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Gun Control Laws

Our political priorities are strange. We ban gay marriage. Push legislation to make cold medicine illegal without prescription. Make guns untouchable. God bless, 'Murica.
 
Our political priorities are strange. We ban gay marriage. Push legislation to make cold medicine illegal without prescription. Make guns untouchable. God bless, 'Murica.

Loving, same sex unions and the rise in people getting colds are just two examples of the erosion of morals in America.
 
I try not to think much about politics, simply because so many things about our country are so stupid. Guns are one of them.
 
The people who fight and lobby and legislate to make guns regularly available are complicit in the murder of those children. They have made a clear moral choice: that the comfort and emotional reassurance they take from the possession of guns, placed in the balance even against the routine murder of innocent children, is of supreme value. Whatever satisfaction gun owners take from their guns—we know for certain that there is no prudential value in them—is more important than children’s lives. Give them credit: life is making moral choices, and that’s a moral choice, clearly made.


Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blo...wn-and-the-madness-of-guns.html#ixzz2F8Hq1qyA

I'm all aboard for doing something about this problem, but I really don't like that quote.

Calling everyone who values their guns a moral monster is not going to solve this, and ascribing causation to these people isn't genuine. Hell, I wondered aloud yesterday whether Obama was so emotional in part because he campaigned against guns in '08, hasn't done anything since, and now we've had the worst string of mass murders in recent history. Surely he must wonder whether he could have done something. Is he also complicit? Do we really want to go there?
 
Both parties have blame for being such pussies. But the blood of these mass killings is squarely on the hands and souls of the NRA leadership.
 
I'm all aboard for doing something about this problem, but I really don't like that quote.

Calling everyone who values their guns a moral monster is not going to solve this, and ascribing causation to these people isn't genuine. Hell, I wondered aloud yesterday whether Obama was so emotional in part because he campaigned against guns in '08, hasn't done anything since, and now we've had the worst string of mass murders in recent history. Surely he must wonder whether he could have done something. Is he also complicit? Do we really want to go there?

We should want to go there, because the NRA nuts are single-issue voters. Intensity of feeling on each side of the issue is not the same.
 
what are the last few pages of this thread even discussing?

my thought is we need to make some changes to the gun laws and we need to do more for mental health.
 
Both parties have blame for being such pussies. But the blood of these mass killings is squarely on the hands and souls of the NRA leadership.

No it isn't. Dude, you are a total dumbass when it comes to guns and gun control. Just stop. I like you, man, but you have your head up your ass on this issue in a way that exceeds your usual head-up-the-assedness.
 
I'm all aboard for doing something about this problem, but I really don't like that quote.

Calling everyone who values their guns a moral monster is not going to solve this, and ascribing causation to these people isn't genuine. Hell, I wondered aloud yesterday whether Obama was so emotional in part because he campaigned against guns in '08, hasn't done anything since, and now we've had the worst string of mass murders in recent history. Surely he must wonder whether he could have done something. Is he also complicit? Do we really want to go there?

People with guns aren't moral monsters.

There are plenty of responsible gun owners.

There are plenty of gun owners who are moral monsters.

Unfortunately, the moral monsters are the ones who have a tendency to hog the mic, write the policy, and dictate the terms on which we can talk about gun violence, gun ownership, and reform as extreme, alienating reasonable people on both sides of this issue's divide.

And you're right, our leadership deserves their share of the blame for not doing the right thing and supporting reform.
 
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No it isn't. Dude, you are a total dumbass when it comes to guns and gun control. Just stop. I like you, man, but you have your head up your ass on this issue in a way that exceeds your usual head-up-the-assedness.

pot-kettle-black.jpg
 
How does he lack political capital?

He just earned his second term a month ago.
 
How does he lack political capital?

He just earned his second term a month ago.

Agreed. Now that he's elected, hopefully liberals will grow the stones to hold him at his word.

Dude has failed so far on gun control, on immigration, on financial sector reforms, on housing reform, on his promises to end wars over seas and to put Americans back to work.

The time for politicking is over; this term is about results and to fail will result in another Bush regime that's far more destructive than W's ever was...
 
If anything, he lacks numbers. All the political capital in the world isn't going to move the extreme right-wingers in the house who get by on the redistricting of their districts.
 
Gun manufacturers are moral monsters. I have no beef with responsible gun owners, but people who make fortunes off of designing more efficient ways to massacre groups of people should bear guilt. Let's not pretend that we are designing guns to combat the efficiency of our enemies weaponry, because arms manufactures are arming soldiers to combat the terrorists they arm and arming criminals to kill the cops they arm. At the heart of the gun debate is greed.

From a Constitutional perspective, I would bet (hope) the framers would be more appalled by the efficiency with which we can take life than with our willingness to erode the 2nd Amendment.
 
Gentlemen, back when I was growing up, we had one thing like this that happened in 1984 when a guy shot up a McDonald's in California. People were rightfully appalled. That kind of thing just did not happen. Since the 1990s, it has happened with increasing frequency. The question is why has this happened? This country has been gun happy since its founding. We have always had guns but people did not massacre each other, or at least not with the frequency we see it happening at now. What are the reasons for the change? It isn't guns or lack of gun control because guns have been the one constant.

In my opinion, it is the pervasiveness of violence on TV and elsewhere. I don't think there is any question about it. When I was growing up, we had 3 main TV channels, PBS, and some local stations that would later become FOX and WB affiliates. Then we got cable TV and the additional options there for a grand total of about 30 channels. Now you get TV packages where you have 800 channels and tons of options. We have videogames where we celebrate headshots. Now you or I can be subjected to this and not feel the urge to go kill a bunch of people, but some people cannot. What is worse is that when these people commit the kind of shit they do, they are glorified on TV for a couple weeks until the next big story comes along.

I would never propose scaling back or censoring in any way the violent content that we are subjected to, nor would I advocated restrictions on press coverage for these lunatics. Besides the obvious constitutional challenges of such things, I think it is a battle that can't be won. Yet people seem to think that some kind of gun control is going to stop this shit. Short of gun confiscation, nothing is going to stop this kind of shit other than throwing lunatics back in the loony bin like they used to, and we all know that isn't going to happen. We don't ostracize people with mental illness anymore.
 
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