Another mass shooting in America but i am not going to give my opinion yet again about America's gun laws. Partly because what America does with it's own laws is no concern of mine and partly because i spout my view about America's gun laws after everyone of their mass shootings.
What would unnerve me in a country where guns take over 31,000 lives annually and a further 100,000 suffer gunshot wounds, is that there is not even a rational discussion over gun laws. Rather there are attempts to instigate one but the 'cold dead hand' supporters shout down anyone who tries.
I have seen it on blogs, message boards and all over the internet where the natural knee-jerk reaction to anyone understandably uttering that America should look at it's gun laws in the immediate aftermath of another shooting is jumped upon by people quoting the second amendment and even advocating the laws should be relaxed so more guns are in peoples hands.
Even as the bodies from the Colorado cinema were still being carried to the morgue, there were speaking heads on the American news channels coming out with the well worn phrase about guns not killing people, people kill people and waving away any idea of even looking at the gun laws.
The President came onto the television and expressed his shock and sadness at events and said that the victims were in his thoughts and prayers which is probably all he could do because in an election year anything that even smelt of gun control would have been toxic with large swathes of voters.
The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, reported their annual revenue at $5.9 million in 2010. The National Rifle Association (NRA) took in $253 million from individual and corporate supporters the same year.
The US Congress has not approved any major new gun laws since 1994 and that law which banned certain semi-automatic weapons, expired in 2004.
'The gun enthusiasts and NRA are a strong force in American politics' said one political analyst, 'in the short term, these incident may give an opportunity to talk about gun control in an environment where people are listening, but in the long term, nothing will change' he explained which should concern your normal everyday American because I would have thought that anything that is responsible for 85 deaths a day, no matter what it is, should be up for discussion and not be immediately shut down by a rich, powerful lobby group.
14 comments:
Its a well worn phrase because its true, people kill people and we have to keep repeating it to get through the thick heads of ignorant people like you.
Wow, persuasive stuff...
lucy, i thought you werent going to share your thoughts? oh well. I welcome them, especially since it is your BLOG!!!
had i been there, he would have been shot by me. note that nobody like me (with a concealed handgun license) was present and the police arrived in time to protect the evidence... damn good thing that evidence wasn’t harmed.
in a semi-free society like america (i'm not sure how to categorize the UK) you can't keep people from getting guns. the bad guys will and gladly do break the law and have no hesitation about breaking the gun laws or using guns (bad guys tend to be lazy, mean, and immoral by civilized stds).
washington d.c. by the way does not allow guns and they have the highest murder rate in america.
mexico doesn't allow guns and the bad guys rule - the people hide - the rich have heavily armed guards, walled properties, and armored vehicles.
Lastly, and once again, american roots go back to freeing ourselves from English royalty that took advantage of an unarmed populace to impose tyranny including: precluding public gatherings, limiting freedom of speech, precluding private gatherings, making up evidence, imposed housing of troops in personal homes, and running kangaroo courts.
We have enough trouble keeping our own “democratically” elected government out of our business without being at their mercy by being unarmed.
I would rather die trying to defend myself with a gun, than cower like a punk in a theater and hope some asshole runs out of bullets killing other people before they kill me. Only made worse by having the likes of the ACLU, the far left, the democrats, the President, the police, and others making banal statements like “if we only got rid of guns…”
We need to get rid of bad people, not guns. Sadly, we can’t do like the uk in the 1800’s and behead hundreds of thousands of dissidents and poor? And we can’t ship them to a crappy island across the world either?
By the way, the people calling for “no guns” are the same “double standards” people that fly on personal jets (instead of sharing public aircraft) while calling for environmental protection, the same people that live in 20,000 sqft mansions pushing green living, the same people that want to save the poor, then give nothing to charity.
q
I don't necessarily agree with all of that, Q, but that was certainly a decent summary of the anti-gun-control argument (at least compared to NRA's trolling in the first comment), however you lost me in your last paragraph...
How is being pro-gun-control evidence of a double-standard worthy of comparison with the three other groups you describe?
Q, so we don't go down the same path as these gun control things usual end up, let's twist the question a bit and ask why is America more prone to these type of mass killings. Let's suspend the discussion over the gun laws and agree that guns are the choice of the mass killer because of the carnage they inflict and park that there so the question is now why are there so many mass killers there? There have been these type of things in Britain, Finland, Canada and Norway recently but why are they such a regular occurence in America? I agree that if you banned guns you are only stopping the means to cause such large scale murder and not the underlying reason which never seems to be discussed. There must be a common factor that links the killers, are the majority of them school drop outs, live in poor areas or do they have drug dependency or are they bullied at school or even fans of violent films? Tackle that first and then look at the gun laws but it seems the argument over banning guns or not takes the spotlight and what should be looked at, why America is home to so many mass shootists, is not addressed at all. You and i both do it, NRA above did it and all the talking heads on the tv did it, we reached straight for the gun law arguement instead of asking why people like Holmes do the things they do.
cheezy,
a double standard is a double standard. a rose is a rose. the same people that would take away our guns would keep them to protect themselves and take them away from the rest of us - example rosie o'donnel (a far left facist that is all anti-gun, except for her armed guards). the same people are two-faced about environmentalism, poverty, etal.
q
obviously the existence of guns is a factor. so is the sheer number of guns. though i don't recall any mass killings in the 60's and everyone i knew in texas had guns. further, in high school kids drove pick ups and every pick up truck in the school parking lot had a gun in the back window, with the keys in the ignition, and the windows open... you tell me what has changed.
another factor is population. we have 330 million people. canada has fewer people than california. new york is bigger than finland. houston is as big as norway. britain is 1/5 the size of the usa.
i don't buy the video game and violence on TV argument, though it has probably had some affect.
i think a simple analysis reveals that the killers are all mentally ill. i don't recall a killing based on economics or politics (except the terrorist muslim attack at ft hood 3 years ago). fyi, the same is true for presidential assassins.
last, the mass killings in a year account for a very small number. most killings are criminals shooting other criminals over drugs, money, and territory.
q
aha, there was a shooting in Austin. The guy in the tower. that may have been in the 70's. he was mentally ill...
q
cheezy,
some of my statements are factual. others are logically derived using historic references...
q
fact - i would have shot at him unless i was one of the first victims, odds are 90%+ i'd have hit him
fact - in a semi-free society like america you can't keep people from getting guns. 99% effective is not good enough.
fact - washington d.c. does not allow guns and they have the highest murder rate in america.
fact - mexico doesn't allow guns and the bad guys rule - the people hide (fact) - the rich have heavily armed guards (fact), walled properties (fact, and armed partols), and armored vehicles (fact).
fact - Lastly, and once again, american roots go back to freeing ourselves from English royalty that took advantage of an unarmed populace to impose tyranny including: precluding public gatherings, limiting freedom of speech, precluding private gatherings, making up evidence, imposed housing of troops in personal homes, and running kangaroo courts.
fact - We have enough trouble keeping our own “democratically” elected government out of our business without being at their mercy by being unarmed.
fact - I would rather die trying to defend myself with a gun, than cower like a punk in a theater and hope some asshole runs out of bullets killing other people before they kill me. Only made worse by having the likes of the ACLU, the far left, the democrats, the President, the police, and others making banal statements like “if we only got rid of guns…” (fact - the statements help nothing just bullshit)
fact - We need to get rid of bad people, not guns. Sadly, we can’t do like the uk in the 1800’s and behead hundreds of thousands (i have seen conflicting sources on the sheer number) of dissidents (fact) and poor (fact)? And we can’t ship them to a crappy island across the world either (ok, we could sent them to guam)?
fact - By the way, the people calling for “no guns” are the same “double standards” people that fly on personal jets (instead of sharing public aircraft) while calling for environmental protection, the same people that live in 20,000 sqft mansions pushing green living, the same people that want to save the poor, then give nothing to charity.
"the same people that would take away our guns would keep them to protect themselves"
Aha. That's it. That would indeed be a double standard. You didn't mention that bit in your first comment.
Do you think that this subset of the gun control lobby is a particularly large one though? Maybe I'm naive but I suspect a large number of this lobby don't own guns at all... (I don't have any data on this, but I suspect Rosie O'Donnell is something of an exception - in many respects)... so the cited group is something of a strawman.
I think the anti gun lobby in usa is far less than 50%. The leadership however fall in the group i called out. Democrates, actors, aclu lawyers - loud high visibility
"I think the anti gun lobby in usa is far less than 50%"
You're probably right about that, I don't know much about it. But I wasn't thinking of that: I was just wondering what percentage OF that number (the gun-control lobby) either currently own guns or would continue to secretly own them, after they'd fulfilled their agenda of getting as few people as possible to own their own guns i.e. the percentage who would fall into your 'double standard' group.
Anyway, I guess it's unmeasurable, but I have a feeling it would be quite a small subset of that number. You may suspect differently, which is fair enough.
I think there are 2 major antigun groups. The bulk are like lucy - true believers Then there are the rich and famous. True to form they think themselves exclusive due to their wealth or fame or both. But they are very visible talking heads and with some impact - they wont mention their planned self-exclusion...
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