The Great ILX Gun Control Debate

what happens after that?

The same magical force that moved Trump and the Congress to unanimity on this issue magically makes all private guns disappear, fixes climate change, gives everyone perfect teeth, and brings back Jesus.

yeah but does Jesus come back like he was at 33 and healthy or is it like Monkey’s Paw fucked up corpse Jesus

xp Alfred ??? been on this board ten + years we've interacted several times ???

or is it more like 'how dare you'?

the reason i ask is bc i was thinking about this all day. nevermind i guess.

is it more like 'how dare you'?

um, no. just that the question is so far from reality that it is a total waste of time to respond to it

like I keep reading ppl from other countries saying 'well after we had our one shooting 18 years ago we just banned guns and now it doesn't happen'

and i keep wondering how that would work here and why it would or wouldn't. i think the 2nd amendment is a catch 22

No wait it’s a golem Jesus made from all the guns

We're well past the point of no return re: gun ownership. Someone needs to invent a technology which remotely prevents guns from firing. Maybe we could make some headway. Until then, those of us who haven't yet been directly affected by gun violence just get to sit back and wait our turn.

like I keep reading ppl from other countries saying 'well after we had our one shooting 18 years ago we just banned guns and now it doesn't happen

like I keep reading ppl from other countries saying 'well after we had our one shooting 18 years ago we just banned guns and now it doesn't happen'

Mate, you are such a fuckknuckle. Do you know we had a pretty big issue with multiple mass shootings, organised crime gangs and shitlike that as much as you guys before we banned ours? It wasnt just the Port Arthur event - that was a straw/camel situation. There was also Hoddle St Masscre. Strathfield massacre. There were something like 15 mass/spree shootings in aus in the 80s. We had and have a pretty pro gun culture here too. But it STILL WORKED.

Sure we still have crime gangs, that shoot *each other*, and suicide is still an issue, but the endless mass shootings? The sort of thing that needs ASSAULT WEAPONS to happen? All stopped.

don't call me that, 'mate', who even says that, lol. and it may shock you that my public schooling here in the us didn't really get too in depth re: the history of modern australian gun violence and its rectification. the thing that prompted me to say that was a tweet similar to this one, re: the uk

The UK's deadliest mass shooting happened in Scotland, at a school. 16 children (aged 5-6), 1 teacher, and the adult shooter died.

Guns were banned within two years. It was 22 years ago, in March 1996. Since then, there's been one other mass (>2) shooting, in England in 2010.

— Matt Gemmell (@mattgemmell) February 15, 2018

i do think it's pretty amazing how this chain of events took place:

21 years ago now, we banned automatic and many semiautomatic weapons, made them illegal, had a nationwide amnesty on banned weapons being turned in, and had a gun buy-back for one year, one million guns were brought in to be destroyed and it cost $500 million raised by a one-off tax levy. Nobody much minded paying. No massacres since, gun deaths fell dramatically, gun suicides fell dramatically

which is beautiful and the whole reason i bumped this thread was to ask if anything like this could ever happen in america IF political opposition was somehow a non-issue, IF somehow the constitutional right to gun ownership is completely overcome by the will of the public or if the NRA or whatever else that is in the way somehow falls aside. tall order i know, but we... legalized weed? imagining the actual logistics of removing guns from people who have them specifically in the case of government overreach... i have no idea what it was like before the ban in au or if there's anywhere else in the world where guns are even close to so completely foundational as they are here.

i'm not a gun fan, never did anything with one and don't ever want to btw. i just agonize like everyone else thinking about if and how this country i live in can actually stop this epidemic. even if they stop selling new guns tomorrow that still leaves us with more guns than people, so at some point something has to happen where we lessen that number, right? the kinds of people who are stockpliling ar-15s, are they just going to drive up to somewhere and drop them off? what is the actual interaction that takes place?

fuck

Apologies if this has already been linked to - thought this was a good piece on the likelihood of America doing the same as Australia (ie not very), and how effective or otherwise gun controls have been in Aus:

https://www.vox.com/2015/10/5/9454161/gun-violence-solution

god, this whole subtext of "why can't we just think rationally about this???" i mean, gee, it's almost as if repeated exposure to mass violence erodes our capacity for rational thought or something

the NRA wing are way less rational also

don't call me that, 'mate', who even says that, lol.

and it may shock you that my public schooling here in the us didn't really get too in depth re: ...australia

yeah that kinda jumped out at me too

ANYONE who thinks tons of guns isn't an issue or that it is but we shouldn't try to do anything about it isn't thinking rationally

my friend's school (she's a teacher) went on lockdown due to a threat today (fortunately turned out to be false alarm)

Naive question, but is it possible that the general US public is uneasy about gun control measures, is because they worry about the consequences of angering the folks who have lots of guns?

i thought the general US public is for gun control?

i think i'm more alarmed by that scenario than most people i know, so i wouldn't describe it as any sort of consensus concern. but i do think a significant number of people with guns would go absolutely ballistic (god i hate how guns permeate everything, including language, sorry) if there really was a government-sponsored campaign to take away their guns. you now have multiple generations of NRA supporters who have spent their entire lives predicting that one day the government would come to take their guns away. if and when that happens, some of them are going to act in apocalyptic ways. it's frightening.

i think i'm more alarmed by that scenario than most people i know, so i wouldn't describe it as any sort of consensus concern. but i do think a significant number of people with guns would go absolutely ballistic (god i hate how guns permeate everything, including language, sorry) if there really was a government-sponsored campaign to take away their guns. you now have multiple generations of NRA supporters who have spent their entire lives predicting that one day the government would come to take their guns away. if and when that happens, some of them are going to act in apocalyptic ways. it's frightening.

― i remember the corned beef of my childhood (Karl Malone), vendredi 16 février 2018 17:58 (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For that situation perhaps you can check how some countries coped with the disarmament of terrorist factions/on the fence civilians ie. Ireland, ex-Yugoslav and Basque Country. However that requires for some US officials to use other countries as models which haha why would they ever they are the United States #1 USA USA.

Yes, there are indoctrinated idiots who would destroy our country over their quite modern interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. And we should expect some more more outspoken opponents of this interpretation to become martyrs.

Gun violence is a problem that grown over generational time scales. We shouldn't expect it to resolve itself in shorter timespans. Its going to take a concerted effort from both government and media producers and consumers.

Government can close all loopholes in background checks, and institute the same fees and checks presently required for machine guns for any magazine fed rifle power semiautomatic firearm. This has no effect on hunters, or pistol owners, but does shut down the unregulated trade in assault weapons.

Media consumers can boycott tales where guns are used to resolve conflict, and the lasting, painful consequences of gun violence aren't portrayed. If you want your hero to shoot up a shopping mall, then the show has to visit the victims of his stray fire, or their families. Police procedurals must become more realistic.

Ultimately, gun collectors need to be subjected to the same sort of social derision we've applied to balding middle-agers in red sports cars. What are they compensating for? Are they really cowards? Surely 20% of the population won't share this view, but being subject to ridicule by the other 80% will take its toll.

Most spree shooters are 50 years old and younger. Maybe these alienated white males age out the spree shooter demographic, or eventually off themselves. But with decades of an effective end to the assault weapons market, with no social reinforcement of the view that guns solve problems, with a consensus that gun obsessions are as shameworthy as obsessions with child pornography (etc), we eventually shift the culture. And avoid the civil war.

xp Alfred ??? been on this board ten + years we've interacted several times ???

or is it more like 'how dare you'?

the reason i ask is bc i was thinking about this all day. nevermind i guess.

― sleepingbag, Thursday, February 15, 2018 9:17 PM

I live in Florida. I've been living this for hours. I'm sorry.

Naive question, but is it possible that the general US public is uneasy about gun control measures, is because they worry about the consequences of angering the folks who have lots of guns?

― startled macropod (MatthewK), Friday, February 16, 2018 5:52 PM (five hours ago)

don't think so. the public broadly supports common sense gun control measures; it is the politicians who fear angering the gun nuts

I hate the term common sense gun control.

my friend's school (she's a teacher) went on lockdown due to a threat today (fortunately turned out to be false alarm)

― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal)

i wonder if it's the same school as where i live or if there were just a lot of lockdowns yesterday

tensions get really high whenever there's a mass murder for some reason

We outnumber the super gun nuts by more than 95 to 1.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/19/just-three-percent-of-adults-own-half-of-americas-guns/

it is the politicians who fear angering the gun nuts

well they're always going around standing in front of cameras and microphones in public

I have a modest proposal to combat gun violence and the NRA. And it, erm, involves Muslims. :-)
My new @theintercept column:https://t.co/NwsO2OKS8M pic.twitter.com/kCDVxMcICj

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) February 17, 2018

these sorts of ideas ceased being provocative (or, apparently, effectual) not long after huey newton made these same points 50 years ago, and furthermore it's fucking reckless and stupid. so many people die from guns in this country because...there are so many guns in this country. mass shootings of the sort that make the news are a tiny fraction of overall gun deaths. encouraging more people to own guns is unlikely to cause any conservatives to change their minds on whether gun ownership should be legal, but it is certain to lead to more people dying. stop

tbf I don't think saying 'stop' has much of a track record either

actually has a pretty great track record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-JGbSrCd2o

though to be fair i'm not sure blackway and helena ever got legislation of any sort passed

use of the phrase "a modest proposal" in any other context than the actual Jonathan Swift essay is always a guarantee that something will be terrible, there are no exceptions

can someone reboot America pls

teens got these gun nuts shook

I'm willing to grant that "common sense" gun laws might not have any real effect on murder/gun violence rate (not saying I actually believe they won't), but can we just give some a try?? That's the part that maddens me. The upside is less people meeting violent deaths and all the associated mental trauma; the downside is it's slightly more difficult to obtain killing machines. How can a rational person conclude that the upside isn't worth the downside?

according to the research common sense laws do have an effect, the states w the strictest laws tend to have the least gun violence, but also we need to think bigger

we need to think about how less gun violence will put police out of jobs

thoughts like that

fire police, train them to be gun melters who turn them into cool metalworks

all police are sculptors now

What truly distinguishes the NRA is simple: it has a lot of people who are deeply involved and vote accordingly. Lobbying is just one of the NRA’s faces; it’s also a community organization that attracts people through service provision. Every year, 1 million people receive NRA firearms training. And the organization continues to expand its services. Last year it introduced a program that provides not only concealed carry training, but concealed carry insurance (covering up to a million dollars in legal costs associated with “self-defense shootings”), a hotline for incident reporting, complementary coverage for the policyholder’s spouse, and a subscription to NRA Carry Guard Magazine. What’s more, as political scientist Hahrie Han and others have noted, many of these services give members an opportunity to deepen their involvement and become leaders. Did you enjoy the firearms training you received? Well, the NRA can certify you to join the 125,000 training instructors in its network.

The result of all this is that the NRA boasts 5 million dues-paying members — who fund roughly half of the organization’s $337 million annual budget — and close to 15 million Americans who identify as NRA members even if they don’t pay dues. The organization’s services and leadership opportunities coalesce into something more: a group identity that mobilizes both actual members and the millions of others who think of themselves as the kind of person who belongs to the NRA.

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/02/national-rifle-association-members-florida-school-shooting

fire police, train them to be gun melters who turn them into cool metalworks

― NBA YoungBoy named Rocky Raccoon (m bison), Tuesday, February 20, 2018 6:08 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://i.imgur.com/E3sCnd8.png

The organization’s services and leadership opportunities coalesce into something more: a group identity that mobilizes both actual members and the millions of others who think of themselves as the kind of person who belongs to the NRA.

― Simon H., Tuesday, February 20, 2018 6:25 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

members and those who have an nra sticker on their vehicle

was unaware they had that many dues-paying members, jesus fuck

~thread

Here are a few thoughts on the role that liberal fatalism on gun politics plays in our country's failure to stop the killing.

— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) February 17, 2018

I'll keep hitting this point over and over and over: one of the short-term lines of attack needs to be about trying to convince gun owners that the NRA is an extremist organization. Sure, the majority could probably care less and are maybe even thrilled, but it's all about chipping away, just like the people who are currently turning their back on the GOP in disgust.

I hope the gun nuts love their children too

narrator: they don't

good thread lag∞n.

one of the short-term lines of attack needs to be about trying to convince gun owners that the NRA is an extremist organization.

I think this is already mostly the case - gun ownership declines every year (down to like 35% of the population), it's rapidly reaching a point where the only people who own support the far right OR only own guns because they support the far right.