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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
The problem people have with any form of gun control is that it comes across as punishing everyone, regardless of complicity.
Support/opposition to gun control also differs by region/state, and even by whether people live in the city or in the country. Some states have much larger rural populations than others, and it is usually these people who have a need for and own firearms, and subsequently oppose gun control.
One thing that might work would be an education program like what the Boy Scouts do, where schoolchildren can be taught to shoot safely and how to safely handle a firearm. Of course, if we tried that, certain people would get all uppity...
Still, personally, I simply want to be able to shoot an M1 in a rifle competition. Am I a wacko for wanting to take up a centuries-old hobby?
edited 2nd Oct '15 8:43:25 PM by ike755
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One problem with that last idea is that many felons are non-violent drug offenders, which is part of the same mindset as the Brady bill — intended to keep guns out of the hands of scary black people.
To play devil's advocate: Couldn't a government hypothetically make the background check unreasonably difficult in order to keep guns out of the hands of certain groups they dislike?
Leviticus 19:34Hypothetically a lot of things could happen, but the actual fact remains that background checks as they are right now are kind of a joke, and private sales don't require them at all. And the far right is consistently lobbying against anything that could potentially reduce gun related crimes.
So I don't really have much care for this particular hypothetical question.
I just wanted to point out that this entire debate looks incredibly alien from across the Atlantic. Not that there aren't any firearms in Europe (there are, mostly because there are many hunters), but semi-automatic or military-grade weapons?
I don't think there are more crazy people out there in the US than anywhere else in the world, despite some less than flattering depictions by the media, but all of those crazy people seem to have next to no problems getting their hands on a death engine whenever they go over the edge.
To be honest, I'm not sure if Jack-O-Lantern is being serious, or trying to satirize people who hate America.
Or some combination of the two.
edited 2nd Oct '15 11:02:33 PM by Protagonist506
Leviticus 19:34But handguns at the very least are extremely difficult to come by here (in France). And only a fraction of the entire population ever used one in its entire life, making it hard to perform a mass killing. Plus, if you try to get a handgun or an automatic weapon, you can safely assume the police will be monitoring you from now on.
Even if you are a hunter, you need to be affiliated to a hunting federation, which means that you are kinda monitored too. And you can very well use your license (and your right to own a weapon) if you start showing hints of mental disorder.
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Yes, such weapons are easier to get in the US, but as seen by the white supremecist in Norway a few years ago, it's certainly not impossible for Europeans to get ahold of weapons. But even if we could magically stop selling handguns in the US, the problem of mass/spree killings is one of culture not of weapons. If I snapped my fingers and made everynote firearm vanish, the type of person who does this would simply switch to a new type of weapon - maybe molotovs, or try for some do-it-yourself chlorine gas. "Take away the guns" is a limited and incomplete solution; it's one that would prevent a lot of deaths from domestic violence and suicide, and so is certainly a good idea that way, but it would not stop school killings like the one in Oregon.
Or knives.
Then again, over in Britain handguns are effectively banned
and all other firearms very tightly regulatednote ; so much so that the UK Olympic Shooting Team has to train abroad. And as for our NRA
, it's more of a sports governing body than anything else.
edited 3rd Oct '15 12:57:19 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling On![]()
Of course you can kill people without guns (I heard about more than one knife attack in China, where guns are extremely hard to obtain), but honestly, I don't see how the tradeoff of banning (or highly restricting) gun ownership can be considered bad in any way.
Obviously some people who like to collect the damn things will feel spoiled, but if in return the number of violent deaths is greatly reduced all over the country, I would see that as a win. In the same way making security belts mandatory was seen as restricting freedom - considering how many road deaths have been avoided ever since, I'd say having the people losing some freedom was a good idea after all.
But I suppose there is a difference of culture here. I don't feel like we have a strong patriotic vibe here in France, but restricting freedom "for the good of all" usually sees little complaining (ironic, I know). We had a lot of anti-tobacco laws met with "whatever" by anyone who did not sell cigarettes for a living. In the US, from what I see, there is a lot of talk of "American spirit", but less people seem ready to sacrifice their own freedom to make America safer.
edited 3rd Oct '15 1:05:52 AM by Julep
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
@Julep: If I understand correctly, in France, there's much less complaining about government action in general than there is in America, and when there are complaints, the governing class is much more apt to simply ignore them. We listen to our loud crazies much more in America, and the NRA are loud crazies.
That said, yes, America's gun culture is America's gun culture.
Hillary is already taking aim at her own feet, by running her campaign events on what my wife would call
Mormon timenote .
"We've been here since one o'clock," said Patel, who doesn't know much about Clinton but whose parents have followed her and her husband for decades. He and his classmates were also going to work the rally into a paper for a speech class they're taking. "I guess we'll have to go see someone else give a speech," Patel said.
In the back of the gym, another student, Nichole Zapata, was rethinking her decision to bring her grandmother to see Clinton speak. "This is not a good impression," said Zapata, an undecided voter who plans to vote in 2016. "Hopefully she can win me over once she gets here, if she gets here. Not doing too good, though." Clinton finally did take the stage more than an hour after she was supposed to, a pattern at recent events that are meant to energize Democratic volunteers and voters in key states.
In Baton Rouge last week, Clinton ran an hour late for her organizing event. The same day in Little Rock, she appeared more than 30 minutes after the crowd in a sweltering gym expected her. The next day in Des Moines, Iowa, she walked on stage 40 minutes late in another gym where campaign staffers had carted in fans and bottled water to cool the overheated crowd. And at an event on substance abuse Thursday in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Clinton was 50 minutes behind schedule.
Clinton aides contend that sometimes the candidate runs late because of obvious and unavoidable reasons — spending time with voters, traffic issues and airplane technical issues — but declined to directly comment on the tardiness. Attending a Clinton event is an investment of time that many other candidates' rallies don't require. Her security is tighter. Lines move more slowly as the Secret Service screens attendees. Sometimes campaign staffers, who see lines of people waiting to get in, are scrambling to hurry people inside before Clinton speaks.
But that was not the case on Friday in Florida where doors for the event opened about three hours before Clinton spoke. "I knew she wouldn't be here before 3:30," said Broward County resident Barry Rabinowitz, who was holding a handmade "Hillary" sign, "that's how it works. That's par for the course." Democratic stalwarts like Rabinowitz seemed to mind less than undecided attendees, some of them assuming Clinton would be late.
"I chose not to come until 2. I didn't want to come to an event for 4 hours," said Nelveta Skyers, a nurse from Hollywood, Florida who said she will volunteer for the Clinton campaign as she has done for many other Democratic candidates. "When I leave here I want to carry a message out there, back to my community, back to my job." Skyers also said she thought many others might not feel as strongly as she does. "If I came earlier I would be gone already," said Skyers.
Pamela Sharpe, an undecided Democrat from West Palm Beach, came to Clinton's event to try to make up her mind on the candidate. "I'm thinking about getting ready to leave," she said 50 minutes after Clinton was supposed to go on. "I've been standing here a long, long time. There are not enough seats and I have other things to do." Sharpe said she was sure Clinton has been late for "fancier people than me" (Fact check: true. Clinton has also run late to fundraisers) and understands "that things do happen" but found her lateness annoying.
"My mother did see her years ago and said she was lovely and thoroughly enjoyed hearing her," Sharpe said. "But my mother had more patience than me." Sharpe ended up leaving the event five minutes into Clinton's speech. She snapped a photo with a uniformed Secret Service agent on the way out — the highlight of her day, she said.
Clinton isn't especially unusual in her tardiness. It's a common affliction for candidates on the campaign trail. They're over-scheduled, running between rallies, private meetings with local supporter and officials, sitting for interviews and headlining fundraisers. Former President Bill Clinton was notorious for often being hours late for events, his former aides argue, because he would shake the hand of every last voter and supporter who came to see him.
But it doesn't help the mood at her rallies at a time when Bernie Sanders, her much more punctual Democratic challenger, is making key early states very competitive and filling larger venues with more enthusiastic crowds.
Though Sanders is regularly on time for his events, he is also not as tightly scheduled as Clinton. "Do you know of any (politician) who gets there punctually?" joked Arthur Jacoby, a 73-year-old retiree from Boca Raton. "I was optimistic hoping she would make it in half an hour late. I think an hour to an hour and 15 minutes is probably realistic. ... But if I had a schedule, I wouldn't be here," Jacoby added.
Walking out of the event, Zapata, the student who had hoped Clinton would win her over, was less than enthusiastic. "She could have been better," she said. "She made us wait over an hour for her. I understand she is on a tight schedule, but she could have at least apologized for being late." "It could have just been better," Zapata said, rushing out to get to her job at Starbucks.
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Actually there's more complaining about government action in general (French people are the ones you always see marching in the streets against whatever is the topic at the time - taxes, salaries, gay marriage, education...), but when there are lives on the line it stops and people agree to let the government trade a bit of freedom for a lot of security. Sometimes they are a bit too sheepish - there was a recent law to watch internet traffic for anti-terrorist purposes that saw some complaining, but it was voted nevertheless and despite being against it I don't think our Ministre de l'Intérieur will turn the country into an Orwellian nightmare anytime soon.
And honestly the country is safe, despite what some right-wing nuts (or Fox News with its "No-go zones" in Paris episode, that one was hilarious, I lived in one) try to imply.
edited 3rd Oct '15 4:07:04 AM by Julep
@Ike
All I can think of with the "school training" idea is that old video of the cop shooting himself in the leg as he reholsters his weapon. Low chance of ever happening, sure, but multiply that by all of the schools we have in the country. Even a 1/1,000,000 chance will happen a few times.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"

Wealth is no indicator of common sense, but a poor person typically has better uses for money than buying a firearm, and less access to safety training. And yes, violent crime is higher among poor people.
edited 2nd Oct '15 7:31:42 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"