Time to revisit the 2nd Amendment?

[Soxbadger]

Gangs. Seriously, that's the answer. No other country has the number of gangs and gang members as the US. It's a small, incredibly violent, group of people in our society. I've looked before but couldn't find a study that looks at homicide rates in non-gang related shootings. I bet it's still higher than the rest of the world, but that number of gun related homicides shrinks to a much more comparable figure.

 

How are gangs relevant to the discussion of mass murder sprees?

 

And also, China has gangs, Japan has gangs. But still its entirely irrelevant because we are talking about murder sprees, that almost never involve gang members. Gang members are not in the business of murdering children at school, murdering random people at the mall. These are not money makers.

Edited December 14, 2012 by Soxbadger

[StrangeSox]

But no one talks about banning alcohol.

 

Because hey, guess what, alcohol serves other legitimate social purposes and, thanks to guns! we know that there will be an explosion of gun violence.

 

Seriously, stop trying to equate guns and alcohol. They are not the same thing.

[StrangeSox]

And around and around we go. They'd find other means of killing themselves and/or would buy up illegal guns. Would the number shrink? Maybe. I still don't see how that'd stop a gunman killing 30 people though.

 

But supply of said guns would be severely restricted.

 

And this idea that a world where gangs didn't have guns would be just as violent is just plain dumb, sorry. You can't have drive-by knifings and innocent bystanders being knifed in their homes by stray knives.

[Soxbadger]

And to be fair, people did talk about banning alcohol and it was banned by amendment.

 

There is a big difference between trying something and seeing if it works, and just saying "Oh this wont work".

[Jenksismyhero]

If you set the limit at 30 dead, sure, but if you just include all mass shootings it's every couple of months, on average.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/12/1...ince-columbine/

 

Recently yes, but some years (2000-2002, 2004) had none, 2010 had one incident, etc.

[StrangeSox]

Just as with drugs or cars or slaves or widgets, if you decrease the supply and increase the price, you are going to decrease the number of consumers who will demand the product. There is no perfect solution, but the simplest solution is simply making it harder to access handguns. Guns will be less frequent in gangs, and these shootings will be less frequent. They will still happen because of the sheer number of guns in the United States.

this^^^

[Soxbadger]

Just as with drugs or cars or slaves or widgets, if you decrease the supply and increase the price, you are going to decrease the number of consumers who will demand the product. There is no perfect solution, but the simplest solution is simply making it harder to access handguns. Guns will be less frequent in gangs, and these shootings will be less frequent. They will still happen because of the sheer number of guns in the United States.

 

You would think simple principles would prevail.

 

But the problem is that many of the people who are the strongest voices, do not really understand criminals. They think that somehow criminals have easy access to everything in the world. They just do not understand that getting something on the black market is difficult and then once you have it, you dont do stupid things like killing 30 random strangers to lose it.

 

 

[Jenksismyhero]

But supply of said guns would be severely restricted.

 

And this idea that a world where gangs didn't have guns would be just as violent is just plain dumb, sorry. You can't have drive-by knifings and innocent bystanders being knifed in their homes by stray knives.

 

I'm having a conversation in reality, when banning guns will never happen and simply flipping a switch won't remove 300 million guns in this country.

[Soxbadger]

I'm having a conversation in reality, when banning guns will never happen and simply flipping a switch won't remove 300 million guns in this country.

 

Most of us are in reality. But part of being in reality is that we hope/dream/strive to do the impossible.

 

What is our purpose if we simply give up whenever a problem arises?

Edited December 14, 2012 by Soxbadger

[Jenksismyhero]

You would think simple principles would prevail.

 

But the problem is that many of the people who are the strongest voices, do not really understand criminals. They think that somehow criminals have easy access to everything in the world. They just do not understand that getting something on the black market is difficult and then once you have it, you dont do stupid things like killing 30 random strangers to lose it.

 

We're talking about black market guns here. How would that ever get traced back to a source? Especially in murder-suicide situations. The person acquiring the gun can't exactly give you up.

[RockRaines]

But supply of said guns would be severely restricted.

 

And this idea that a world where gangs didn't have guns would be just as violent is just plain dumb, sorry. You can't have drive-by knifings and innocent bystanders being knifed in their homes by stray knives.

Correct, and one again most of those guns at one point were purchased legally from a store. They werent bused in from mexico. Its so easy just to have a girl gang member with no record go and buy a bag of guns.

[Jenksismyhero]

Most of us are in reality. But part of being in reality is that we hope/dream/strive to do the impossible.

 

What is our purpose if we simply give up whenever a problem arises?

 

Then let's start talking about it realistically. Enforcing a ban today isn't going to shore up all of the problems, and by the time gangs go through the hundreds of millions of guns out there, a secondary market will have popped up.

 

I watched Revolution, I see how they still use guns even when there is no electricity to manufacture more!

Edited December 14, 2012 by Jenksismybitch

[witesoxfan]

And the one point that should be added to that is that how much that number is decreased by depends upon the elasticity of the product. Increase the taxes on tobacco or alcohol all you want to, people, for the most part, will still buy it, BUT you will see some drop out of the market. Increase the price of tomatoes to $20/lb, and no one will ever eat tomoatoes except those people that absolutely must have tomatoes.

 

I would imagine guns are somewhat inelastic but when the consequences of possessing them illegally (because you don't really "own" it if it's illegal) is extremely high, you will see even fewer people owning them.

[StrangeSox]

Recently yes, but some years (2000-2002, 2004) had none, 2010 had one incident, etc.

you do realize how terrible that is, right? "We have a few years every now and then with no mass-shootings!"

[Soxbadger]

We're talking about black market guns here. How would that ever get traced back to a source? Especially in murder-suicide situations. The person acquiring the gun can't exactly give you up.

 

 

Everything has a source. The gun used today, Id bet that will be able to track down where it was bought/stolen etc. It really is not that complicated.

 

Its not like a bag of weed. If you really want to track guns, simply put serial numbers inside a part that cant be reached. This isnt rocket science, its tracking down something that is extremely difficult to make without a factory.

 

They can easily track a bullet to a gun based on the grooves, yet its beyond our capabilities to find a way to track guns.

 

Seems ludicrous.

[Wanne]

Because hey, guess what, alcohol serves other legitimate social purposes and, thanks to guns! we know that there will be an explosion of gun violence.

 

Seriously, stop trying to equate guns and alcohol. They are not the same thing.

 

That's because you only hear of events like this...with guns. Do you hear about daily drunk driving accidents in every state that kills families and children...no. And guns also serve social purposes...I recreational shoot with a group often as many, many people do. It's all in the mind of what's "socially acceptable" huh?...k.

 

So people can go out and get s*** faced...awesome. I do. But some people wipe out families because of it. Should your rights to drink be eliminated because of them?

 

I also own guns and recreationally shoot and don't kill anybody. But my rights should be eliminated because of a few nutbags?

 

You have your opinion...I have mine. I'm assuming you're not a gun owner...

[RockRaines]

Then let's start talking about it realistically. Enforcing a ban today isn't going to shore up all of the problems, and by the time gangs go through the hundreds of millions of guns out there, a secondary market will have popped up.

 

I watched Revolution, I see how they still use guns even when there is no electricity to manufacture more!

No, but we know here in Chicago which is by far one of the highest murder capitals in America we recover thousands of guns a year. Thats a good start.

[EvilMonkey]

Just a nit here, but most guns are 'semi-automatic'. All that means is one trigger pull, one shot, pull trigger again, another shot, no need to reload like a bolt action rifle or cock again like a shotgun. Using semi-automatic is just trying to throw a scare word in the conversation that has almost no meaning.

[witesoxfan]

Then let's start talking about it realistically. Enforcing a ban today isn't going to shore up all of the problems, and by the time gangs go through the hundreds of millions of guns out there, a secondary market will have popped up.

 

I watched Revolution, I see how they still use guns even when there is no electricity to manufacture more!

 

But doing nothing today will do nothing for today and nothing for tomorrow. You at least need to install some sort of increased barrier on the acquisition of handguns.

[Soxbadger]

That's because you only hear of events like this...with guns. Do you hear about daily drunk driving accidents in every state that kills families and children...no. And guns also serve social purposes...I recreational shoot with a group often as many, many people do. It's all in the mind of what's "socially acceptable" huh?...k.

 

So people can go out and get s*** faced...awesome. I do. But some people wipe out families because of it. Should your rights to drink be eliminated because of them?

 

I also own guns and recreationally shoot and don't kill anybody. But my rights should be eliminated because of a few nutbags?

 

You have your opinion...I have mine. I'm assuming you're not a gun owner...

 

I actually agree with this (see the other thread I posted in.)

 

If gun owners want to let me have my drugs, hookers and gambling, I have no problem letting them have their guns.

 

That being said, why are certain vices "banned" if banning serves no purpose as is being argued in this thread. We might as well just legalize everything and see what happens.

 

[Jenksismyhero]

you do realize how terrible that is, right? "We have a few years every now and then with no mass-shootings!"

 

It's absolutely terrible. But s*** dude, I live near the City of Chicago. Watch the first 5 minutes of the news and there's a murder story. It's f***ing pathetic and a tragedy, but at some point it just becomes white noise. And let's not pretend like these events haven't happened before. I think the biggest school mass murder occurred in like 1925.

 

Mass media coverage and a s***ty economy brings out the worst in society.

[Steve9347]

I say hell yes.

Rational people will agree. Gun-totin' NRA folks will disagree and scream that "bad people will get guns anyway".

 

Meanwhile, our children are being murdered by psychopaths who can easily buy a gun at a gun show.

[NorthSideSox72]

I'm hoping that instead of only focusing on guns, we can put more focus on how we treat and handle the mentally ill. Any number of these mass shooters had previous diagnoses and/or medications and/or instutitionalizations for mental illnesses. There are solutions to be had in this area. You can add a requirement for mental health professionals to log diagnoses or medications in a database to be access when purchasing guns. You can start looking at over-crowded prisons and invest in taking some of those who are mentally ill out of them, and putting them in (secure) facilities where they can get real help. You can crack down on gun dealers in the US who sell without the proper checks. You can require the checks to include that database of mental issues. You can disallow all imports of guns to US, even to those who can otherwise legally own them. Lots of ways to go about this before you even talk about infringing on gun ownership rights for the majority of Americans.

 

[Steve9347]

an asshole that shoots kids in a school is also an asshole who would also obtain a gun, even if they were illegal.

Wow, it only took three posts.

[EvilMonkey]

Rational people will agree. Gun-totin' NRA folks will disagree and scream that "bad people will get guns anyway".

 

Meanwhile, our children are being murdered by psychopaths who can easily buy a gun at a gun show.

Not legally. Still need background checks and have the 3 day waiting period.