Gun Control

[Wrenn]

The thing that strikes me as really really interesting about that chart: one of the common arguments by US ammosexuals is "look at Switzerland, they've got lotsa guns, but they have hardly any gun deaths".

I thought I heard someone say recently that while they have a lot of guns in Switzerland, they don't have any bullets. All the ammunition is kept on military bases.

Some information on guns in Switzerland here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912

[wearestardust]

I thought I heard someone say recently that while they have a lot of guns in Switzerland, they don't have any bullets. All the ammunition is kept on military bases.

Some information on guns in Switzerland here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21379912

The story about not having the bullets is about military firearms that many citizens are required to have in their homes (whether or not that's true, I don't know, but that's the story).

All those gun deaths aren't caused by people beating each other to death with them ...

[Blue Lightning]

This is a particularly well-researched thoughtful contribution from Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times to the discussion about curbing US gun violence:

How to Reduce Shootings

It has happened yet again: Inevitably, predictably, fatefully, a gunman shot dead 26 people in a Texas church on Sunday. These incidents are peculiarly American tragedies, and what’s particularly heartbreaking is that they aren’t shocking. People all over the world become furious and try to harm others, but only in the United States do we suffer such mass shootings so regularly; only in the U.S. do we lose one person every 15 minutes to gun violence.

...

If you’re wondering how we managed to crank out all these charts and data in the immediate aftermath of the Texas shooting, here’s the secret: We didn’t. We spent weeks gathering the information and preparing the charts, because we knew that there would be a tragedy like this one to make it all relevant.

That’s the blunt, damning truth: Sunday’s horror was 100 percent predictable ...

...

More at link.

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

[Darwinsbulldog]

The story about not having the bullets is about military firearms that many citizens are required to have in their homes (whether or not that's true, I don't know, but that's the story).

All those gun deaths aren't caused by people beating each other to death with them ...

Firearms safety has always been about training, discipline and an appropriate mental state. The problem is, it is rarely practiced. People kill, not guns. People and an overly permissive society is the problem.

In other words, if you are a nutter, diagnosed or not, temporary or permanent, you should not have access to a gun.

Assuming left are indeed sane, you need a proper warrior ethic. That is, to protect and serve the people. To obey the laws of the state with regard to policing or military force. [That assumes the state is rational, ethical and evidenced based in it's policies, which of course, are far from perfect in most states, and in some states, totally inane, racist, or otherwise cluster fucked by religion and a whole load of religious fantasies and memes].

But too often, "protect and serve" meanz "I have a gunz to kill blacks, or women" or whatever the fuck. Such people are neither warriors nor agents of law enforcement. They are mostly, brainless, unethical thugs.

In short, the means to use lethal force should be a privileged rather than a right, and earned. This is true whether we are talking about an individual, a group or a state.

Because the onus of proof is on who is bearing the arms. A state or an individual with a history of violence or mental instability or war crimes or violent crimes has no right to bear arms.

Unless those who do not have weapons feel perfectly safe in the presence of those who do, then any right to bear arms is null and void.

Police or military or even citizens bearing arms should not only make the world safer, but be seen to do so as well. Otherwise there is no point.

Although people should have equal access to the law, it does not mean that everyone should have the right to bear arms. Because we are not equal. Even the same person is unlikely to have a perfect mental state throughout their lives.

In short I believe in the right to bear arms in principle, because there are individuals, groups and nations that abuse such rights by not balancing with other rights. [Such as special privilege, racism, sexism, etc, etc].

So in effect, bearing arms is a privilege that has to be earned by ethical use and practice. And those who do bear arms should be thoroughly trained and possess a set of ethics suitable to use those arms for public benefit.

We do this with doctors, who have the power and death over us. We demand the best training, ethics and practice from them. We should demand no less from those who bear arms.

[stevebrooks]

Another week, another shooting in the US;

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41991397

Four people are dead after a gunman opened fire in northern California at several locations, including an elementary school, police have said.


The shooting broke out at a home in the rural community of Rancho Tehama, about 120 miles (195km) from Sacramento, on Tuesday morning.


Police say the gunman was shot and killed by law enforcement after four others were killed in the rampage.


Officials believe the shootings started as a "domestic violence" incident.

The easy access to long range weapons often makes domestic disputes in the US deadly compared to many other countries where the easiest weapon to access is a knife or club. Once the domestic dispute is over,usually by the murder of the person being attacked the attacker is suddenly left with anger, a deadly long range weapon and no reason to hold back, they have killed once, they just go on killing. I suspect an attack of fatalism is probably a contributing factor where the attackers take out their anger on other people around them. I am sure there are many people more qualified than myself here to comment on that.

I wonder if a method of controlled access might prove effective, where you can unlock a mandatory gun safe but it doesn't actually open for another ten minutes. Of course opponents would simply argue that it prevents immediate response to an attacker.

[LadyGreen]

Honestly by the time you need a gun to defend your home you should really consider wether your shit is worth a shootout, maybe its better to just flee in the first place.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[pipbarber]

Ideological insanity.

So the Soviet Union was an absolute economic disaster because only 1-3% actually controlled most of the nation’s wealth. As for those lawless wild central and South American countries where people get shot at random...aweful. Now let’s look at the US. Arrrr....yep, the US is great at making lots of movies...and fantastic with music...

[Strato]

They make nice guitars and kits and tools. Hope that catches on.

Steven Pinker has much to say about the bent for violence in our species, certainly in the male and how to temper that proclivity.

The Blank Slate is about determinism. The male has evolved to be ready for violence. He says the male physique has undergone selection through combat.

Everybody suffers for it.

[The Irreverent Mr Black]

A little satire from McSweeney's

Your Mass Shooting Thoughts and Prayers Are Accidentally Going to the Angry God of a Distant Planet

People of Earth,

S’nathrokhan here. I’m the God of a planet two galaxies, four dimensions, and nineteen possibilities away. Weird question… are you guys having horrifically frequent mass shootings? Because if you’ve been counting on your God to end those, I got some bad news: your prayers keep getting accidentally delivered to my house.

You all know how prayers work: You make a wish, it shoots up into the sky, gets intercepted by the pan-reality post office, and then dropped off at the correct God’s castle, where He/She/They/An Unfathomable Wriggling Mass Of Eyeballs reads it and makes it come true. But your prayers must’ve bumped into a black hole or gotten turned around in a nine-dimensional space bubble because I’m getting truckloads of your pleas to end gun violence. And they have started pouring in with, frankly, embarrassing frequency.

Go, read the darned thing. It'll give you something to do other than gnashing yer teeth.