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Most Americans can legally buy an assault rifle before they can legally buy beer.

Your country is nuts.

Well, we love the 2nd Amendment. It's embedded into our national consciousness deeper than most other nations. Even if they are the cause of so much evil, they are also one of the best preventions of evil. I'd rather have much of the populous armed than none of it.

Regardless, we have to remember that the cause of evil is not the weapons that evil people use. Knives and truncheons are used for more crimes in England than in America precisely because your population has been largely disarmed. We have a mental illness crisis in America, and you have a radical Islam problem. We need to look at some of the underlying problems first before banning all guns or banning all knives (which is ludicrous).

Now the National Minimum Drinking Age Act--that's pretty terrible. Too bad it was the great Ronald Reagan who signed it into law. I'd like to see the drinking age go down but the penalties for drunk driving become harsher. But hey, that's for our legislators to work out.

A majority of Americans want their gun laws changed, and have wanted this for quite some time. But the United States is not organized in a way that enables this majority to act legislatively.

For me personally, as an American, the most disappointing thing about my nation's firearms laws is that the political figures who minimize gun laws are willing to impose this on the national level. That is to say, I am frustrated not as much by the absence of national gun legislation but the presence of national gun laws that negate the ability of state governments to control the firearms within their borders. Much of this change over the last two decades comes from figures who, in nearly all other instances, champion the autonomy of the state governments.

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:26 pm

Most Americans can legally buy an assault rifle before they can legally buy beer.

Your country is nuts.

I agree with Jamie that the American alcohol laws are ridiculously oppressive, but I don't see how it's at all relevant to the firearms debate.

I'm a tad confused where jwoel gets his UK radical Islam problem idea from. It's not a particularly big political issue, ranking somewhat below issues such as potholes and the increasing passport fees. The UK homicide rate is considerably lower than the US, regardless of weapon used. Other violent crime is harder to compare due to conflicting definitions and reporting standards, but even if the UK was more violent than the US it's not a big problem here.

It should be harder to purchase gun than it is to receive a learner's license. I mean really... It is absolutely ridiculous how easy it is to buy a gun in the United States.

Even with regulation in individual states there's always going to be guns that are easily available in the United States, unless gun control is actually clamped down on. When guns are sold in gun shows in places like the state I live, Virginia, they can be sold without background checks. This means that if the buyer had an extensive criminal history or if they were mentally ill, the person selling the gun wouldn't even knowing.

States with gun shows like these boast the highest amount of gun sales, and even report gun buyers traveling from other states.

I'm not advocating for taking people's guns, but the NRA needs to get its shit together, and start having some sympathy for the dreadful amount of casualties that escalates more and more due to gun violence, it's pathetic.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:05 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:26 pm

Most Americans can legally buy an assault rifle before they can legally buy beer.

Your country is nuts.

I agree with Jamie that the American alcohol laws are ridiculously oppressive, but I don't see how it's at all relevant to the firearms debate.
...

I think it's relevant because the impression given is that Americans think the availability of alcohol should be restricted more than the availability of deadly weaponry.

I can't get my head around a society in which an individual is considered too young, too immature, to drink a beer, but at the same time there's no problem with that same individual buying an assault rifle.

Jamie, mate, you work for good old gov.uk. Life in the service is a constant stream of inconsistencies. If you struggle that much with them your life must be a living hell :p

Republicans under Trump removed restrictions on gun control and mental health from the Obama years. All the Republican claims about states rights only apply when blocking federal laws they don't like. Same with states blocking local laws that they don't like.

Arizona blocked Tucson's right to destroy guns confiscated in crimes instead of selling them back to the public. Even though there were no shortages of guns sold by licensed gun dealers and at gun shows with no background checks. No complaints about the government underselling and competing with the private sector.

Now there is a push for an updated version of the 1950s Duck and Cover school education plan to teach students what to do in a school shooting instead of stopping them from happening in the first place.

Octavious wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:05 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:26 pm

Most Americans can legally buy an assault rifle before they can legally buy beer.

Your country is nuts.

I agree with Jamie that the American alcohol laws are ridiculously oppressive, but I don't see how it's at all relevant to the firearms debate.

"Shithole country" seems quite appropriate, doesn't it?

Jamie why are you posturing like you want to have a conversation about this subject when you obviously don't?

Though school shootings are more horrifying, alcohol-related deaths are a much bigger problem in terms of death tolls. Why is everyone perfectly okay with alcohol here? This is a ridiculous comparison...such a double-standard.

I like how the "needless" in the title implies that some mass shootings might be necessary or justified, like the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of schoolchildren and concertgoers.

Welcome to the forum Hazel-Rah. What a great introduction you just made.

Uh. How does the title imply that doe.

Idgi

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 5:56 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:05 pm

Jamiet99uk wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:26 pm

Most Americans can legally buy an assault rifle before they can legally buy beer.

Your country is nuts.

I agree with Jamie that the American alcohol laws are ridiculously oppressive, but I don't see how it's at all relevant to the firearms debate.
...

I think it's relevant because the impression given is that Americans think the availability of alcohol should be restricted more than the availability of deadly weaponry.

I can't get my head around a society in which an individual is considered too young, too immature, to drink a beer, but at the same time there's no problem with that same individual buying an assault rifle.

Simple, really. You drink alcohol, which permanently alters the minds of underage minors. Guns, on the other hand, aren't consumed and don't tend to alter young people's bodies if used as intended.

The second amendment states
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

1) You could argue that this was intended as a way to keep power decentralized at the state level and not arming all citizens

2)notice it says WELL REGULATED MILITIA. so the expectation is there should be rules put in place. Like maybe no assault weapons (the founders would have no idea such things would ever exist), or 1 gun per household.

The first clause of that sentence has no bearing on the substance of the amendment. The entirety of its substance is in the second, independent clause.

You are all just jealous that you are not gun totin' Americans.

I completely agree with the 2nd amendment back in the day of nation building. But nowadays you are much MUCH more likely to:

Kill yourself with a gun by suicide
Kill yourself with a gun by accident
Get killed by someone else with a gun by accident
Kill someone else with a gun by accident and get in big trouble for it
Get killed by a mass shooter

than actually need a gun for non-recreational use.

I loathe my nation and the NRA for being too stupid to recognize how harmful allowing the purchase of AR-15s again.

how can you be more likely to be murdered by someone than need a gun for non-recreational use? literally any circumstance in which you would be murdered is definitionally a circumstance in which you would need a gun for non-recreational use.