Civil discourse on gun control

I think I'm probably one of the biggest supporters of gun ownership on the forum, but I also don't think I'm a mindless supporter. I will state my position here:

I support the right to personal owned firearms, provided a clear background check has been made on the individual owning the weapon. I support banning ex-convicts, people with mental disorders, people who have been convicted of spousal abuse, those under 21 (even though the law is 18 in many states for long guns). Those are my positions.

In this thread, I would ask that previous arguments and prejudices are left at the door. I will agree to do the same, and I will happily debate anyone here on what solutions are possible and what ones are not, if anyone is willing to step up to the plate and try for the other side of the argument.

Insults, snarky comments, and the inability to remain civil will mean you forfeit your position. If I do the same, I forfeit my position as well.

State what you believe and go into what you suggest would bring a notable difference to the country.

 

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

For all the "science" that good money has been wasted on, we appear still not to know whether genetics or chemicals initiate this abhorrent behavior. For example, the monoamine oxidase A gene. I had a friend a long time ago who became pregnant and was told by her doctors that her to-be-born son would be born with a gene that predisposed him to super-aggressive behavior. Might have been that monoamine oxidase A gene, I'm not sure. It seems that our medical professionals seem to want to simply write prescriptions to smooth things over rather than work to actually fix the problem.

Unfortunately, many times we don't know what the problem is until it is too late. Maybe we are just focusing on the wrong things. I think so.

 

I own guns. I'm a veteran, a decorated marksman. I don't hunt. My small collection of guns includes a main battle rifle.

There seems to be a definite disconnect between the mental health system and the point-of-sale background check system. The military is not doing the required reporting and neither is the civil system. We should fix that. Certain mental conditions and certain medications should preclude one from purchasing guns period.

On the other hand you could rightly conclude that the FBI botched their job and this catastrophe occurred. This guy was ID'd as making threats in a youtube comment but the FBI could not locate him. Something wrong there.

 

Investigate the NRA lobbied limitation on electronic gun owner databases and what really happened with the FBI. He probably just used a foreign proxy or onion route.

 

Personally, I would think the guiding principle is we are all living in a democratic society which is basically designing and deciding a system that the minority voters would have to follow the majority voters.

All debates, opinions and lobbies would be helpful and useful in pushing the political wind of an issue where and how to move in the future. For the well-being of most people.

Perhaps one day the wind of the issue would change direction, perhaps never. Depending on the people's collective will.

Always having Conservative views vs Progressive views! lol

 

I'd like to provide a link to a publication resulting from a joint venture between the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Education to better understand and help prevent school shootings.

Its title is: THREAT ASSESSMENT IN SCHOOLS: A GUIDE TO MANAGING THREATENING SITUATIONS AND TO CREATING SAFE SCHOOL CLIMATES
https://www.secretservice.gov/data/protection/ntac/ssi_guide.pdf

Having read it, I have no doubt it would help prevent many shootings -- if conscientiously implemented. Unfortunately, I have very little confidence it ever will be because it requires a lot of work.

 

When I was in high school, guys had gun racks in the back windows of pickups, it wasn't uncommon to see the occasional shotgun or deer rifle. No one ever shot up a school or killed anyone.

Guns are not the problem as they by themselves can not kill anyone. The problem is societal, and more than likely a mixture of several different elements. Social media, broken homes and breakdown of traditional family values and guidance, mixed with mentally toxic video games......

You can ban guns, and the mentally unstable person hell bent on doing evil will find another method. Until we address what's causing this mental illness that is currently manifesting itself in today's culture we will never turn the tide towards normality.

 

Anti-gun proponents would like you to think this is about the kids. About keeping kids safe, but it really isn't. It's about their personal fear of guns. If it really was about keeping the kids safe, they'd be looking to ban vehicles which is the leading cause of death for children/adolescents. Nobody is looking to ban cars though because people are not afraid of them. Even though statistics says you'll likely be in 3 to 4 car accidents in your life, people are still not afraid to drive. Imagine if the statistics were you were likely to have 3 to 4 firearm accidents in your life? Imagine the fear level then! But for some reason, the fear of cars is just not there. Maybe this is because the media doesn't try to scare people with auto accident statistics. I bet it would be hard to find someone afraid of guns in the 1800s before the media was there to frighten the public.

The next leading cause of death for teens is suicide. But when was the last time the media spent 3 days talking about 1 persons suicide like the way they do with school shootings?

So yeah...I believe this is definitely more about an irrational fear of guns than actually about saving kids lives.