Guns

[sailorjim]

I don’t like guns.

I spent most of my adult life with guns and around guns and using guns … I still don’t like guns.

However, I believe - and have long believed - the saying that “when owning a gun is criminal, only criminals will have guns.”  I believe that criminals, most criminals, certainly might have the wherewithal and connections to find and

Comments

[saavik]

Thank you Jim. I have been trying to point this out to people on Facebook and have only ended up blocking and unfriending several because they fail to understand that mental health care and enforcement of existing laws is not the equivalent of outright "prohibition". It probably won't stop gang shootings, but it but would probably go a long way toward stopping the massacre of schoolchildren!

[tsjafo]

I think an outright ban on guns would be about as effective as the outright ban on alcohol was. Gun bans in places like Great Britain and China haven't stopped the violence or the craziness, they've just moved it someplace else.

[siliconshaman]

Speaking as someone living in country where it is illegal to own a gun for the most part. I beg to differ.

Yes, it's reduced gun crime, but not eliminated it. And we still get crazies going on killing sprees, they're just slower.

Effectively it has removed guns from the general population. Casual criminals don't really have access to them, so their use in crimes of opportunity is down, ditto in spontaneous crimes of passion.

However, there remains a hard core of professional criminals with access to illegal firearms.. and now they have a population who can't fire back. You can see how that doesn't work so well.

I'd suggest strict regulation of ownership, rigorous background checks, gun registration and mandatory annual health and psych evaluations would probably be better than a blanket ban like here in the UK.

But you know how people are, they prefer black&white arguments and simple solutions.

[sailorjim]

I can agree with your suggestion, but it would have to be extended to the gun owners wife and children as well. The Columbine tragedy was committed by the children of gun owners, not the owners themselves (who well may have been able to pass the necessary tests for ownership).

Guns, bought legally by people who would pass those tests, also are sometimes stolen by others who wouldn't. How would that be addressed?

Plus, on the entire fire back issues ... how many people have ever really done so? Anyone in that mall? How about the movie theater? The grade school? Can you think of one single instance of a registered gun owner stopping a rampage?

I don't believe in trampling the rights of the majority over silly things, but enough is enough. Gun related horrors are rising to new highs and it's time to ask ourselves what are we willing to accept to appease those who wish to own guns.

[siliconshaman]

I agree, gun control is an issue. Once it's been legally issued I don't know exactly how one would prevent it from being stolen or taken by someone it wasn't issued to

[siliconshaman]

Oh, and I would also suggest that perhaps it might be an idea to look into the issues that create these atrocities. Because I'm pretty sure someone doesn't just wake up one day and decide to go kill a whole lot of people.

If it's the result of social stress causing a temporary mental breakdown, then reducing that should reduce the incidence.
If it's the result of an organic mental illness, then why wasn't that caught before they acted out?

Gun control is about treating the symptoms not the cause. It's about turning society into a padded cell, where the mentally ill can't hurt anyone.. it's not treating them.

[kengr]

Remember, many of the shooters don't *have* a history of mental illness.

And in this latest one, while he did have such a history, *he* wasn't the one who bought or owned the guns. They belonged to his mother. Who was the first person he shot.

[sevesteen]

I just read someone talking about suicide clusters--in an area where there is a publicized suicide, suicide rates go up, and mostly using the same method. That's a large part of what is going on--if there were no media coverage, there would be fewer of these incidents.

Even if we could get past the second amendment, the 'fix' of outlawing guns would be only temporary. Eventually someone would find another easy substitute that would kill as many people, and someone else would copycat, and the method would be perfected and improved.

While these shootings get publicity, criminal use of guns is a much bigger problem, and while mostly affecting other criminals not entirely limited. In order to save a relatively small number of lives, the entire country would be defenceless against criminals.

And we have already bypassed enough of the bill of rights, I won't assist in even more bypassing.

[sailorjim]

I don't want to bypass rights, I want those who demand their "rights" to start talking about (and accepting) some responsibilities as well.

We, as a nation and a race of men, have a responsibility to protect children ... period. Not if it's ours, not if it's easy, not if it doesn't risk something we like (such as our precious "rights"); a responsibility to both our nation and our race to protect them.

Until this nation starts talking more about responsibility and less about rights, it doesn't deserve the rights our founders planned on.

[sevesteen]

As a gun owner and carry license holder, I do have some responsibilities. I have a responsibility to take reasonable precautions to keep my guns out of the hands of children and criminals. I have a responsibility to not shoot innocent people, to only shoot those who are currently attacking innocents. I can't think of any other responsibilities--what else are you talking about? Am I responsible because a crazy person used a gun, and I have one

[eleri]

*You* understand, and practice those responsibilities, so do many other gun owners. But many don't- check out the kids shot in WA this year by other kids... both because a child got a hold of a gun that shouldn't have been available (and one of those parents was a cop!). That's where, for me, the question of compentency & safety training and licensing come in, as well severe concequences for negligence- as a *society* we have a responsibility to do everything we can to make sure that the people with guns are responsible, safe owners, just like we make sure the people driving cars meet a certain standard of safety, just like we make sure buildings meet codes and prescription drugs are actually going to do what they say without killing people.

No, that's not going to magically make shit like this stop happening, nothing will. But it *can*, like it has in other countries, help lower the overall incidence of gun violence.