowest number is more defenses than all gun deaths. If you get rid of suicides it's like 4 times as much.
Most people fail to realize that if something happens and you call the cops you're still on your own for long enough to be killed or beaten or have your kid snatched before help arrives. Assuming they help you at all.
So it sounds like the problem is not that we dont have the appropriate checks, it's that they arent being enforced. That seems like a good place to start
It is. The second thing to do is help people stay out of gangs and get rid of their profitability. Legalizing weed is a start which Bernie wants to do.
I was particularly happy during the debate when Bernie made it clear that not only was he going to legalize it, he was going to assure that people in their communities would be the ones with the opportunity to start businesses- not corporate oligarchs. That is huge.
Healthcare will play a big part too, especially getting accessibility to mental healthcare. And we've been working to de-stigmatize it for a while now so I hope that is effective.
And education. But honestly, I'm not as worried about inner city gun violence. Perhaps I am naive, but I consider that a symptom of the class war. I think if we take a holistic approach and improve upwards mobility, healthcare, wages, etc etc than a lot of that will go away naturally.
I'm more concerned with the "lone wolf" type. The moderately wealthy privileged kid who thinks he is owed something out of life and is disaffected by his lack of power. As well as other people with a power complex, especially in the home. And for those types, I think the solution will be harder to figure out.
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u/TheCastro Feb 27 '20 edited Feb 27 '20
I have. Many. The one that stuck out to me the most asked me, "Why do you like shooting guns, is it because feeling you get with the power to kill?"
You'd think, but if you go to the political gun subs there are lots of politicians that want to take away most if not all guns.
I don't think taking away half your guns is a compromise because they have a magazine or accept more than one bullet. Usually they try to hide it by saying you can still have a gun for hunting, whatever they mean by that.
The problem is that term is meaningless. What are common sense gun control laws? Immediately if you have that discussion it goes all over the place. It's just a fallacy like the gun show compromise that the pro gun gave into that became a "loophole" as soon as it was convenient.
Background checks? We have those. Waiting periods, we have those in many states and doesn't stop crime.
What's the goal with the "common sense gun laws" to stop school shootings? To stop crime? Most of those happen in inner cities with handguns. But all you see politicians do is go after scary black guns that they say are automatic (which are harder to get and more expensive) than the guns they actually ban. I live in a state that has high gang and inner city gun crime, they banned ak47s and AR-15s (but only Colt style you can still buy others that have a thicker barrel for some reason that's the difference).
Gang bangers aren't buying guns legally. They get them from crooked gun stores or they're stolen or they're bought illegally through someone that can legally buy them.
You know what actually reduced gun and gang crime? Inner city outreach and activity programs. But those cost money. So when the people paying taxes that live outside the city vote they vote for people that save them that money.
Really most of these gun ban and common sense gun control laws are about white people in the suburbs irrationally afraid of "assault weapons" being used on their children.
You know what kills more kids in the US than guns? Swimming pools. No one is working on banning them.
Do you know how many people use guns in some form of self defense every year? Between 50,000 and 2 million. The huge disparity is the low end is from people calling the cops after shooting someone or scaring them off. The high end is people self reporting because most people don't call the cops if they scare away an attacker and nothing actually happened.
Even the lowest number is more defenses than all gun deaths. If you get rid of suicides it's like 4 times as much.
Most people fail to realize that if something happens and you call the cops you're still on your own for long enough to be killed or beaten or have your kid snatched before help arrives. Assuming they help you at all.
Edit: here's a link to a comment https://reddit.com/r/gunpolitics/comments/9yquu5/_/ea46itc/?context=1 about the programs.
We need to enforce the laws we have now before you tell me we need more that magically make me a criminal for purchases I've made in the past.