Today's shooting in America thread

[ChicagoBlue]

There were significantly more mass shootings last weekend in American than mass stabbings in Britain over the last decade.

Excellent statistic.

Changes nothing.

Exceptional show of moral superiority.

 

[SWP's back]

You guys are like moths to a flame!

It is so precious to watch a small handful of supposedly intelligent educated men twist yourselves in knots trying to change a foundational settled law of a country you don’t live in, or refuse to live in!

I’m not sure which part of “nobody gives a fuck about your tortured arguments” (even the ones I might agree with!) you guys don’t understand, but your exercise of perceived moral superiority is an excellent sideshow to the main event!

Keep going! I’m sure it’ll make a big difference to everyone in America.

You give a fuck, you can’t help yourself in replying.

 

[SWP's back]

Excellent statistic.

Changes nothing.

Exceptional show of moral superiority.

It’s fair to say that the U.K. IS morally superior when it comes to the regulation of firearms for the protection of it’s citizens.

 

[domalino]

You guys are like moths to a flame!

It is so precious to watch a small handful of supposedly intelligent educated men twist yourselves in knots trying to change a foundational settled law of a country you don’t live in, or refuse to live in!

I’m not sure which part of “nobody gives a fuck about your tortured arguments” (even the ones I might agree with!) you guys don’t understand, but your exercise of perceived moral superiority is an excellent sideshow to the main event!

Keep going! I’m sure it’ll make a big difference to everyone in America.

Mate we're not trying to change anything, we're just pointing out how fucking stupid it is, laughing at it's supporters (I'm not a gun nut I just have a gun I can concealed carry everywhere I go) and lamenting its poor victims.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

That’s the weakest argument you have ever made on this forum mate. 230 years ago, it took roughly 46 seconds for a trained minuteman to reload his rifle. The idea of an AR15 wasn’t remotely possible.

You accept that a US citizen can’t own a fully functioning tank or an RPG so you accept there’s a limit to the 2A.

I merely follow the law, as I assume do most people on here.

I don’t get to make up my own versions of interpretations, because there is a system for that. It involves lawyers and judges elected to their positions.

Color me crazy, but I obey even the laws I disagree with or else I’d have to face the severely negative consequences.

One of the most basic fundamentals of the Constitution is that anything that is not specifically addressed has to be legislated at the Federal level or left to the States (States Rights) to determine.

Since 2A has never been overturned by Federal law, it has been challenged through the Courts. As such, when it reaches them, SCOTUS decisions are absorbed into the laws of the country…until they change their views.

Accordingly, even though Bluemooners, some of whom have their own versions of what US law should be, should say, not to mention should have simply expired, THINK they understand the law and what it means, they clearly do not.

Sadly, America doesn’t care.

That’s not me dissing you, but it is me explaining reality to you!

You can climb on your moral high horse and TELL America (or in this case the ONLY Brit American trying to explain your arrogance to you) how it should act, but I hope you realize how ridiculous it is?!

You don’t have a vote, the issue doesn’t affect you, but you feel like your own personal experience in your own country is so much better that America must be stupid to not be like (fill in the country if your choice).

Much good may that do you.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

It’s fair to say that the U.K. IS morally superior when it comes to the regulation of firearms for the protection of it’s citizens.

Bravo.

Have I said otherwise?
Is THAT the desire of the discussion?

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I used the FACT (as statistically detailed in the research I presented) that 54% of gun deaths are suicides, which is why I mentioned the dearth of mental illness resources available to many troubled individuals.

This is an interesting one, because it often comes up in relation to bridges. "What's the point of putting up anti-suicide measures at the Golden Gate Bridge? Someone who wants to kill themselves will just choose another method." But psychologists would typically disagree. People who are suicidal typically have an idea in their mind of how they're going to do it, and when they are thwarted, they don't typically then go on to use another method.

The other thing that could help in relation to mass shootings, that will never happen in America because of one of the other amendments, would be to anonymise and localize any story around mass shooting. We shouldn't know his name. We shouldn't see his picture. We certainly shouldn't be able to read his manifesto. Again, psychologists will tell you that one of the main motivating factors of mass shooting is that idea of showing the world. And it wouldn't necessarily be beyond the realms of possibility to ban such reporting, in the same way that they do for child abuse cases at times, but there's too much money in this round-the-clock sensationalized media coverage for it to ever happen.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Mate we're not trying to change anything, we're just pointing out how fucking stupid it is, laughing at it's supporters (I'm not a gun nut I just have a gun I can concealed carry everywhere I go) and lamenting its poor victims.

The view from on high appears slightly different from the ground down here.

I’m sure there are many, many things people find “stupid” in many countries, but we don’t seem to get so heated about those.

I don’t make the rules.
I don’t agree with some of the rules.
I live by the rules.
I explain the rules when others confuse them with their warped view of reality.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

This is an interesting one, because it often comes up in relation to bridges. "What's the point of putting up anti-suicide measures at the Golden Gate Bridge? Someone who wants to kill themselves will just choose another method." But psychologists would typically disagree. People who are suicidal typically have an idea in their mind of how they're going to do it, and when they are thwarted, they don't typically then go on to use another method.

The other thing that could help in relation to mass shootings, that will never happen in America because of one of the other amendments, would be to anonymise and localize any story around mass shooting. We shouldn't know his name. We shouldn't see his picture. We certainly shouldn't be able to read his manifesto. Again, psychologists will tell you that one of the main motivating factors of mass shooting is that idea of showing the world. And it wouldn't necessarily be beyond the realms of possibility to ban such reporting, in the same way that they do for child abuse cases at times, but there's too much money in this round-the-clock sensationalized media coverage for it to ever happen.

Then, why wasn’t it made the law of the land before the “round-the-clock sensationalized media coverage”?

Who gets to decide?

Sadly, most people forget this country was created, and the Constitution written, BECAUSE the earliest Americans were vehemently opposed to tyranny and governmental overreach.

The guns in America were memorialized because they want FREE CITIZENS to be able to fight any and all tyranny, be it the British government OR even the fledgling US Federal govt they had just created.

Remember, American population and power was still highly concentrated at the time, which is also why the Electoral College was created. Virginia was, in newly created American terms, almost as threatening to the fledgling democracy as Britain had been.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

FWIW I agree with most of what you posted on page 248.

. I am strongly in favor of strong gun control laws
. Outside of this Forum there are only a small handful of people who know I am even a gun owner, let alone have multiple firearms.
. I strongly advocate safe ownership, including separating guns from ammo and locking up both, etc…
. I’m not a gun nut and know little about guns, other than the ones I own, which are all very similar.
. I practice how to use them, so that I have mastery of the firearms and exercise responsible ownership.
. I am not an advocate of 2A, but I am enough of a realist to understand it’s not changing anytime soon. For me, that’s the starting reality for any discussion of American gun culture.
. I think it’s sadly amusing to read most people’s uneducated (as in unrealistic) view of American gun culture and 2A, whilst expected to kowtow to their moral superiority.

What I don't understand is the general consensus from the majority of gun owners their acceptance that 2A (and its numerous legal interpretations) is here to stay.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

Then, why wasn’t it made the law of the land before the “round-the-clock sensationalized media coverage”?

Presumably because it hadn't been well researched at that point and the potential for widespread media coverage was more limited in the past. This isn't an American-specific phenomenon, incidentally. It applies equally to terrorist attacks in Europe, which is why they often appear in waves, because of copycat attacks inspired by the initial one.

I'm not sure there's a lot you can do about it nowadays, especially in the era of social media where the public are even less responsible with what they share than the professional media.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

You give a fuck, you can’t help yourself in replying.

I’m trying to explain your, and others, misconceptions to you.

I literally couldn’t care less what you (or anyone else without a vote) thinks, especially when arguments are often specious or simply patently false.

What you or anyone else here thinks, it won’t change 2A or my own gun ownership. However, perpetuating erroneous arguments is detrimental to the discussion.

If you’d like me to stop correcting the misperceptions, just say so and I’ll take your views under advisement.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

FWIW I agree with most of what you posted on page 248.


What I don't understand is the general consensus from the majority of gun owners their acceptance that 2A (and its numerous legal interpretations) is here to stay.

Because the Constitution Amendment process makes it impossible today and there would be a SCOTUS challenge to any Federal law that attempted to covertly overturn it legislatively.

You may notice that Roe vs Wade is not actually the case under consideration in the abortion debate right now. Rather, it is a STATE LAW that greatly restricts it. This is how you get a particular law in front of SCOTUS, do they can address it!

If there had been a straightforward “No more abortions!” it would have been considered unconstitutional . Instead, they push a shorter (15 weeks in this case) and even shorter (6 weeks in the Mississippi case) abortion cut off terms.

The charade allows the conservative Justices to address the entire Roe decision, and it looks like they’re going to state that the original decision was erroneous and should never have been affirmed under the Constitution in the 70s!

This is how Chicago, and thus Illinois, was forced to allow firearms ownership and Concealed Carry! You write a law, get it passed, then challenge it all the way up to SCOTUS, by claiming it’s unconstitutional. Once it gets there, the Justices can do whatever they want!

 

[stonerblue]

Odd how none of our usually quick off the mark thread starters haven't started a new thread about a 'Terrorist incident'' as this story was breaking..?

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Because the Constitution Amendment process makes it impossible today and there would be a SCOTUS challenge to any Federal law that attempted to covertly overturn it legislatively.

You may notice that Roe vs Wade is not actually the case under consideration in the abortion debate right now. Rather, it is a STATE LAW that greatly restricts it. This is how you get a particular law in front of SCOTUS, do they can address it!

If there had been a straightforward “No more abortions!” it would have been considered unconstitutional . Instead, they push a shorter (15 weeks in this case) and even shorter (6 weeks in the Mississippi case) abortion cut off terms.

The charade allows the conservative Justices to address the entire Roe decision, and it looks like they’re going to state that the original decision was erroneous and should never have been affirmed under the Constitution in the 70s!

This is how Chicago, and thus Illinois, was forced to allow firearms ownership and Concealed Carry! You write a law, get it passed, then challenge it all the way up to SCOTUS, by claiming it’s unconstitutional. Once it gets there, the Justices can do whatever they want!

I get how it works, but the whole argument against abolishing 2A (or at least proffering another amendment to the Constitution) appears to boil down to it being TFD which is a really shit excuse for essentially doing nothing.

 

[SWP's back]

 

[Slipper One]

Such a load of absolute wank in one post.

What an absolute wank of a reply, totally without substance.

 

[Slipper One]

I read those bits and it read to me like a list of excuses.

Excuses for what Trevor? These are the people dealing with gun violence every day and if they say that gun ownership is not the issue, but guns in the hands of criminals are, then surely they should know.

They understand that it's not the individual legally owning a gun that is the problem, it's the criminal element.

Banning guns would make no difference to gun death stats, because firearms would be still be brought across a porous border from the US, as they are now.

Outside of the major cities, gun violence is very low here and what we do have, is almost always attributed to drugs.

 

[Slipper One]

But you fail to understand that every other, mentally stable, pre-breakdown gun owner would likely have said the same things “I’m not a danger” and they weren’t, right up until they were.

I’m sure you’re a lovely friend and a great husband and father but I’m glad we don’t share the same social circle or suburb because you own a gun and I don’t want to be in the wrong place the day you’re no longer sane and rational and you snap. It likely will never happen but…. but it’s like playing the lottery. It’s unlikely one will win with any given ticket but someone tends to win each week anyway.

...........and I'm sure you're a very safe and considerate driver, but I don't want to be on the road when 'you' when you decide to use your phone, send a text, overtake, speed, drink/drive, run an amber or whatever people do when they cause accidents. Better to ban cars, because that would solve the problem.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Excuses for what Trevor? These are the people dealing with gun violence every day and if they say that gun ownership is not the issue, but guns in the hands of criminals are, then surely they should know.

They understand that it's not the individual legally owning a gun that is the problem, it's the criminal element.

Banning guns would make no difference to gun death stats, because firearms would be still be brought across a porous border from the US, as they are now.

Outside of the major cities, gun violence is very low here and what we do have, is almost always attributed to drugs.

Excuses for not tackling the wider issues surrounding gun ownership. The guy who just killed all those people in Buffalo had a LEGALLY owned assault style weapon. Not one single civilian has a legitimate reason for owning one of those weapons aside from simply wanting to own one.