The General US Politics Thread

Rightly so — most of those other countries solved the problem before their tighter restrictions happened, and said tighter restrictions caused a brief spike in violence before returning back to their already-low levels.

Clearly there is something we can do, and more intelligent restrictions on safety, background checks, and gun shows are something that needs to be done. But mostly, the problem is half culture built around it and half a symptom of crapsack economy making everyone's lives unusually suck.

edited 11th Jul '14 5:51:56 PM by Pykrete

You're looking for "complete lunatics" not gun rights activists. most of us, shocking, don't think what marc says is grounds for shooting him, for instance.

Really most of our gun violence is down to the high-profile shootings, more due to mental illness problems, and inner-city gang warfare, which is a shadow of our discriminatory history in itself.

The lunatics are starting to run the asylum, however, like the ones who sent all the death threats to the first store in America to try to sell smart guns (that only work for their owner), or the open-carry fetishists turning one state at a time into some kind of wild west fantasy world.

edited 11th Jul '14 6:20:26 PM by Ogodei

Like it or not, the lunatics are the ones who represent gun owners in the modern political environment. They're poisoning the conversation for everyone else. You will never be able to convince people that you want to exercise your Second Amendment rights for peaceful recreation and self-defense when open carry activists are walking into Chipotles with their AR-15s slung over their shoulders.

But there could be a muslim bad guy with a gun in that Chipotle! And who's gonna stop 'em? The police? Obammy?

The solution is for peaceful gun owners to disarm all the crazy gun owners. Then they can have a reasonable claim to represent the interests of peace and safety.

edited 11th Jul '14 8:10:28 PM by Fighteer

How do you propose they do that? break in and steal their guns?

edited 11th Jul '14 8:51:45 PM by Joesolo

They more crazy tend to react....poorly when the very idea of disarmament comes up.

So you admit that they are crazy and that they are holding the country hostage, in effect. Well, nice to know we've reached an understanding.

edited 11th Jul '14 9:12:18 PM by Fighteer

Why is it always the crazies that get to hold the country hostage?

Why can't someone productive hold the country hostage for a change?

The productive people are busy working and spending their time, well, being productive.

Though the crazy Gun people seem to coincide with the "Generic 50s or older white guy people". I'm wondering if this is chiefly a generational issue. Gun ownership is pretty much down across the board in the U.S. As is violent crime. I. Honestly. Wouldn't be surprised. If after these guys pass, the violent gun crime (outside inner gang warfare) drops like a stone.

But I might be simplifying this.

A large amount of violent crime is done with guns, but the main reason those criminals can get guns so easily is the insistence by those older white guys that there must be no restrictions on anyone getting guns ever.

Anyone know what happened to Barkey, he was a good counterargument to this.

I agree with the general direction of gun control just because I'm pretty pro-regulation nearly everywhere,but I dunno, the reaction seems very pathic rather than ethic (ethos) or logic based around here.

And it's because of how pathic these things turn out that's just getting people tired of the gun control debates on both sides (the crazy wingnuts and the "ban Assault Weapons even though that's a blanket term" moonbats)

@joesolo: The easy answer is to incite them to rebellion, then shoot them all.

The problem with refusing to surrender your weapons to the government is that the government can take them away over your dead body. This isn't Iraq.

Barkey's work usually keeps him occupied. I'm sure he'll turn up in a few weeks or so.

And that's a terrible idea. I mean don't get me wrong, I know too many idiots who think they can actually fight the government with their AR-15 and Glock and would love to see them get their ass kicked but still.

edited 11th Jul '14 9:25:01 PM by LeGarcon

Why is it a bad idea to kick the asses of the guys who actually think that rebelling against the government for AMERICA AND FREEDOM is a workable plan?

edited 11th Jul '14 9:33:33 PM by Ramidel

It's a crazy idea, which is only marginally less crazy than allowing them to continue holding the nation hostage.

I still fail to see what's crazy about shooting lunatics when they take violent action against the US. You know, like those guys who took their wives and children hostage in response to an illegal grazing complaint (whatever happened there, anyway?).

Because then we'd be proving them right about kicking in doors and killing people for having guns

"Yes, we will kill you if you use your guns against the United States government or its lawfully appointed officers."

I can see why Americans might get queasy about the thought of even actively-violent Americans being shot by SWAT or National Guard troops, but I'm not too sympathetic to that viewpoint.

All right well maybe it'd be fine legally but here's the thing.

This is a country where half the damn population agree with those people and are under the control of the Republican propaganda machine.

Do you have any idea how easy it'd be for them to make us look bad?

The problem is that gun control is a cultural issue and we have a very deep seated pro-gun and pro-gun violence culture.

Are those people going to vote in our direction anyway? Possibly the blue-collar Democrats and responsible gun owners, but remember that blue-collar pro-gun Democrats and other responsible gun owners aren't too fond of the people who exercise their nonexistent right to privately-owned machine guns.

While it's true that the best lies have truth in them, I don't think that this applies to the Republican spin machine. They're so used to using blatant ignorance of reality that anyone who hasn't been converted already is going to tune them out.

edited 11th Jul '14 10:24:21 PM by Ramidel

... Hrm, might be overthinking this, but aren't a lot of these gun nuts about the right age to be like, the last of the lead paint children

Possibly.

It's just culture and swallowing rhetoric. Republicans were a little too good with their hate mongering and propaganda and now we've got a lot of insane people running around.