Topic: Vegas shooting

[Pugnate]

It's very tragic and scary. The state of mental health in the United States needs serious attention as does gun control.

[idolminds]

With the republicans currently in charge of everything, literally nothing will be done about either of those things.

[scottws]

If the shooter were black, Arab, or Muslim, something would have been done. Nothing good, but something. But the guy was white, so it will just be business as usual. At best there will be expressions of sympathy and calls to not jump to rash conclusions.

[ender]

Very sad. Even more sad that no one will do anything about sensible gun legislation. I just found out this morning, one of our production people on the West Coast at work had some friends killed in the shooting. So sad.

[idolminds]

Today I learned what a bump stock is. Holy shit how are these things even legal? What practical purpose do they serve other than to spray lead indiscriminately?

[Pugnate]

It's a joke that they've taken the 'right to bear arms' to mean arms that would allow one man to easily kill over 50. These weapon modifications have no reason to exist in the hands of a civilian.

[scottws]

I posted a long thing about this on FB. Basically a call for at least a discussion. I also posted the same thing in response to a comment on some right wing shared story. It's interesting. The 2nd amendment folks just say no to any calls for any further restrictions at all. They say that the problem is the person, not the gun. This despite the fact that a gun is a distance killing tool while things like knives, cars, hammers, and other such items are just mispurposed regular items and it would be extremely difficult to cause the carnage this guy did with anything other than a gun or a bomb. I mentioned that we could at least consider putting in place additional measures or checks for people that try to acquire a large amount of guns, but am told that the guns could just be acquired illegally. This despite the fact it looks like this guy got all of his guns through the legal process.

It's all just "No! Why should my rights get infringed because of some Yahoo?" Or "People that want to do illegal things will find a way." Pretty idiotic comments considering we make laws all the time and these same people want to modify immigration or whatever everytime an Arab kills someone.

We are never going to solve murder without 1984 or Minority Report style policing and technology (and who wants that anyway?), but surely there are some restrictions that can be put in place that help reduce the frequency and devestation of such events that don't have much of an impact on the average gun owner or enthusiast.

Here is my FB post:

While true that a gun is just one of many possible tools for killing, a guy with a knife or a sword or a crossbow or a truck generally isn't going to be able to cause over 500 casualties and 60 deaths. And it's not like a gun is some household item that just happens to also be able to kill.  It's not a steak knife. It's not a truck. It's indisputable: guns are designed for the express purpose of killing things and to do so at range. And while I don't think guns should be banned, surely there are at least some sensible restrictions that can be put in place that don't infringe on our Constitutional right to bear arms, no?

What about a limit on the number of registered guns you can own before you need a permit that requires further scrutiny? Does anyone really need 50 guns for anything? Does anyone need 10? And if you really want a bunch of guns, is it really too much to ask for a special, more intensive process to be able to have that many? I know a lot of gun owners, and none of them own more than 5. Shouldn't we be a little wary of someone that wants to acquire that many? We don't let just anyone with a driver's license drive semis.

Or what about bump stocks? Clearly a clever way to get around the civilian automatic weapon restrictions, but I don't remember seeing the 2nd amendment say anything about protecting the right of a person to be able to sustain a high rate of fire, even if you interpret the Constitution loosely.

Everyone is always afraid is liberals want to take everyone's guns away after events like this. That isn't what we want at all! We just want to be able to have a sensible discussion on additional measures we might be able to put in place that could reduce the frequency, likelihood, and devestation of such events. Isn't that a good thing? We talk about how we can reduce terrorism after Islamic terrorist attacks. Isn't this just another form of of terrorism? Why is this off limits, but not that?

Here is one of the typical responses:

Scott, but there are already multiple laws in place to prevent these events, but people like this guy don't care about laws. No new law would have prevented this. As the world grows and morality ever increasingly gets thrown out the window, then more of these things will happen. Tomorrow it could be plane flown into a college stadium in the middle of America where no protection exists. It could be a bomb at a fundraiser with 1000's in attendance. The problem is hate, and by my observation the hate is only coming from a certain group of people who not only spew it, but accept it when it suits their narrative.

This guy conveniently ignores that it's not very easy to get into a plane cockpit and get it into the air as well as the fact that purchases of most bomb-making materials are watched. How often have bombs gone off or planes flown into things in this country? Now compare that to how many times we hear about another mass shooter? And the mass shooter is always a white guy!

[ender]

I always try to point to this:

After a recent serious injury caused by a lawn dart, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reissued its warning that lawn darts are banned and should be destroyed. Effective on December 19, 1988, CPSC banned the sale of all lawn darts in the United States.

Among many, many things that have been legislated against that are much less deadly than a gun. All of the arguments against sensible gun control make no sense. There are 112 guns per 100 residents in the USA, and yet only 31% of Americans own guns.

Mind boggling.

[idolminds]

The other weird thing are the people that argue there are too many guns to confiscate and that people would just lie and keep/hide them. Sure thats likely to happen, but how does that help those people? You now have an object (and likely multiple objects) that are illegal to own. You can't show them to anyone or they might turn you in. Operating them is loud so you can't use them for anything without getting the cops called on you. Even if you have a large and remote piece of land the sound travels a large distance. If guns were banned then there would be no reason for anyone to buy ammo so good luck finding any. You could make your own ammo but the supplies for that would be easily tracked. Would you really risk the penalties of not turning them in just to keep something you can no longer realistically use?

Now I'm not saying I'm for a complete gun ban. There are plenty of steps and regulations that could be put in place that would help while also letting people keep firearms. But man it would be nice if this headline wasn't eternally true.

[Quemaqua]

This is what is so beyond me. Like you don't have to ban guns, you just have to work to put some common-fucking-sense restrictions on them. I can't understand how ANYONE is against this given the problem we have with indiscriminate gun violence in this country. It's an epidemic, and yet so many are still resistant. How bad does it have to get before anyone is willing to change? I suspect there's no amount that will change their minds, because the more violence they see, the more they cling to their sad belief that them owning guns is some sort of viable protection against it.