I don’t know what it was, but something reminded me of this.
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Where is Andrea Tantaros lately?!
I really miss her, uhhhh, perspective.
First of all, and this has been and will be repeated ad-nauseum, the “gun violence” statistics frequently quoted include suicides. As a first responder I’ve been to several suicides, none of which involved firearms, but were non the less very effective. Removing a tool of suicide may reduce the total number of successful suicides, but how many is up for debate. Further, I don’t think it is the role of Government to protect citizens from themselves.
“Gun violence” statistics also include a number of justified uses of deadly force. How many justified uses of deadly force occur each year is up for debate because no one is keeping good numbers on that.
Jim Jeffries is merely pandering to a left of center audience. His “solution” which is gun confiscation is a utopian fantasy that is as likely to produce a happy outcome as Socialism. Really you’re just talking about disarming law abiding citizens, leaving them defenseless in the face of an already armed criminal element. Oh, you say we could take steps to disarm criminals? Why not start with that, now?
I have nothing but sympathy for the young woman who survived the shooting. Demonizing the NRA is pointless because the vast majority of gun owners are not NRA members, but it gets likes and thumbs up, and that makes some people feel like they accomplished something. I hope one day, when she is older and has taken the prerequisite classes and training that she carries a pistol, or at a bare minimum OC spray, so that she doesn’t have to live her life as a victim.
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…but the vast majority of mass shooters are! I think. Maybe. I feel.
That’s an amazing post. I think we agree more than disagree and you’ve articulated the issue from a practical perspective much, much better than I could ever have.
If one wants a “right” then he/she can be bothered to talk to a medical professional/psychiatrist and undergo a 30 hour gun handling/safety course. 30 hours is a lot, and I’m sure many sociopaths would have been outed that way through gun community self policing.
From Ancient Greeks and Romans the terms “people” and “free men” defined individuals with a stake in the community itself with ample roles but also responsibilities - for Romans, being an owner of a weapon meant in the early days of the Republic an obligatory “privilege” to fight wars in distant lands. Naturally, that’s an extreme example compared to a 30 hour course…
It’s not far fetched to assume that your FFs had something similar in mind?
This may sound naive, but I believe that a mechanism should exist that prevents 19 year old HS dropouts without a hunting background from buying assault rifles. 19 year olds should worry about getting laid, booze and weed, not about getting an AR-15
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The last argument I had with a liberal, or more like leftist ended when I pointed out that if you eliminate the right of free association then you would also eliminate organized labor.
Funny how that clammed up the argument so quickly.
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I have to give him/her credit for seemingly grasping that after having it pointed out. That’s more than I expect from them.
@Tyler23, I’m not sure what point you’re attempting to make. That victims of sexual harassment become less attractive in your eyes?
No. That the only one sending the women of liberal media D-pics is themselves! 
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And none of that explains why the USA is the nation of school shootings as well as mass shootings. Maybe some ME nations have us beat beat but that is nothing to be proud of.
And suicide by gun is still violence. It is still gun violence.
Slippery slope!!!
We can always count on you to lower the collective IQ around here with your posts, but even taking this irrelevant nonsense seriously, your pool of samples is skewed, since you’re leaving out most of (liberal) Hollywood actresses.
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If you don’t get it, somehow I don’t think me spelling it out for you is going to change anything.
It also left out Lindsey Graham.
The only way that suicide numbers support a push for gun control is with the claim that these people wouldn’t have killed themselves if they hadn’t had access to a firearm. There is absolutely no way to know that. So you want to ban all firearms to save an indeterminate number of people from themselves?
We also have no way of knowing that these massacres would have been prevented if the killer didn’t have access to firearms. There wouldn’t have been “shootings” without guns by definition, but there still may have been massacres.
No mass shooting in the US has killed as many people as the 2016 massacre in Nice, France, where the weapon was a truck. In the US the deadliest attack aside from 9/11 was the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and the weapon of choice was fertilizer and diesel fuel.
I wholeheartedly support fixing the holes in the background check system. By that I mean harshly penalizing states that don’t report felons to the national background check database, and prosecuting people who lie on their 4473 background check form, which is already a felony.
We could ban people who are on prescription anti-psychotics from purchasing firearms. While we’re at it we could fix our broken metal health system, that would probably prevent more suicides and massacres than banning guns.
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Just saw this post on Reddit about owning firearms in New Zealand and thought it tied in nicely with posts by @loppar and @idaho. (Hopefully the url is right; on mobile)
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I am not saying we should ban anything, just that those suicides count as violent, gun related deaths. Also, it does point out that people struggling with mental and emotional issues can arm themselves. If they only killed themselves maybe we can disregard it but sometimes those people kill others. And we seem to be doing a good job at creating those types of people.
Absolutely! I agree with all of that.
I would add that I’m a second amendment supporter, but that doesn’t mean that I think “shall not be infringed” covers range toys like bump stocks. I’m also for more effective background checks and I’m on board with Idaho’s training requirements for concealed carry permit holders. Probably why I’m not an NRA member.
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A little more relaxed than the one I have here - application, then background check followed by a psychological test, after that a psychiatric evaluation and then the cops come to your home to check your storage safe and interview both you and family members. All done in less than a month.
Oh and another thing, your medical records are immediately shared with the police in real time and certain prescriptions and/or diagnoses immediately trigger red flags that are acted upon.
And all that in a town where the major employer is a handgun/assault rifle manufacturer.
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Could a middle ground exist though? Stop selling weapons that you know in the wrong hands could have a high kill count. Yes you can use a knife, truck, bomb, whatever but that doesn’t really help what is being regularly used here in America where the problem is. That detracts from looking for a solution to something we specifically struggle with.
Yes criminals already have some of these. Yes tons are in homes already. But you’re saying that at this time we aren’t putting more of these out to average joes. We aren’t having people buy these at gun shows, we aren’t having politicians raffle them off, etc knowing that in the wrong hands these are deadly and producing and selling more hasn’t had the effect of making sure more good guys have them at the ready.
You aren’t touching hand guns or items used for hunting. You still are giving people the right to protect themselves and use them for sport. You’re working to limit the selling and distribution of these guns which has increased so much in the last years.
No guns anywhere has issues and guns everywhere especially ones that can kill mass quantities of people for sale has issues.
Focusing on mental health won’t work as the only measure as that is not something you can count on. Mental stability is fluid.
I just think looking for a moderate solution in between the “no guns anywhere now” crowd and the “We should be all have the option to have an arsenal like Commando” is out there and that looking for that can lead to our best results or at least attempts.
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