Gun control is not the American way!

In the US right now the Federal Courts are starting to lean more toward standing firm when it comes to the 2nd amendment. This means most tight gun control laws are going to find it hard to pass through judicial review. Any day now court observers are expecting SCOTUS to strike the New York law. In a few decades, this might change, but for now, the courts are going to stand firm on this issue.

I have had gun violence affect my family. One of my father's brothers was gunned down in Texas about 45 years ago. I do own firearms. These mass killings are a conundrum that has no easy answers. I honestly don't know how to solve them. I just know taking firearms away from law-abiding people is not the answer, even though I do know that many of the illegal weapons on the streets today started out as legal weapons. Firearms are dangerous and people that are irresponsible with how they store them should be held accountable when they are used. Another issue is the call to harden the schools. This will just drive these psychopaths to kill at bus stops and malls where teens hang out. If they can't get a firearm they will use a vehicle. One more point. I spoke to a man that owns a machine shop a while back about how easy it was to actually make a firearm, or modify a semi-automatic into a fully automatic firearm. he said it was not easy but also was not impossible.

I do believe in the concept of red flag laws, but before I will fully support them I want to see safeguards to stop them from being abused.

In the meantime, I do think people need to start paying better attention to their kids and other kids around them. In just about every school shooting days later, we start hearing people were warning about them.

In the end, there may not be a good solution to gun violence. The basic problem is enacting laws to control firearms only removes them from mostly law-abiding people. The bad guys are armed to the teeth and no matter how many gun control laws are passed, this is not going to change in our lifetimes.

 

I know I said I would not reply,. But I can't pass this up.
Did you even read the link you just posted? It 100% contradicts your assertion that the US has the highest mass shooting incidents in the world, both on a per victim basis and on a per event basis.

Here's a quote from your own source.
"Over the 18 years from 1998 to 2015, our list contains 2,354 attacks and at least 4,880 shooters outside the United States and 53 attacks and 57 shooters within our country. By our count, the US makes up less than 1.15% of the mass public shooters, 1.49% of their murders, and 2.20% of their attacks. All these are much less than the US’s 4.6% share of the world population. Attacks in the US are not only less frequent than other countries, but they are also much less deadly on average."

 

My apologies, I copied the wrong footnote.

Confirmation That the United States Has Six Times Its Global Share of Public Mass Shooters, Courtesy of Lott and Moody's Data. - Document - Gale Academic OneFile

https://econjwatch.org/File+download/1105/LankfordMar2019.pdf?mimetype=pdf

 

I get what you're saying about the history. You may be right as I just might be underestimating our citizens. Maybe because I think folks' bark is bigger than their bite. I will push back on one thing.....America wouldn't get taken over that easy because this country has a pretty deep line of defense and intelligence. I would think that an invading country would have to get by all of that before the citizens would have to get involved. To be fair about the Ukraine situation, they've received a great deal of assistance from other countries, maybe not in the form of military personnel, but in terms of weaponry and funds

 

Well thought out and well said Moose. The only thing I would add is... more needs to be done to get the mentally ill into treatment programs and keep them there.

 

I can't wait till they get rid of airplanes. Those things have killed alot of innocent people. You see it in the news all the time, It's terrifying.

 

And cars! Think of all the people killed by cars!

 

Its interesting you've got a country like Switzerland with one of the highest % of gun ownership in the world yet has a very low gun crime rate, why is it that USA has so many maniacs running around on the loose? Maybe that's a question only the clinical psychologists can answer.