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How many more school shootings before the NRA allows common sense?

The NRA used to be in favor of universal background checks back in the 90s but now isn't. Why is that?

My guess is because they put profit (can sell guns to good guys and bad guys under the "gotta have a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guywith a gun) above all us. Related, I suspect political polarization and the 24/7 news cycle plays a large role as the NRA has largely been co-opted by far right and rural individuals. If Obummer is preaching against guns it's because he wants to steal them all and oppress me just like Fox News and Breitbart says.

There is enough complicity and culpability to go around but it falls disproportionately on the number of Americans who believe (and have been brainwashed into believing) that owning guns is an absolutely untouchable right that is a part of what makes America great. Further it falls on people who continue to vote for candidates who take money from the NRA and vote against any gun regulations that come up under the "well I liked their conservative economic policies." That's fine but you're complicit.
 
PhDeac said:
They aren’t cowards. They just don’t care to fix it. Do you honestly believe a Republican lawmaker cares about kids who die in a school shooting?
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PhDeac said:
Evidence?

The GOP uses these tragedies to sell or require more guns. They don’t actually care. Maybe if it happens in their neighborhoods to kids like their own. But they don’t care about the rest of us.
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PhDeac said:
Yes. That's what I said. Republicans don't care about children killed in school shootings.

You've been a staunch conservative for as long as I can remember. I had no idea you voted for Nunn, Ossoff, and Hillary. Good on you.
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I completely disagree. And I have never been a staunch conservative. I have always been liberal on social issues. I would have voted for Gary Johnson if he hadn’t proved to be such an idiot.
 
It's semantics to a degree. Elected officials care about children dying and don't want to see it happen, but they just care about the individual right to own guns more. That's why they contort all sorts of logic to blame everything under the sun other than guns - to assuage any guilt they might feel for the position, but more importantly, because a lot of them have truly convinced themselves that it isn't a guns issue (related: many people who share this view are all aboard the #anecdotes train and think statistics and research are just liberal snowflake ivory tower intellectual garbage).
 
73deac said:
I am politically independent. I try to break things down to the bare minimum and I don't mind changing my point of view if I am shown a different way to view something that makes sense to me. What if tomorrow there were magically 0 guns left in the United States except for active military or active police (100% hypothetical). Now, you have a kid that has grown up and has lost both parents as the kid did in Florida. He is socially awkward and doesn't seem to fit in. He was living with a friend and really had no family to speak of. He may or may not have been diagnosed as having a mental illness but many classmates have said they had predicted this may happen. He had been suspended from school and had broken up with his girlfriend earlier. Now, lets say this kid had 100% determined that he is going to kill as many people as he can. He doesn't have access to any guns so he drives to campus and waits until school let's out. He sits at the bus line and waits until the most people are in a confined area and immediately drives through the crowd attempting to kill as many people as possible and continues to drive them down throughout the parking lot. he ultimately kills 20 to 30 people? Ultimately if your kid has died, you may not care if it was by a mentally ill person in a pickup truck or a mentally ill person with a gun. Now, I agree when someone says gun laws may not stop all the killing but at least we're doing something to try and stop it and not sitting by idle watching it happen. I also agree that making guns less available would be better that having free access to them. However, in the above scenario you are as dead as the kids are in Florida. I don't know that if guns with multi round magazines weren't as available it would reduce the number of murders but once someone crosses the threshold to murder then they are not going to be deterred if that option is gone. So, if taking away guns isn't going to eliminate the problem then let's skip to something more effective. A person that is passionate about killing that has one option taken away (guns) will go to the next available option (vehicle, bomb, etc.). I would say more kids have access to vehicles than guns and I think I would be correct. Now we shift the prevention of violence to barriers around the schools and gates to stop all the vehicular crime taking place at schools or ballgames. I don't know where the prevention of the object used as a weapon becomes a waste of time and where finding out why someone wants to use a weapon becomes the best answer? The root problem I believe is a breakdown of the family unit and a desensitizing of human life. Society is much different today and I believe the excess of resources and quality of life in America has transformed into a detriment to kids instead of a benefit. In closing, what happens when you remove one option and then another becomes the main choice of weapon. Do you shift focus to prevention of the next weapon or stop and try to repair what is causing the motive?
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In countries with strict gun control, how many mass casualty attacks have been carried out by cars? How many people have died in those attacks?

Do you think more people have been killed by guns in the US, or intentionally killed by cars in the ENTIRE rest of the world?
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
It's semantics to a degree. Elected officials care about children dying and don't want to see it happen, but they just care about the individual right to own guns more. That's why they contort all sorts of logic to blame everything under the sun other than guns - to assuage any guilt they might feel for the position, but more importantly, because a lot of them have truly convinced themselves that it isn't a guns issue (related: many people who share this view are all aboard the #anecdotes train and think statistics and research are just liberal snowflake ivory tower intellectual garbage).
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I would be inclined to agree with your first sentence if they had taken ANY action to address any other "causes" of mass shootings over the last several decades.
 
That really is a stupid argument. For one thing, it’s a lot harder to kill 30 high school kids with a car than an assault rifle.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I would be inclined to agree with your first sentence if they had taken ANY action to address any other "causes" of mass shootings over the last several decades.
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Sure, I just mean that it's not that they don't care about kids dying they just care more about being able to have guns than they do about kids dying.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
It's semantics to a degree. Elected officials care about children dying and don't want to see it happen, but they just care about the individual right to own guns more. That's why they contort all sorts of logic to blame everything under the sun other than guns - to assuage any guilt they might feel for the position, but more importantly, because a lot of them have truly convinced themselves that it isn't a guns issue (related: many people who share this view are all aboard the #anecdotes train and think statistics and research are just liberal snowflake ivory tower intellectual garbage).
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yes but even when you say ok, let's then take a look at X (usually mental health) they've just slashed programs and spending on that and are unwilling to revisit.
 
[video]https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/02/15/marco-rubio-florida-school-shooting-parkland-proposals-prevent-senate-floor-sot.cnn[/video]

Rubio says that there are no laws that could have prevented (or help prevent) yesterday's shooting. What an absolute joke. Laws that could have made it much more difficult and possibly prevented it, just off the top of my head:

1) You can't buy an AR 15 or similar assault weapon if you're under 21 - make it the same as pistols
2) You can't buy an AR 15 or similar assault weapon at all - unless you go through vigorous background checks similar to those required to get clearance to own an automatic weapon (almost impossible)
3) If you're kicked out of a public school for disciplinary reasons, you cannot buy a gun
4) If you're currently being treated or have been treated for mental health issues within the past X number of years, you cannot buy a gun - this one's tricky
5) Increase law enforcement's ability to track online/social media threats and make arrests, require mental health assessments/treatment/etc, prosecute as necessary
 
95% of Americans in recent polls support universal background checks.

Do we have 95% consensus on anything?
 
you know what's probably a pretty sweet gig? NRA social media manager. you get so many long weekends.
 
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