Gun Control

Discussion in 'Debate Corner' started by Boy Wonder, Aug 31, 2015.

  1. Boy Wonder Dark Phoenix in Training

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    There was a thread on the topic, but it's over four years old and filled with members that aren't around anymore. So I wanted to get some discussion from the forum's current members.

    So...gun control? What are your thoughts on it?

    Do we need more? Less?
    Where should they be allowed or forbidden, if at all?
    Who should be allowed to carry? Open or conceal?
    Background checks?
    How do you feel about the NRA? Open-Carry advocates? Or about opposite groups like Moms Demand Action?
    Limits on type of firearms (assault weapons, etc.) or magazine size?
    Do you think America's obscenely high amount of shootings could be prevented with more gun control or more gun freedom?

    And anything else you want to discuss on the subject.
     
  2. Miles Cull a Duty 2 : Electric Boogaloo

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    I'm against it buuut... If we should then I think everyone should under go some kind of background test and mental test.
     
  3. Patman Bof

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    In my country in order to buy a gun you have to get a hunting license first. It involves written exams and practical exercises, and requires to go through a physical and psychological medical exam. So basically it' s very similar to our driving license.

    Our government recently suggested to lower the penalty for driving without a license, proposing a 500 euros fine instead of jail time. I don' t have a clue what our politicians smoked the day they came up with this, but the public reaction was a massive ARE YOU GUYS NUTS ? Why you' d want to treat gun ownership any differently is beyond me.

    But here' s the twist : you don' t. A quick look at the polls shows it. You just live in a country where money is speech too. Oh hey look, republicans are tantrum filibustering common sense measures approved by 90% of the country. Must be Tuesday.
     
  4. Glen Returned from the dead

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    I believe you guys need tighter gun control policies. While you will always have murders and accidents and assaults no matter where you go, making it so easy to obtain a gun only adds to the problem. Yes, there are situations where the use of a firearm could help protect an individual, but I'm not entirely sure how any of you can wander the streets with the knowledge the guy passing you on the opposite side of the road could suddenly pull out a handgun and kill you immediately.
     
  5. Meilin Lee RPG (Red Panda Girl)

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    I always abhorred at the idea that a person could legally buy a gun, a thing that is solely manufactured to harm. Sure, it may have been the norm to own a gun... in the 19th century and before. But I can't believe that it's 2015, and any individual I walk by could potentially carry a gun. So yeah, I am 100% for tighter gun control. Would it eliminate crime completely? Of course not. But I am confident it would be a huge improvement in a country where gun violence has unfortunately started to feel normal.
     
    Last edited: Sep 1, 2015
  6. Hayabusa Venomous

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    I'm all for people owning guns, but there's little to no good reason for them to also stock up on live ammunition the way so many do in the United States.

    So rather than regulate firearms, regulate supply of ammo. Keep it in places where only those places where a gun can be safely utilized for something beyond police and military necessity, like shooting ranges and specific areas for hunting.

    This might bring up the argument "But what if people know how to make their own ammo?" Well, I'm pretty sure there's no way to regulate that...short of national overreaching levels of surveillance, which I'm against. There's no perfect solution, but this is the best one I can think of.

    I'm also for mental studies and background checks to purchase ammunition and firearms.
     
  7. . : tale_wind Ice to see you!

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    I WISH PEOPLE WOULD UNDERSTAND THIS. There's no perfect solution to most ANY issue. Some solutions create other problems. BUT THE POINT IS THAT THEY'RE STILL BETTER THAN DOING NOTHING.
     
  8. cstar stay away from my waifu

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    -claps hands together-

    This is gonna cause everyone to hate me and I'm bringing this baby back at the most lethal time to do so. Cause mmm this is a hot topic I've never been able to write about and I feel marginally safer with this crowd than my facebook feed. Heh...

    So I'm pro-gun. I think this isn't... news to anyone who knows me very well? I'm all about the right to protect yourself and the right to bare arms. No, this isn't just "strictly for hunting" like some people specify this is full on "yo i want to have a gun in case, iunno, something happens and I want to protect myself". I'm even for concealed carry, I know a lot of people say it's "dangerous for women" but it's not like concealed carry is a man-only law (if we had any of those oh my god could you imagine the screams?).

    There are points where I HAVE to draw my line though. I know gun laws are very state-by-state based and I... don't want that to change (I'm not exactly in love with the idea of the federal government having power over certain issues but that's a topic for another day) but it's undeniable at this point that some states it is VERY easy to get guns that are arguably not necessary? I don't think there's a reason for anyone to have a semi-automatic. If anyone has a good argument for it other than "military tho." I'll be very glad to listen but I'm not exactly about that.

    That said. For some reason people are spreading this common misconception that it's easy to buy a gun? Sure, in some states it's easier. But you can't just walk into a store and say "hey joe how are ya I want 10 of your finest handguns" and handshake it out as you walk out of there. It's a time consuming, money-consuming process that DOES involve a test.

    I do know that one of the great screams right now on pro-gun side of things is to say "ugh school shooting yet ANOTHER excuse people are going to try and take away our guns" and I'm definitely not on that end of the screams. I think it's an issue that needs to be talked about but unfortunately we are in a day and age where there are just two echo chambers of people screaming at each other and I'm in a weird spot where I can see both of these and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

    I'll say firsthand that the states I tend to have the most knowledge about gunlaws are massachusetts (cause i live here) and florida (cause um... florida's such an odd case). So if my knowledge is a bit... off compared to your state/country it's because of that.
     
  9. Sara Tea Drinker

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    Sorry, but I'm anti-gun...

    I have a nephew who lives in a house with a family who are part of the NRA... They have a collection of guns. He's also mentally unstable and dare I say it, has already threatened his high school with shooting everyone, but got away with it because his mom talked the police from investigating. And she told my mom this, someone who believes her son is an angel who would never hurt a fly when he beats dogs, told my mom she had this happen, but their guns are locked up, but he's smart enough able to go easily into my uncle's room, break the lock box and kill how many people with the guns.

    And before you say it, he's had training... He knows how to fully handle, load, clean and fire a gun. And has been at a shooting range many times.

    The Right to Bear arms was made the same time it was a soldiers goal to load one bullet in two minutes in the military. One. Bullet. For. One. Gun. Took. Two. Minutes.

    Do a mass shooting with a rifle where you have to load a gun for every bullet. Do a mass shooting where it takes you two minutes to load each bullet. See how long it takes without the AR-15 rifle.

    Or even take three teachers that I know personally probably would've shot someone in my class before I graduated high school if they were armed because they were pissed at a student. One teacher was a subsitute screamed obscenities at a student and chased him out of the room calling him a "******ed piece of ****" while the kid was fleeing. He was fired for what he did. Another teacher screamed at another student in the face calling him a dumbass for not knowing math. Another one outright said to his class: "If I had a gun, you'd all be shot dead right now." At least one had tenure, meaning she wouldn't be fired for calling him that.

    Don't give them guns, you'll end up with pissed off teachers with a way to kill students and be kept with their contracts.

    The United States has a hero mentality... See a kid waving a toy gun in a dark movie theater, five people with hidden guns stand up and fire, hitting the kid and probably themselves. This was actually a scenario someone wrote up after the movie theater shooting in the "The Dark Knight Rises" when they wanted to arm people to go to theaters.

    9/11 caused this mentality of being a hero and fighting the armed person... Here's what people don't realize... When flight 93 happened... When the heroes of that flight fought back... They knew they were going to die. They had family calling them on the plane and telling them the World Trade Center had been hit with hijacked planes. They knew the Pentagon had been hit... And they knew that their plane had been hijacked also. They knew they were going to take at least hundreds of lives with them. They knew that they were going to die anyway... And so they fought back.

    I'm guessing if they thought it was a 50/50 chance that it was a regular hijacking that day... Most of the news didn't even REALIZE that day that it was just a coincidence until way later in the day. They would've not fought back... They knew there was a 95% chance of them dying and killing lots of people that day... So they fought back.

    The rescue people, god bless them... They lost brothers and family and went back into those buildings after the first collapsed. They were heroes also, but they've had training, work and dedication to rescuing people's lives behind them. They've spent years or even just months... (A rookie firefighter in the U.S. usually had to stay behind and watch the fire station in case of instances like this because they had to hold down the fort and keep all the volunteers rushing in and causing chaos.) Being trained for situations like this... And they had a brutal time dealing with what happened after 9/11. The ones who survived... The ones who were scarred for life and never forget.

    But that's not the main reason I'm totally against guns...

    Every day I go to work, after a shooting at a school, I'm terrified out of my ****ing mind. I work, but I keep an ear out... I keep my eyes open and I try to concentrate on my work...

    Do you want to know why?

    I work at a university and we've had gun videos played all the time about what to do if a shooter happens to be on campus. What to do if you hear gunshots outside of your room...

    What to do to survive if you have a shooter on campus.

    It's required at my university... Every semester I have to watch it and be reminded that this can happen where I work. That I can someday get mowed down while I'm working at my cubicle because there's not enough gun laws in the federal/state level and how easy it is to purchase a gun.

    I never want to fire a gun, I want to sit there and work and be happy and chat with my co-workers, not come out one day to find that some have been shot for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

    I never want to call my mom after a shooting and tell her I'm okay... I never want to tell her that she didn't have to worry... That I didn't get shot... That I made it okay from the gunshots going on in campus.

    I don't want to have to leave a message to my mom because I am dying in my cubicle because the shooter got me... And I can't get a hold of her... To tell her I love her one more time. And to take care of Aiden. (My cat)

    And I don't want her to be sitting there, terrified out of her ****ing mind because she can't call me but it's all over the news there's a shooting at my university. That there's so many dead and so many wounded and I haven't called her to tell her that I'm okay for whatever reason, and she can't call me because it would alert the shooter.

    I don't want to be hiding under my desk and be terrified while my mom is frantically calling me and the shooter shoots me dead.

    I love my job... I wouldn't give it up for the world...

    But I would give my right arm to sit at my desk one day and not be afraid of someone busting into the university and opening fire on everyone on my floor.

    That's why I want gun control, there's a reason why a lot of countries are banning them, and I'd be proud to be one of them.
     
  10. Technic☆Kitty Hmm

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    I believe in gun safety. I can't count the number of times I've seen someone aim a gun at someone else while cleaning/checking it. It's not hard to not aim at someone, seriously! I don't believe in restricting guns, despite my feeling on safety. The minute we lose our weapons, is the minute we completely become lambs being lead to an inevitable slaughter.

    Example: You give up your weapons, everyone in your town is now defenseless. One late night, a group of people break into your home with guns. Now, instead of having a chance to defend yourself, you're calling the police and hoping they get there with their guns to shoot the other people with guns and save you.

    That seems pretty dumb. "I don't like guns but please shoot these people who are trying to hurt me."

    My point is that, criminals are not going to give up their weapons. The minute they know you have, you become a target. They'll know there's nothing you can do to stop them.

    It's not just the criminals that I'm worried about, either. The government itself has become really unstable, especially in recent years.

    "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

    There's been a lot of debate on the second amendment and what it actually entails. Some people think it means everyone has a right to own a weapon. Others believe it's to reinforce the military. To me, when I read this, it means that as a people, we have a right to defend ourselves from a government who would have our freedoms taken away from us. In this way, I don't believe it is the right of every citizen to own a gun. I believe it is our duty to ensure we are capable of combating our own government and, subsequently, our military should the need arise to defend our rights.

    I'm not typically a patriotic person. I generally don't care. When it comes to guns though, I believe that everyone has the right to try and own a weapon. I believe that strict measures need to be put in place for prospect and current gun owners. Psychological evaluations, training programs, and the like. It shouldn't be a test you take one time when you purchase your gun. It should be a recurring thing. People change. Mental states change. Someone who wouldn't harm anyone three years ago suddenly lost everything and wants to take out their frustration on the people who took it from them.

    It also shouldn't be just the owner themselves who are tested. Anyone in the household should be tested and evaluated, in the same way that a felon cannot be in the same house as a firearm. There should be inspectors to make sure that your guns are secured in a safe, somewhere where nobody but you can access.

    TL;DR

    I believe that stricter policies should be put in place but guns should not be taken away entirely.

    PS: I hate how the media blows things up. The shootings that are occurring are terrible and I do feel badly for those whose lives are lost. Don't throw out statistics and then withhold information about them though. They claim that there's been eighteen school shootings this year but they don't tell you that it's not what you think. In one case, a stray bullet entered a university from off campus. Another where a grade school fired a security officers weapon while it was holstered. There may have been eighteen incidents involving firearms this year but there has not been eighteen school shootings. It's propaganda worked up by the media to over hype the situation and draw in more attention. It's nothing new. The media has used this tactic for years.

    I personally believe that the media shouldn't be allowed to run these stories on repeat every single day. You run this stuff and somebody sees the story and thinks "that got a lot of attention, maybe I should go do that". Copycats. You want to run the story, fine. Run the story one time, say what you have to say, and move on. You wanna dissuade people from doing this again? Public execution. I know, that's a topic matter for another day. I just don't think that someone is going to be scared off by hearing how someone got to live out their lives in prison after doing something so heinous.

    Stop blaming guns. Blame people.
     
  11. Sara Tea Drinker

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    A mass shooting is defined by four people being dead by a gun by one or two people in one area. 4.

    Every day now there's a mass shooting, this has been confirmed by multiple sources.

    The media covers the major ones, if they covered every mass shooting, they wouldn't have time for everything else.

    Definition of a mass shooting: http://www.politifact.com/california/article/2017/oct/04/mass-shooting-what-does-it-mean/

    To pull a up a link from a non-U.S. Country, the United Kingdom to keep bias out:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/one-mass-shooting-every-day-seven-facts-gun-violence-america/

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318286/

    Oh yeah... People blame video games, violence, tv shows...

    Go to Japan, see what the kids watch, what they're exposed to, Power Rangers is a very popular kids show. (Yes, I know it's called Sentai) and totally different from the American version. Read what those stories are...

    And then look up how many shootings have happened.

    Also, how have the British, and many other countries who have banned guns not all have been killed? I have spoken to people who are from the U.K., they have their own issues with violence. Why haven't they all died?
     
  12. cstar stay away from my waifu

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    I'm on a phone right now so I can't make a long post but they said school shooting. Not mass shooting. A school shooting is when a firearm is discharged within the range of a school vicinity.

    You started defining mass shootings which are a different bird.

    I'll respond later with something larger.
     
  13. Sara Tea Drinker

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    It's still something to think about when you look at gun control... But I stand corrected...

    We actually have safety protocols for people who end up in university shootings at a different campus. It became a big deal after some staff members were at the Virginia Tech shooting.
     
  14. Lauriam I hope I didn't keep you waiting...

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    Well, according to this stats list, there have only been 36 mass shootings this year by the definition of 'four or more shot.' And no, I don't say 'only' to imply that this is a small number - because quite frankly 36 shootings involving four or more victims within the span of 62 days is horrible. But it's not accurate to say there has been a mass shooting every day this year. That said, there have been 9,154 total gun-related incidents in 2018 so far, with 2,441 dead, which is ridiculous. In fact, since I'm on the subject, there was an active shooter in my neighborhood earlier this year, and lemme tell you, it's not exactly relaxing to know that police are looking for a gunman who was last seen like a block away from your not-controlled-access apartment building, lol.

    I've personally known two people who have been murdered by guns, the first being a teenager who used to babysit me as a child, who taught me to swing a bat and who kid!me rather idolized. She was shot and murdered when I was around twelve years old, and although her murder was domestic and not in a random mass shooting, that was the year I started paying attention to news about guns, and was subsequently the year when I first accepted the fact that I could be killed in a shooting any day. This was thirteen years ago, and although I've never personally been in an emergency situation and I've only been around a block away from a situation maybe three times in my life, I still live every day with the understanding that it very well could be my last.

    It's... desensitizing. I live in a world where earlier this year, there were police sirens outside and a helicopter hovering over my building and I was sitting on my couch talking and joking around on discord, (not joking about the guns, just being normal) putting graphics together, and baby-talking my husband's cat with "Let's stay away from the window today, baby, we don't wanna get you shot, do we, pretty kitty?" XD I kept my family and close friends updated on the situation, and I didn't leave my house for most of the day - until we ran out of toilet paper and so braved the outside world to go to the store and stop by a drive-through even though the shooter was still at large somewhere in the area. Because this is normal now. And that sucks.

    Now, I'm personally all for stricter gun laws. I'm not saying we should take all guns - especially because I've lived in some towns where hunting is the only way some people get enough meat to last the winter. (I am against hunting for sport, but that's an issue for another day) and I also think it's important for people to defend themselves. In fact, I've recently been thinking about getting trained and licensed to carry a gun myself, but haven't thought it necessary since I stay in my house all the time and because - until very recently - there haven't been a lot of gun scares in my current city. Sometimes a gun in the right hands can be what saves a life - but we must also recognize that there are a lot of 'wrong hands,' and we need to be more strict in how people get their guns.

    And no, stricter gun laws are not going to completely stop shootings. This is true. How each shooter got their gun is different, and sometimes it's just not the fault of laws when someone gets their hands on the weapon and opens fire. But sometimes it is, and I don't understand why people are so adamantly insistent on trying to deny this (btw Cstar this isn't talking about you, this is other people on the internet at large I'm talking about) and who use the examples of when stricter gun laws wouldn't have prevented a shooting to distract and deny the times when they would have.

    My official stance on stricter gun laws is the stance I took last week when my managers informed us at work that we're no longer allowed to keep our phones on our person during our shifts because too many people were on their phones when they should have been working. "I don't use my phone while I'm working, so stricter policy on phones doesn't affect me." Obviously, this is nowhere near the level of 'inconvenience' that stricter gun laws would afford their owners, but the same basic principal applies. If you don't intend to misuse your gun, why are you so against instating laws that will hopefully prevent guns from getting into the hands of those who will? If even one death can be prevented by a stricter law, isn't that worth it?

    But, that's just my two cents.
     
  15. ♥♦♣♠Luxord♥♦♣♠ Chaser

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    If the goal here is to sell the idea of gun control, this bit above here quite honestly seems like a sub-par way of accomplishing that. For what its worth (not that it matters at all for what I'm saying) I am not pro gun, nor anti gun. Moderation in all forms is usually the way to go, as is realism. Guns in the United States aren't going away, I think that much is safe to assume.

    Personal anecdotes can be a marvelous way to get a point across while maintaining that ever important "human connection", however I feel like this is a little overkill (with most of your posts in this thread not just this section). If you want to start off with something personal, I encourage it but understand the dynamic of the conversation. You have personal experiences, opinions, passions, etc but so does everyone else INCLUDING those who are pro-gun. If you wanna change minds I suggest finding middle ground that benefits both sides of the argument, otherwise people are going to be running in place forever.

    This part in particular I have quite a few problems with. First and foremost, there is a very solid chance you aren't qualified to diagnose someone else's "mental stability", and even if you were I don't think many people would respect such a professional that goes around and casually slams said people on random internet forums. Going as far as to "avoid them while walking around" because you can "hear them talking to themselves". This is beyond messed up. They are people, they are just as important as you are, and deserve to be respected on a base level just like every other human on the planet.

    Comments like this are in very poor taste and I don't see how it helps your argument at all. If anything it hurts it, as there are going to be people who read what you wrote and discredit everything you have to say solely on the grounds that you are unreasonable to people who are different. This isn't a call out, but more of a reaction. I don't know jack about you, who you are, where you came from and that doesn't matter. This is strictly about what you said.

    On a final note some of what you said could probably be pegged as fear mongering which also probably isn't the nicest thing to be doing. Don't really understand how that helps anybody. Obviously being vigilant is of the utmost importance but as I said before, moderation is very important. Might be something to think about.
     
  16. Trigger hewwo uwu

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    i think it's too late for america to ever have proper gun control. too many gun nuts out there with houses full of firearms ready to storm the streets locked and loaded if we tried to take their precious firearms away. which is why we should've had better gun control in the first place. instead we'll complacently sigh "at least there were only 36 shootings this year..."
     
    Last edited: Mar 7, 2018
  17. Lauriam I hope I didn't keep you waiting...

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    Well I mean, I specifically said that 36 was a horrific number of mass shootings. XD The only reason I said "only" was because I was replying to Sara, who said that there's been a mass shooting every day this year, and I can't find any source to support this figure, and I believe objective facts are important to any side of an argument. The two most credible sources I can find regarding gun violence is firstly the source I linked above when I gave the "36" figure, which is a non-profit, non-affiliated data collecting site designed to document accurate gun violence statistics free of bias. The second 'most credible' source is actually not all that credible, it's a crowd-sourced open site that seems mostly credible, but freely admit in their "about us" page that as most of the data comes from volunteers, they're liable to commit errors. Even this site, however, lists 52 as their figure for mass shootings in 2018, a full ten less than the 62 Sara listed five days ago. So, my "only" wasn't intended as a statement of complacency at the frankly alarming possible "36" (now 39 according to my source) it was just an attempt to prevent possible misinformation, which in many cases, leads to fear-mongering.

    On this note, however, I think one of the biggest issues with the debate of gun violence is the lack of accurate or credible sources of information. The site I've linked twice now seems pretty credible to me, and I'm choosing to trust it mostly, but I don't tend to believe anything 100% these days, no matter who or what is sourcing it. With the Dickey Amendment working to prevent funding to government research into gun violence, there's a surprising lack of credible information regarding the subject - which again, leads to misinformation on both sides. Pro-gun supporters are able to easily make it out to be less than it really is, thus preventing change, while anti-gun supporters are easily able to make it out to be more than it is, which again, can lead to fear-mongering. I feel like the first step in improving gun control is in getting the research done to support it. That's not the end-goal, obviously, but it's the first hurdle. Nothing can be done without information, until we manage to get the research funded, we're stuck.
     
  18. Trigger hewwo uwu

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    I wasn't trying to throw shade or anything at you Maru, I was just using your statistic is all! Sorry if it came off that way.