Gun Control (Argument and source submission thread)

i wanted to expand on this

to my way of thinking, carry permits, waiting periods, restrictions on what you can own and especially on what you can run around town carrying in your car or knapsack

these kinds of things ARE gun control

im ok with gun CONTROL

im NOT ok with gun BANNING

A good example is the shooting in a church in the southern US. They were able to trace to where the gun was purchesed. The merchant illegally sold the gun to the killer. If the gun was sold legally that shooter would not have had THAT gun but in all likelihood the deranged shooter would have found a gun outside of the legal system.

You can't control crackpots.

Rickie wrote: You can't control crackpots.

.............Well...

Brenna wrote: There is a huge amount of evidence and statistics and studies and opinions more educated and valid than my own, so i decided to base my response purely on my own experiences of guns control over three different countries.

Ive lived in South Africa, where there is practically no gun control at all. New Zealand, where not even the police are armed. And now Texas, where Ive lost count of the fire arms just in our house alone.

In SA, violence is a way of life. As is unemployment, corruption, a lack of infrastructure and education, and many many hundreds of thousands of desperate people. Living there could be pretty scary. Most people have at least guns for home defense, but it doesn't stop the problem. And attempts at gun control have done only one thing, make law abiding citizens more vulnerable. When I lived there (for around 20 years) I drew a gun 4 times in my own defense. Luckily, I only had to shoot once. Ive had guns drawn by family in our defense.

In New Zealand, a much smaller, quieter country with high rates of employment, social services, excellent infrastructure and a world class education system (one of the biggest "exports" of the country incidentally) there is far less violence (statistically, accounting for the population difference) and is on the whole a very tolerant and diverse culture. The country does lean slightly towards a socialist system which has meant that there is never the same level of poverty or desperation as I have seen in other countries (and I'm very well traveled) and sure, there are those who dont like it, and those who take advantage, but its the minority. Living there was a very peaceful experience. Yes there is racial tension, yes there is crime and yes there is violence, but on such a scale that it still makes headline news and people are still shocked and outraged by it. I recall a single gun related death not long before I left that was in the news for weeks on end with people thoroughly alarmed.

Here, well.... I sometimes feel like the USA is so unbelievably large and its issues so deeply rooted and complex that its hard to know where to start. But I think gun control isn't THE answer. In the sense of limiting the damage that people like that young man in CS can do, yes. I'm all for limiting access to fire arms through licensing, registration, tracking, and psych evaluations prior to ownership. But its a band aid, not a cure. And criminals, last I checked, do not obey the law, so stricter control is unlikely to dissuade someone who is determined to have one, from accessing a gun.

The bigger questions is why is there so much emotional and mental instability in people here that this mass gun killing thing is even a thing? Why do people feel they need to murder others to be heard, to be avenged, to be seen, to matter? Violence is about power. And having been interested in the patterns of violence here for many years, all I see is people who feel powerless, and use guns to change that.

Maybe if we spent more time investigating this aspect of the issue rather than trotting out "gun control" each time, we might make some headway with actually resolving the "why" instead of trying to control the "how".


just my own thoughts.

South Africa actually has fairly stringent gun laws. They just aren't enforced. Likewise, I knew a South African gentleman who passed all the requirements to get a gun license, bought a shotgun and two pistols, but had been waiting three years to get them from the store, since the police department was so incompetent and had not yet issued his license.

As with NZ, the gun laws are more permissive than one might think. You can get all of the same varieties of guns that are available in the US (look up the Aramoana massacre if you don't believe me), the only difference is that it requires a license, and also that NZ law does not recognize the concept of self-defense with a gun (although in extreme home invasion circumstances, the judge would be understanding).

I think you see the issue here. The US is a dysfunctional society. So is South Africa (no offense intended). New Zealand is not.

I'm pro-gun, because I feel that it's the most reasonable position. It's nothing emotional or sentimental for me. I'm not a patriotic American. I don't support the troops. I don't buy into the cornpone American bullshit "culture" surrounding guns. I own a revolver because I feel that, in my circumstances, it's a good idea.

Likewise, I don't waste my breath or expend any thoughts in arguing about AR-15s or high-capacity magazines. I just want the right to own and use my revolver, if needed.

Kitsu Tails wrote:

Rickie wrote: You can't control crackpots.

.............Well...

well what?

Jedi_Roz wrote: I grew up in a very remote area. Heck I still live in a very remote area. I grew up with weapons as we were farmers and I learned how to crack off a coyote running full tilt up to 300 yards with one shot. We had to defend our livestock against predators. I thought nothing of carrying a .45 while out riding in case I came up upon a coyote/fox or even a bear when I was checking fence lines.

Every year during hunting season we have a huge family get together and pranks are pulled, tons of bad movies watched and all kinds of fart jokes because of the copious amounts of beans we all consume. (They are cheap, good filler, and keep us all warm) Guns are everywhere when my families house becomes deer camp.

It was not until I was in my mid teens I was even allowed to carry a gun and when we finally were allowed to go hunting by ourselves (my father would take us kids out with him on the stand) we got one bullet. Just one. My fathers words were "If you cannot make a clean and safe kill in one shot, you do not deserve two". Made us learn to wait for that correct moment and if it did not come we could not take that shot. We never hunted for trophies, always meat. Whatever we brought down was butchered and shared with the entire family no matter who shot it.

For us guns were a tool, we never ever thought to aim them at a human being. In my world everyone had them and they were there to hunt with and enjoy as a family together. Then my first wake up call to what was going on in the rest of the world was the Columbine Shooting in 1999. For me that was significant because it was the first time a shooting of that magnitude was heavily covered by the media and it was eye opening for a teenager who never considered using a gun in a situation like that. Now obviously I was not naive enough to believe that never happened either, my family were and still are active members of the military, PD's and I'm a student of history. People have killed each other with various weapons since we have figured out how to kill animals for food. For me however it was a shock to know that some people had such a hard time expressing their feelings that the only way they felt they could get their message across was to walk into a school of innocent people and open fire.

Since then we have had a staggering amount of shootings. I agree with a lot of what has been said here, we need to look deeper at this issue, we need to stop pretending that America does not have a serious mental health problem. I'm not saying drag my feet either because even though I am a avid hunter and a gun owner I absolutely support firmer gun control.

Firmer as in I believe we need to stop the gun show sales etc. In the case of the Charleston shooting, that young man got his gun as a gift for his 21st birthday. I do not know what the answer is to this very important question but we need to start talking about it as a country. This whole conceal and carry thing is a good thing, and I agree if you want to carry a gun fine but now I have customers that come in carrying .45s into the store because they are paranoid and scared from all the media hype. We have NEVER had a situation where a weapon was needed. Period. I get nervous because a lot of those people are exactly what has been talked about in that Mr. Crazy Paranoid who watches all the news and believes every word of it goes out and gets a gun and goes through a conceal and carry class and gets his permit to carry a weapon. He now decides because the world is an awful place and he needs to protect his family at all costs has to carry a weapon 24/7 because you never know......he comes into our store to buy papers with a gun strapped to his hip ready to open fire on anyone that could be suspicious and then we have another bad situation because Mr Paranoid thinks he's helping when in fact he has become a danger to not only us but himself. Was that gun needed?

Let me flip that scenario. I'm going out to the barn, with a .45 and open the dairy to find coyotes in with livestock. Yeah. I'm going to open fire because once they are in they have learned to come in and will be back. Perhaps they have already killed a cow or calf. Can I make a serious call on the value of life? Can Mr. Paranoid? Now granted I'm talking coyotes, not human beings. I'm doing it to protect my family and investment in livestock but in Mr. Paranoids head isn't he doing the same? Again referencing Charleston the young man was quoted as saying "No, you've raped our women, and you are taking over the country ... I have to do what I have to do." Obviously this young man believes he's of solid mind but in truth he's got some very severe mental problems and not trying to play into what the media of the US is all speculating we need to come together and try to figure out how we can stop this from happening.

Is there a solution? I don't know. Banning all guns is stupid and will not happen but how do we allow responsible gun owners to continue to have a wonderful family tradition and keep the Mr (and Mrs) Paranoids from deciding they need to take matters into their own hands? Granted too, I live in a very remote area, guns are a way of life. I've certainly visited inner cities, but there too the gun violence is abhorrent.

Here is a site on gun violence:
http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

So far this year there has been 5,800 deaths in the United States due to gun violence according to this site. Now very true a tragedy just unfolded where many people were killed but what about the other 5,790 that did not get media coverage. There has been 11, 430 people injured because of gun violence, just this year alone.

What do we do?

Correction. He bought it with birthday money, but it hardly makes a difference.

I agree with those that criticize gun shows, on most points. I refuse to go to them, not because I think gun shows are a bad idea altogether, but because they aren't as regulated as they could easily be.

A story. My dad bought me a Ruger single-action .22 revolver when I was 19. I knew that the model was supposed to have another cylinder that fired .22 magnum. I asked my dad where it was, and he explained that the seller warned him that the gun had probably been stolen at some point. That's the kind of thing that shouldn't happen.

I don't think gun shows should be banned, just regulated. I'm all for private transfers, on a one-on-one basis, but gun shows are impersonal and allow a large degree of anonymity. I say that a person should automatically fill out the paperwork, to be turned in to the county sheriff's department, that registers the gun to their name, as RESPONSIBLE people do when they perform private transactions.

Also, there's the survivalist fringe at shows that pisses me off...

I agree that people need to back away from the TV sometimes. I've worked at a job for four years where I am almost the only non-black there. I worked there during the Trayvon Martin incident, the Ferguson incident, and everything inbetween. I've never been blamed for any of it. None of my working class, low-income black coworkers have shown any aggression or negative feelings to me whatsoever about any of it. What kind of isolated world did this kid live in where he thought that all blacks were like the rioters/looters in Ferguson? Mind you, I'm not an anti-racist social justice warrior. I'm a former white nationalist, and I still retain a lot of racialist beliefs. And I'm saying this.

His misconception that all blacks are thugs with a victim mentality is no different than that of the gun control fanatics who think every white person with a gun is a paranoid survivalist Klansman.

Turn off the TV, turn off the first-person shooters, and get out and meet people, THAT's the solution for these things. Hell, he could have met a black friend or two and went with them to the gun range.