Yes, but there’s evidence that basic gun control laws work.
1.) Universal Background Checks
2.) Gun holding periods
3.) Banning under 21 purchases (I’d be okay with it if you have someone to co-sign with you - that they are responsible as well).
Like you’d prevent something like one in four homicides. And people still fight against this. This is what it means to stand against gun control.
Honestly, I wish we had a gun registry just like we have a car registry as it would prevent people transferring ownership to criminals and people that would otherwise fail background checks.
I just don’t understand the need for guns in this day and age? Everybody knows how dangerous they are. The obsession with the craven desire to own guns is beyond me. How many people have died this year from mass shootings so far? On record pace this year. Ban guns, deaths reduce substantially.
Just an opinion.
A large percentage of the US is rural. That usually means concerns of animal predators, distant neighbors, and police response times of 45+ minutes. Most people own a firearm as a form of self defense for an immediate threat, or for hunting.
Yeah I kinda get the theory behind that but the reality I feel is completely at odds when considering your massively populous areas. Also how often are people defending themselves against wildlife? I’m really curious actually as I have no idea on the stats about this.
The things you listed are already in place, and have been in place for decades, though the age requirement differs by state. For example, in Florida, it’s 18 for a long gun and 21 for a pistol. There is often a 3 day holding period, unless you own a license (concealed carry or firearm permit). You cannot buy a gun from any retailer or FTL without a background check. You also have to fill out a firearm transfer form to purchase the gun, which also registers the serial number to your name.
The only part where it breaks down is private sales, but the person selling the firearm can be held liable if they end up selling to someone who cannot legally own a gun. The same scenario of registering the sale applies to private car sales. You can sell a car to someone, and if you don’t inform the DOT you’ve sold the car (and the buyer never registers it), you’re on the hook if they find the car abandoned on the side of the road or at a crime scene.
1.) Background checks are only required at federally licensed gun dealers, however only 40% of dealers in the US are licensed. Guns sold at gun shows, flea markets, etc arent subject to that requirement. And only 20 US states have added requirements to the background checks…not even half…so your claim that this has already been implemented is not exactly true, or should be HEAVILY caveated.
2.) Only 19 states have red flag laws (which would come up in background checks).
3.) Only 10 states have withholding periods.
So…yeah. A lot of room for improvement. That’s why I don’t get arguments against gun control. It makes us safer, it statistically prevents A LOT of homicides/suicides, and generally just make sense.
Not personally a fan of general increases in gun control because I don’t think many of the ideas floated would help more than they would hurt law abiding citizens, but it really should be free and quick for anyone to request a background check for private party gun sales and thus should be mandatory. My own personal experience is background checks are done at my local gun shows, but yes there should be mandatory universal background checks and this 100% can be improved.
Federally mandated waiting periods would be hard and burdensome to enforce on private party sales, but I’d be open to discussions on how it could be done. Red flag laws are also tricky because we have a presumption of innocence and protection against searches and seizures, but if it requires that you get to face a judge before they take your guns away then once again, an argument worth having. I argue against security theater gun control, and because I believe any restrictions of constitutional rights should by default be argued against since we need damn solid reasons to restrict rights.
And owning a spoon makes it infinitely easier to to go on a spoon based killing spree in a school. But wierdly, despite everyone in the US owning spoons and there being far more spoons than guns, spoons based killing sprees are much less common than shooting sprees.
It’s almost, almost like one is a tool specifically designed to kill people as quickly and effectively as possible and the other isn’t. And in the very unlikely event that is the case, we should probably regulate them differently.
Yes, but cars and knives (of certain kinds) have functions other than hurting people. Making the assumption that they’re exactly the same as a tool whose sole purpose is death and destruction is disingenuous at best.
I dont disagree that they’re “just” tools, tools that people will use as they see fit. But if you can’t see that some tools are inherently more destructive and less useful then I dont think you’re trustworthy enough to speak on whether or not they should be regulated in any way.
I’m going to throw a curve ball here and say yes, obviously the purpose of a gun is to kill things. Americans have an inherent right to self defense through use of arms, which is the entire purpose of the 2nd amendment. Killing animals for food is of course another common task, along with livestock protection, but self defense against other humans using force was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The founders thought about the fact that these arms could be used in crime and violence, and decided that freedom comes with risk and it was worth that risk. The country was founded on principles that the government is not there to provide perfect safety to all individuals and to dictate their lives, but instead set ground rules and let people live their lives however they see fit. There are consequences for actions, not preventing all actions with negative consequences. There’s a reason that the phrase “those who give up freedom for safety deserve neither” is such a famous (or infamous) quote in America.
Many people may feel they do not need to protect themselves with force of arms in modern society and would prefer more safety over more freedom, but until such time as over 3/4s of the population agree to cede their right to self defense to the government and change the 2nd with an overriding amendment, these tools are doing the job they are designed for. This argument that cars and knives and what have you serve another purpose so it’s “different” just strikes me as odd. Hell, the amount of people killed by cars when killing people is in fact the opposite of it’s purpose, is more concerning if you think about it because cars kill so many more people than the guns that are actually designed specifically for killing. But to do that we need to limit cars to traveling at 35mph and have internal and external airbags and giant soft air tube tires that can safely run over people without causing harm, but no one is advocating to make laws mandating such and no one would buy a car like that if it was available.
We require mandatory training before giving out drivers licenses and insurance in most states and a system where we take away licenses if people are too reckless. That’s because a hundred thousand people die from cars every year. Why not do the same for guns which kill tens of thousands of people a year? Instead we have to have mass shooter drills and emergency bleed-out kits in public areas rather than address this.
I think gun safety training should be mandatory as part of the US education system starting from the beginning of school. There are more guns than people in the US, so odds are good that many children will come into contact with them at some point, and they should know what they are and how to be safe. Unfortunately, the left acts like this will indoctrinate children towards being pro guns like the right thinks sex education will make kids have sex. Leaving these basic life knowledge “up to the family” to teach is just such a shitty idea.
The issue of licensing is tricky because unlike driving a car, gun ownership is a constitutional right and we do not have a good track record of being fair and equitable when we make practicing rights require any “cost of entry”. Other than that and as has been mentioned already, many places require licenses and extra training to concealed carry, and if you are reckless with guns or just even with criminal behavior you can lose your gun rights.
Also, even if mass shootings just weren’t a thing I think having trauma kits along with AEDs in public areas is just good practice, and adding hostile attacker drills to existing fire, earthquake, tornado, etc drills is also probably good practice. The more emergency situations people are even somewhat trained to “handle”, the better they react to both known and unknown emergencies. When the brain is overwhelmed in an emergency, having any ingrained reflex your subconscious can fall back on prevents freezing or panicked random action.
Licensing, testing, and insurance are the requirement to take a vehicle into public. You can operate a vehicle on private land with none of those things.
The same is required for firearms in most states; minus insurance, though it’s highly recommended.
We should be asking why certain people are deciding they want to hurt as many people as possible before they can be killed; not asking why they chose their particular method. The ownership of firearms is not a new concept in the US, but “going down in a blaze of glory” has been a somewhat recent phenomenon increasing at a terrifying and disturbing rate.
I always find it amazing when people make the argument that we shouldn’t regulate something because all we really need to do is solve the fundamental problems in society that ever cause people to do the wrong thing. Thanks buddy I’ll get right on that
It’s already heavily regulated. Most of the regulations people want are already in place, or an outright ban.
When something that has been around for a long time with heavy regulation, but there’s a growing trend; then most likely it’s something else influencing the problem.
Republicans are blocking not only gun control legislation but any increase to mental health services, so they’re not making that argument in good faith. They even passed new laws in Georgia allowing people with diagnosed mental illness to have guns when they weren’t allowed before.
Guns are the only way left to cause mass murder at this scale. We restrict access to planes and cars already, you don’t think guns should have some additional scrutiny?
The situation in Georgia is certainly problematic, and I agree with you that people with certain diagnosed mental illnesses should not own firearms. However, firearms are certainly far from unregulated compared to driving.
Have you tried to purchase a firearm? It’s not like going to the hardware store and walking out with a brand new chainsaw. You have to fill out all of the paperwork for a background check, wait for it to come back clean (often takes hours), fill out a transfer/registration form, pay applicable taxes, and then there’s a holding period. The only way around the holding part is if you possess a concealed carry or firearm license, which requires training, more background checks, more taxes and forms, and a very long waiting period (usually months) for the permit to be issued.
These same requirements are also in place at gun shows, by the way. You often have to send your purchase to a local FTL for the holdover period, if you don’t already have a license.
Also, in regards to the mass murder issue, France was having issues with people driving trucks into crowds a few years ago. England has mass stabbings, and Australia has machete sprees. The truly alarming thing with the US is the growing frequency.
You forgot the giant loophole of private purchases, people selling guns via Instagram etc.
It’s not an honest argument to compare car rammings or UK stabbing a to gun deaths. A man literally shot 500 people in Las Vegas with an assault rifle in a concert while car homicides are in single digits per attack. The U.S. is the only developed country with mass shootings and you keep trying to ignore guns as the problem and looking at everything but.
You can also sell a vehicle privately, and that person can choose not to register it. That point is moot.
Yes, the US is the only developed country with mass shootings, despite there being other developed countries that allow citizens to own firearms with varying levels of regulation (some with even less regulation than the US). So, again, what is the particular thing that makes the US stand out from those other developed, firearm-carrying countries?
Unregistered vehicles can’t get insurance and there’s criminal penalties if you’re caught without registration. It’s not moot though you really are trying to stretch the analogy in your claim that this means guns shouldn’t have the same.
The other firearm carrying countries have mandatory gun training and laws against mentally ill people from having guns. They also have red flag laws, which are shown to save lives but the gun lobby is fighting against extremely hard.
There are a lot of ways to cause mass murder so it certainly isn’t “the only way left”. People have and will used other methods. Something as simple as fire is a weapon with a history of use in terrorism.
Guns do have laws associated with them. You’d know this if you ever went to a shop to buy one or just looked at the laws. I don’t need to pass a background check to buy a car from the dealership. There is no crime for a felon to own a car. A felon could even get a license to operate a car in public. There is no crime for “brandishing” a car in public.
Which law in GA are you talking about? Most states don’t outright ban ownership over a diagnosis or seeking treatment. Making that a criteria becomes tricky when trying to determine what counts or who gets to decide. I’m sure you would find a ban on voting for the mentally ill questionable if say Republican law makers decided what counts.
Involuntary commitment is a problem for gun ownership federally regardless of state laws as well. It should kinda take a lot to restrict a right and there are problems with essentially punishing people for seeking treatment.
Cars do not eject passengers violently onto the road. Safety belt laws try to prevent that from happening and it works rather good. So you still get to drive but there are regulations to prevent the human factor of causing to be ejected from cars.
I dunno if this makes sense to you, maybe not the best comparison but it popped into my head suddenly.
I’m not a fan of government regulations beyond basic safety measures. Guns don’t just randomly shoot people.
Yes, but there’s evidence that basic gun control laws work.
1.) Universal Background Checks 2.) Gun holding periods 3.) Banning under 21 purchases (I’d be okay with it if you have someone to co-sign with you - that they are responsible as well).
Like you’d prevent something like one in four homicides. And people still fight against this. This is what it means to stand against gun control.
Honestly, I wish we had a gun registry just like we have a car registry as it would prevent people transferring ownership to criminals and people that would otherwise fail background checks.
I just don’t understand the need for guns in this day and age? Everybody knows how dangerous they are. The obsession with the craven desire to own guns is beyond me. How many people have died this year from mass shootings so far? On record pace this year. Ban guns, deaths reduce substantially. Just an opinion.
A large percentage of the US is rural. That usually means concerns of animal predators, distant neighbors, and police response times of 45+ minutes. Most people own a firearm as a form of self defense for an immediate threat, or for hunting.
Yeah I kinda get the theory behind that but the reality I feel is completely at odds when considering your massively populous areas. Also how often are people defending themselves against wildlife? I’m really curious actually as I have no idea on the stats about this.
I’m curious about your feelings on armed law enforcement.
Mixed really, it is a growing necessity but being in the UK only in required/specific situations.
The things you listed are already in place, and have been in place for decades, though the age requirement differs by state. For example, in Florida, it’s 18 for a long gun and 21 for a pistol. There is often a 3 day holding period, unless you own a license (concealed carry or firearm permit). You cannot buy a gun from any retailer or FTL without a background check. You also have to fill out a firearm transfer form to purchase the gun, which also registers the serial number to your name.
The only part where it breaks down is private sales, but the person selling the firearm can be held liable if they end up selling to someone who cannot legally own a gun. The same scenario of registering the sale applies to private car sales. You can sell a car to someone, and if you don’t inform the DOT you’ve sold the car (and the buyer never registers it), you’re on the hook if they find the car abandoned on the side of the road or at a crime scene.
…but… they’re not.
1.) Background checks are only required at federally licensed gun dealers, however only 40% of dealers in the US are licensed. Guns sold at gun shows, flea markets, etc arent subject to that requirement. And only 20 US states have added requirements to the background checks…not even half…so your claim that this has already been implemented is not exactly true, or should be HEAVILY caveated.
2.) Only 19 states have red flag laws (which would come up in background checks).
3.) Only 10 states have withholding periods.
So…yeah. A lot of room for improvement. That’s why I don’t get arguments against gun control. It makes us safer, it statistically prevents A LOT of homicides/suicides, and generally just make sense.
Not personally a fan of general increases in gun control because I don’t think many of the ideas floated would help more than they would hurt law abiding citizens, but it really should be free and quick for anyone to request a background check for private party gun sales and thus should be mandatory. My own personal experience is background checks are done at my local gun shows, but yes there should be mandatory universal background checks and this 100% can be improved.
Federally mandated waiting periods would be hard and burdensome to enforce on private party sales, but I’d be open to discussions on how it could be done. Red flag laws are also tricky because we have a presumption of innocence and protection against searches and seizures, but if it requires that you get to face a judge before they take your guns away then once again, an argument worth having. I argue against security theater gun control, and because I believe any restrictions of constitutional rights should by default be argued against since we need damn solid reasons to restrict rights.
No, but they make it infinitely easier to shoot people.
Owning a car makes it infinitely easier to drive it into a crowd of people. Owning a knife makes it infinitely easier to stab people.
It’s not an outstanding argument when they all require someone to make the decision to hurt people.
And owning a spoon makes it infinitely easier to to go on a spoon based killing spree in a school. But wierdly, despite everyone in the US owning spoons and there being far more spoons than guns, spoons based killing sprees are much less common than shooting sprees.
It’s almost, almost like one is a tool specifically designed to kill people as quickly and effectively as possible and the other isn’t. And in the very unlikely event that is the case, we should probably regulate them differently.
Yes, but cars and knives (of certain kinds) have functions other than hurting people. Making the assumption that they’re exactly the same as a tool whose sole purpose is death and destruction is disingenuous at best.
I dont disagree that they’re “just” tools, tools that people will use as they see fit. But if you can’t see that some tools are inherently more destructive and less useful then I dont think you’re trustworthy enough to speak on whether or not they should be regulated in any way.
I’m going to throw a curve ball here and say yes, obviously the purpose of a gun is to kill things. Americans have an inherent right to self defense through use of arms, which is the entire purpose of the 2nd amendment. Killing animals for food is of course another common task, along with livestock protection, but self defense against other humans using force was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The founders thought about the fact that these arms could be used in crime and violence, and decided that freedom comes with risk and it was worth that risk. The country was founded on principles that the government is not there to provide perfect safety to all individuals and to dictate their lives, but instead set ground rules and let people live their lives however they see fit. There are consequences for actions, not preventing all actions with negative consequences. There’s a reason that the phrase “those who give up freedom for safety deserve neither” is such a famous (or infamous) quote in America.
Many people may feel they do not need to protect themselves with force of arms in modern society and would prefer more safety over more freedom, but until such time as over 3/4s of the population agree to cede their right to self defense to the government and change the 2nd with an overriding amendment, these tools are doing the job they are designed for. This argument that cars and knives and what have you serve another purpose so it’s “different” just strikes me as odd. Hell, the amount of people killed by cars when killing people is in fact the opposite of it’s purpose, is more concerning if you think about it because cars kill so many more people than the guns that are actually designed specifically for killing. But to do that we need to limit cars to traveling at 35mph and have internal and external airbags and giant soft air tube tires that can safely run over people without causing harm, but no one is advocating to make laws mandating such and no one would buy a car like that if it was available.
We require mandatory training before giving out drivers licenses and insurance in most states and a system where we take away licenses if people are too reckless. That’s because a hundred thousand people die from cars every year. Why not do the same for guns which kill tens of thousands of people a year? Instead we have to have mass shooter drills and emergency bleed-out kits in public areas rather than address this.
I think gun safety training should be mandatory as part of the US education system starting from the beginning of school. There are more guns than people in the US, so odds are good that many children will come into contact with them at some point, and they should know what they are and how to be safe. Unfortunately, the left acts like this will indoctrinate children towards being pro guns like the right thinks sex education will make kids have sex. Leaving these basic life knowledge “up to the family” to teach is just such a shitty idea.
The issue of licensing is tricky because unlike driving a car, gun ownership is a constitutional right and we do not have a good track record of being fair and equitable when we make practicing rights require any “cost of entry”. Other than that and as has been mentioned already, many places require licenses and extra training to concealed carry, and if you are reckless with guns or just even with criminal behavior you can lose your gun rights.
Also, even if mass shootings just weren’t a thing I think having trauma kits along with AEDs in public areas is just good practice, and adding hostile attacker drills to existing fire, earthquake, tornado, etc drills is also probably good practice. The more emergency situations people are even somewhat trained to “handle”, the better they react to both known and unknown emergencies. When the brain is overwhelmed in an emergency, having any ingrained reflex your subconscious can fall back on prevents freezing or panicked random action.
Licensing, testing, and insurance are the requirement to take a vehicle into public. You can operate a vehicle on private land with none of those things.
The same is required for firearms in most states; minus insurance, though it’s highly recommended.
We should be asking why certain people are deciding they want to hurt as many people as possible before they can be killed; not asking why they chose their particular method. The ownership of firearms is not a new concept in the US, but “going down in a blaze of glory” has been a somewhat recent phenomenon increasing at a terrifying and disturbing rate.
I always find it amazing when people make the argument that we shouldn’t regulate something because all we really need to do is solve the fundamental problems in society that ever cause people to do the wrong thing. Thanks buddy I’ll get right on that
Yeah passing laws is too hard guys. Lets just change the human condition instead.
It’s already heavily regulated. Most of the regulations people want are already in place, or an outright ban.
When something that has been around for a long time with heavy regulation, but there’s a growing trend; then most likely it’s something else influencing the problem.
Well when you assume any regulation of something is “heavy”, I suppose you could make that argument.
Republicans are blocking not only gun control legislation but any increase to mental health services, so they’re not making that argument in good faith. They even passed new laws in Georgia allowing people with diagnosed mental illness to have guns when they weren’t allowed before.
Guns are the only way left to cause mass murder at this scale. We restrict access to planes and cars already, you don’t think guns should have some additional scrutiny?
The situation in Georgia is certainly problematic, and I agree with you that people with certain diagnosed mental illnesses should not own firearms. However, firearms are certainly far from unregulated compared to driving.
Have you tried to purchase a firearm? It’s not like going to the hardware store and walking out with a brand new chainsaw. You have to fill out all of the paperwork for a background check, wait for it to come back clean (often takes hours), fill out a transfer/registration form, pay applicable taxes, and then there’s a holding period. The only way around the holding part is if you possess a concealed carry or firearm license, which requires training, more background checks, more taxes and forms, and a very long waiting period (usually months) for the permit to be issued.
These same requirements are also in place at gun shows, by the way. You often have to send your purchase to a local FTL for the holdover period, if you don’t already have a license.
Also, in regards to the mass murder issue, France was having issues with people driving trucks into crowds a few years ago. England has mass stabbings, and Australia has machete sprees. The truly alarming thing with the US is the growing frequency.
You forgot the giant loophole of private purchases, people selling guns via Instagram etc.
It’s not an honest argument to compare car rammings or UK stabbing a to gun deaths. A man literally shot 500 people in Las Vegas with an assault rifle in a concert while car homicides are in single digits per attack. The U.S. is the only developed country with mass shootings and you keep trying to ignore guns as the problem and looking at everything but.
You can also sell a vehicle privately, and that person can choose not to register it. That point is moot.
Yes, the US is the only developed country with mass shootings, despite there being other developed countries that allow citizens to own firearms with varying levels of regulation (some with even less regulation than the US). So, again, what is the particular thing that makes the US stand out from those other developed, firearm-carrying countries?
Unregistered vehicles can’t get insurance and there’s criminal penalties if you’re caught without registration. It’s not moot though you really are trying to stretch the analogy in your claim that this means guns shouldn’t have the same.
The other firearm carrying countries have mandatory gun training and laws against mentally ill people from having guns. They also have red flag laws, which are shown to save lives but the gun lobby is fighting against extremely hard.
There are a lot of ways to cause mass murder so it certainly isn’t “the only way left”. People have and will used other methods. Something as simple as fire is a weapon with a history of use in terrorism.
Guns do have laws associated with them. You’d know this if you ever went to a shop to buy one or just looked at the laws. I don’t need to pass a background check to buy a car from the dealership. There is no crime for a felon to own a car. A felon could even get a license to operate a car in public. There is no crime for “brandishing” a car in public.
Which law in GA are you talking about? Most states don’t outright ban ownership over a diagnosis or seeking treatment. Making that a criteria becomes tricky when trying to determine what counts or who gets to decide. I’m sure you would find a ban on voting for the mentally ill questionable if say Republican law makers decided what counts.
Involuntary commitment is a problem for gun ownership federally regardless of state laws as well. It should kinda take a lot to restrict a right and there are problems with essentially punishing people for seeking treatment.
Although I don’t agree I get your point.
Cars do not eject passengers violently onto the road. Safety belt laws try to prevent that from happening and it works rather good. So you still get to drive but there are regulations to prevent the human factor of causing to be ejected from cars.
I dunno if this makes sense to you, maybe not the best comparison but it popped into my head suddenly.