International News Americans with guns ....

[Pete Burrett]

So an 18 year old in a small town in Texas bought an automatic killing machine because that's a right he has under an amendment of the American constitution. The latest in a never-ending series of murders caused by Americans with guns.

Certain sections of the US political system defend his right to own such a weapon. It wasn't the weapon's fault, you see, it was the fault of a law-breaking felon. One way way to stop this happening again (and again, and again) is to arm school teachers, they say.

Why should Bert the baker from Smalltown, Mississippi be denied his right to arm himself because a small number of mal-adjusted humans might abuse their own rights?

Apologies for wasting your time if you've read this. It's a pointless debate to enter into because nothing will change and we can expect another mass shooting any day now.

 

[bazzer9461]

Texas Senator Ted Cruz rejects gun reform.
He goes on to say.

he said that restricting the rights of "law-abiding citizens... doesn't work. It's not effective. It doesn't prevent crime."

Someone is getting financial assistance from the gun lobby.

 

[Foley]

Madness.
As you say Pete things are likely to not change any time soon.
Somebody on the radio was suggesting that 80% of the population wanted more stringent checks on who can be allowed a gun. Republican politicians ignore this though and recently Texas made it even easier for people to get guns.

 

[Essexyellows]

"The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed .."

Again the overwhelming majority apply that right correctly and properly but some do not.

Why punish the majority for the actions of a criminal minority?

 

[Sarge]

"The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed .."

Again the overwhelming majority apply that right correctly and properly but some do not.

Why punish the majority for the actions of a criminal minority?

does that mean to buy a gun the purchaser has to be wearing a short sleeve shirt, t-shirt or wifebeater/vest at the time of the transaction?

 

[Sheik djibouti]

Texan Lawmakers: "We should ban abortion to protect the unborn from being murdered"
Also Texan Lawmakers "Gun control after the latest school massacre?.....Let's not be too hasty y'all"

 

[foghorn]

"The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed .."

Again the overwhelming majority apply that right correctly and properly but some do not.

Why punish the majority for the actions of a criminal minority?

Tell that to the families of the victims.

 

[Scotchegg]

 

[SteMerritt]

does that mean to buy a gun the purchaser has to be wearing a short sleeve shirt, t-shirt or wifebeater/vest at the time of the transaction?

No, it means you have to look like this fella...

 

[ZeroTheHero]

Isn't the problem that the genie is out of the bottle, and has been for a long time in the USA? If you could introduce gun controls and get the vast majority of guns handed in and destroyed, then it might work. But if it was tried, I can't help thinking that there would be a large amount of people (if not the majority) who would not be willing to disarm - and it would be the reasonable people who would do so. The madmen, rednecks, NRA members, criminals, survivalists etc would certainly not.

Don't misunderstand, I hate guns - but I am not sure how the US can get from a state where you have a country awash with unsafely held, largely unregistered, murderous weaponry to a more normal position. I guess that tightening restrictions on those buying new weapons would be a start, but I'm not sure it is more than tinkering around the edges of the problem.

 

[RyanioBirdio]

Contains naughty language, but hey, at least he didn’t murder a bunch of children.

 

[Big Ron]

"The people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed .."

Again the overwhelming majority apply that right correctly and properly but some do not.

Why punish the majority for the actions of a criminal minority?

I suppose we should have expected that reply, as much to provoke a reaction as anything.

I'm sure the 'overwhelming' majority apply their rights in a responsible manner, the trouble is that the 'minority' are still large in number and the average gun owning American is estimated to own 5 guns - only 22% of registered gun owners own a single weapon. This is a country that owns 120 guns per 100 people - there are thought to be some 394m guns in circulation.

I'm not sure most gun reform advocates are looking to 'punish' the majority - background checks, limiting the sales of the type of combat weapons not anticipated when the constitution was written, ammunition restrictions, gun amnesties, restricting the amount of weapons that can be owned, etc - surely nothing unreasonable there?

21 human beings, including 19 children died and that was the 27th school shooting so far in 2022 and we haven't reached the end of May.

We all realise that this is a hugely controversial and partisan argument and the likelihood of anything being done is minimal but your shrugging lack of empathy does you no credit.

 

[MarkG]

@Pete Burrett welcome back to the board, I noticed you hadn't posted for a long time.

 

[Essexyellows]

Tell that to the families of the victims.

They are also Americans, their country, their rules.
It's down to them to change them but history is set against them and it won`t change.
393 million firearms in the USA.
That is almost half of civilian-owned firearms in the world.
So to get control you need to stop people buying military spec weapons but all those folk who hold a firearm of any sort will say "They will come for my rifle or pistol next" and they would quote the UK as an example where, in Scotland you now need a licence for an air rifle.

Its never going to get fixed and thousands of people will continue to die as this graphic from the Beeb shows.

 

[Essexyellows]

I suppose we should have expected that reply, as much to provoke a reaction as anything.

I'm sure the 'overwhelming' majority apply their rights in a responsible manner, the trouble is that the 'minority' are still large in number and the average gun owning American is estimated to own 5 guns - only 22% of registered gun owners own a single weapon. This is a country that owns 120 guns per 100 people - there are thought to be some 394m guns in circulation.

I'm not sure most gun reform advocates are looking to 'punish' the majority - background checks, limiting the sales of the type of combat weapons not anticipated when the constitution was written, ammunition restrictions, gun amnesties, restricting the amount of weapons that can be owned, etc - surely nothing unreasonable there?

21 human beings, including 19 children died and that was the 27th school shooting so far in 2022 and we haven't reached the end of May.

We all realise that this is a hugely controversial and partisan argument and the likelihood of anything being done is minimal but your shrugging lack of empathy does you no credit.

Nothing to do with lack of empathy, its been a USA problem all my life, and nobody is willing to fix it.
Its like watching the local spice heads staggering around town, you know they are killing themselves, ruining their lives and you know you can`t stop them as an individual.

 

[Oxymoron]

I still think there is a distinction between a single shot hunting rifle and a semi-automatic assault rifle with extendable magazine capacity.

Each has a purpose, although entering a school with either should be condemned by all...

 

[Scotchegg]

Nothing to do with lack of empathy, its been a USA problem all my life, and nobody is willing to fix it.
Its like watching the local spice heads staggering around town, you know they are killing themselves, ruining their lives and you know you can`t stop them as an individual.

But you can make the production, supply and possession of these drugs illegal in order to protect people from killing themselves.

 

[Wallop]

It’s written into their constitution but that was written hundreds of years ago when semi-automatic machine guns weren’t readily available to Neanderthals. You could fire a round from a musket and then have to spend some tI’ve recalibrating and loading it.

 

[Scotchegg]

With so many of these kind of threads, I can be content that the vast majority of people on here and right-minded decent people who understand individual and social responsibility.

Those that don't, (Essex) won't listen or understand rational arguments against their view point and are therefore not worth responding to.

@RyanioBirdio posted the piece from Jim Jefferies which is probably the best summary of how fucked up this situation is and is a perfect example of comedy at its absolute best.

 

[bashamwonderland]

Everything I've seen from America in my lifetime, which has been post 9/11, appears to demonstrate that is a country in the process of total social and cultural collapse.