Repeal the Second Amendment

cars are made to get you places guns are made to kill things

#repealthesecondamendment

not that it really matters in my state where the right to bear arms is written into the constitution

the other thing is that AFAICT the things that are in the top 20 causes of death are all things we try to do something about. nearly all of them are cancers or heart disease. all of them are things i think we should do more about, a LOT more. but it's assumed that you can do things about them, as opposed to the totally insane situation with guns where, as has been noted many many times, the deaths tend to get naturalized as some sort of inevitable result of living in the 21st century.

like, dying in a traffic accident - well, cars are not that safe, BUT... cars have seatbelts and airbags and all this shit they did not have in 1960. it is at least POSSIBLE to manipulate speed limits and redesign roads to reduce driving speeds and it is possible to have public (if contentious and inevitably limited-by-politics) conversations about this (e.g. the "vision zero" business in new york).

huge sums (though again imo not near enough) are spent on cancer research, and as far as lung cancer goes at least, the rate of adult smoking is dropping though here also we should do a lot more. a multi-decade intermittent war on the entrenched and similarly super defensive tobacco industry is saving lives. the gun people should not be immune to this. we need something much, much bigger and more drastic than some tighter background check deal. ultimately, at some point, we are going to need to get rid of the guns. if we had started down that road thirty years ago, we would not be looking at hundreds of multiple-shooting incidents a year.

all v otm

where is moneybags to bankroll anti-gun initiatives, is the problem

like a *lot* of money needs to be raised

the NRA has membership fees and huge donors, what have we got.

I can paypal a dollar, dawg

the other thing is that AFAICT the things that are in the top 20 causes of death are all things we try to do something about. nearly all of them are cancers or heart disease.

heart disease from sitting on your but in a car 2 hours each day to/from a job where u then sit on your but all day

ok yeah but also: diet, exercise. these are emphatically not solved problems and some of them are structural, but we recognize them as up for solving even within the unexamined and problematic background assumptions of daily life in postindustrial capitalist societies etc. guns need to be forcibly detached from ''way of life'' and ''rights'' narratives, and revealed as weird, optional add-ons. hashtag repeal the second amendment.

the crazy thing is that despite how prolific gun violence is in the US it's still not in the top 20 causes of death afaict (excluding 'suicide' which is #11 but isn't subdivided by means).

― Mordy, Thursday, December 3, 2015 11:24 AM (2 hours ago)

regarding this, if you break down the data by actual causes of death, firearms jump up to #7. for example, one actual factor (poor diet) can lead to death in several ways (stroke, heart attack, kidney disease, other complications of diabetes). tobacco (an actual cause) can lead to death via COPD, heart disease, etc

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=198357

cars are still 6th tho

We are trying to do something about cars. Tons of safety enhancements over the years, safer construction, mandatory insurance, self-driving technology, and increasing transit options / trying to make transit more palatable. We're trying to do something about cars ALL THE TIME.

The auto industry is regulated like crazy! The idea that we need to tackle this car problem first is so profoundly stupid it's pretty clearly nothing more than contrarian affectation - otherwise known as trolling

Just to clarify, my point was not that "cars are just as dangerous and you don't see anyone trying to ban them." My observation was simply that cars are more dangerous and yet I find myself far more worried about being shot than I do being in a car accident.

maybe you should outfit your car with guns, that'll safetify ya

i think we feel about cars the way people who carry guns around itching to prevent a shooting feel about guns: on top of it

Cars are not more dangerous. Cars are just everywhere all the time.

Although I did check on per capita rates and guns, at 112.6 guns per 100 people, are more prevalent now than cars, at 809 cars per 1000 people.
But most Americans can leave the house without a gun. The same cannot be said for cars.

self-driving cars with self-shooting guns

Cars are not more dangerous. Cars are just everywhere all the time.

Actually now that you mention it:

Motor vehicle deaths in the US: 32,719
Gun deaths in the US 2013: over 12,000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/31/president-obama-gun-control-push

No that i think cars need to be regulated before guns in this case. But it's good to keep in mind bc we have normalized mortality to an extent.

Not.

Cars are regulated. There are over 60 regulatory bodies regulating cars and the people who drive them.

no shit sherlock.

before you blow my mind w the revelation that guns are regulated too, i already know that.

an unlikely fellow traveler:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/geraldo-rivera-nra_565f89fce4b072e9d1c4b53e

Lennon buddy

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/s960x960/12239216_945562982182354_3900654855168197761_o.jpg

written in the first person by the people who posted that. but links to all the actual news stories on their facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/ParentsAgainstGunViolence/photos/a.416647195073938.95672.413407645397893/945562982182354/?type=3&theater

what is wrong with these people there must be something in the water

i am normally willing to at least half-assedly defend a right to gun ownership but those stories, i mean, jesus wept

i assume you've all seen this article going round fb in light of recent events:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/a-land-without-guns-how-japan-has-virtually-eliminated-shooting-deaths/260189/

where guns are mostly banned. shotguns are available to the public but this is the process to acquire one:

To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class. Then, head over to a hospital for a mental test and drug test (Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness), which you’ll file with the police. Finally, pass a rigorous background check for any criminal record or association with criminal or extremist groups, and you will be the proud new owner of your shotgun or air rifle. Just don’t forget to provide police with documentation on the specific location of the gun in your home, as well as the ammo, both of which must be locked and stored separately. And remember to have the police inspect the gun once per year and to re-take the class and exam every three years.

But it's good to keep in mind bc we have normalized mortality to an extent.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau)

it's called "death," right?

i would call it murder. death is something that happens naturally.

i am normally willing to at least half-assedly defend a right to gun ownership

tbh it's people who equivocate on this issue -- liberals who should know better -- who are as big of a problem as any of the NRA people. there are a lot of people who you would otherwise think are smart who say with a straight face that having guns around to shoot gophers in their backyards or "protect their family" outweighs the enormous costs guns have on society at large

http://www.terrierman.com/kerryhunt.bmp

love the hayseed in his bro's mouth

tbh it's people who equivocate on this issue -- liberals who should know better -- who are as big of a problem as any of the NRA people. there are a lot of people who you would otherwise think are smart who say with a straight face that having guns around to shoot gophers in their backyards or "protect their family" outweighs the enormous costs guns have on society at large

― k3vin k., Friday, December 4, 2015 2:40 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

enh so. i'm british? and every time something of this sort happens i end up having variations of conversations like:

'man, americans are stupid and dumb and hilarious, aren't they? with their guns.'
'well, actually there's some weird historical reasons and you can see why people would not see gun ownership as an unmitigated evil blah blah blah'
'no, you're wrong, americans are stupid and dumb and hilarious with their guns.'

there are plenty of reasons why many people still cling to idealized fantasies of gun ownership, they're just dumb reasons

^^^

So in terms of what would actually prevent gun violence, short of making guns disappear, it seems like the best thing would be to make them much harder to get, right? Like basically we need to (1) massively increase the difficulty of the process to get guns legally and (2) choke off the avenues like gun shows that enable black market dealers to easily get guns to sell illegally?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVZIHHLUwAI2gqF.png

kinda sold out with 'happy holidays' tho

The fetishization of "gun rights" has taken such bizarre turns. I love the first amendment but you don't see me making family holiday cards with us gathering around a printing press.

why are the babies unarmed?

how does santa get in and out unharmed?

xpost they have hand grenade in their diapers

grandma's the only one ready for action, though the li'l tyke at center has the right wariness, checking the perimeter like a pro. stay frosty, snowman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/end-the-gun-epidemic-in-america.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=0

the NYT runs an editorial on its front page for the first time since 1920, but takes a pretty weak stance. banning assault weapons is obviously necessary, but it's not going to put a dent in firearm deaths

yeah "assault weapons" is a bit of a red herring. Everything needs to be much harder to get.

i really love weird quaintly formal times writing in general but it is kind of unbearable that they went to the effort of making this gesture & left it so limp & indirect. to refer to other countries reducing massacres to like once-every-twenty-years outliers as "at least they tried" is so confused & unhelpful. frustrating.

and the times' last front-page editorial (inveighing against the nomination of warren g. harding for president) was so seismically effective!