But who gets to decide whats tyranny and not? Who gets to justify taking up arms against the government? Let’s say that all of the Trump Derangement Syndrome people decide that he’s becoming a tyrannical dictator and buy up weapons ahead of an armed rebellion against him - are they free to do so under the 2A? Does the 2A allow for Trump supporters to take up arms against the rebels?

How does this not just turn into anarchy in practice?

colours offend you.

rainbows, so don’t

gluten. Five minutes

"I know you're a virgin" (present tense vs past tense) would have been a better choice.

But whatever. Put that robe and wizard hat on, hellrush, and tell me the rest of that sexy story you started.

Don't stop now, daddy. Tell me what else you're going to do to me.

Reading what virgins think sex is like via r/storiesgonewild-like erotica is my new fetish.

go vegan, eating

You have a lot of pent up anger about an online game.

You really should have taken the handjob offer.

Sorry, I'm new here.

Does Marshal often forget how to spell his own name?

I'd never really considered myself a bukkake kinda guy but if we're talking about 9 guys spraying me in the face with cake icing, then I think I'm about to be persuaded.

, memorialised forever by

I don't know if Marshall has a moustache, sorry. :(

Can I FA someone in PS 20m bushels to say that while they're teaching Evo a lesson, their actions in no way reflect a joint victory with hellrush, and that hellrush is a smelly used ham pocket with a poor moustache and no friends?

I'm accounting for the final 6 seconds I'll spend brushing my hand through hellrush's hair, wiping the happy tears from his eyes and whispering into his ear that everything is going to be okay until he falls asleep.

Hellrush doesn't want it because even though it would be the best 10 seconds of his life..

.. it would still only be 10 seconds of his life.

Well, my rainbow country is a parking lot now.

It feels weird but.. thank you?

15m bushels and a handjob from me wearing a mask of Marshalls face while I tell you how much of a big man you are.

That’s my second to last offer.

. Traditions include inflatable

Jeffrey Epstein

national holiday celebrating

Can I give you 10m bushells and a virtual kiss?

That’s like an online date that gets to first base without you having to pay for dinner.

I mean, it might not be KoH’s hairy arse but it’s better than being alone on prom night (which I assume is a real experience for you).

2

Bonus

Last walloftext.jpg, I promise.



I truly do appreciate your point of view and your discussion, regardless of our differing views. Thank you.

I’ll respond to this section of your response directly, but the rest I’ll just bullet point.



I 100% accept and understand this. Owning guns is a right that your founders agreed was important to ensure that no tyrannical government could attempt to take their rights away.

That said, there doesn’t seem to be any practical relationship to things like open/concealed carry laws and the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. If the time comes for the people to take up arms against the US government, open/concealed carry laws won’t apply as standard laws will be suspended. The future, possible tyrannical government isn’t just going to jump out from behind a bush, nor are they going to pop up in a Walmart. The only practicable application of the 2nd Amendment in open/concealed carry laws is where an individual decides to kill a police officer they deem to be acting on behalf of a tyrannical government. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried or succeeded in justifying the shooting of a police officer under the 2nd Amendment, but it definitely feels like a can of worms.

Similarly, gun registries won’t necessarily make things easier for a tyrannical government to disarm people, nor do they violate the 2nd Amendment right. All the government will know is which citizens have weapons, but they’ll figure that out soon enough when those people on the registry turn their guns on them anyway. Unregistered guns will be the least of their problems. When the next American revolution starts, it won’t be people just sitting in their home waiting for the government to show up at their house so they can shoot them. What a registry will do in the meantime will be to assist in the tracking of firearms back to their owners when a crime takes place, and potentially create a disincentive for those thinking to sell their firearms on the black market (because they may become liable for prosecution if their shadily sold firearm ends up the murder weapon somewhere).

The argument can definitely be made that things like licensing and background checks do violate the 2nd Amendment, if you hold that the right to bear arms is universal and unable to be withheld to anyone - which would mean you’d have to allow felons and the mentally ill access to firearm ownership as well. If you’re okay with that, then arguing against licensing and background checks (which, essentially, categorise those who do and don’t have the right) as a violation of the 2nd Amendment makes sense. If you support restricting firearm ownership to some (like felons and the mentally ill), then licensing and background checks are a necessary part of ensuring that those people remain without access to firearm ownership.

Gun bans, however, are probably where I need to relent and agree that they are a 100% violation of the 2nd Amendment. While restriction to some weapons may make environments safer for all, if the intention is to be true to the 2nd Amendment, then banning any type of weapon is unconstitutional. That said, black markets in more dangerous weapons can’t really exist in any significant form without access to those weapons being legal for law abiding citizens. I wonder if that could also mean it’s possible to argue that the government restricting the publication and distribution of bomb making materials is unconstitutional as bombs would be just as useful to a citizen militia fighting a tyrannical government as a gun would be.



1. In America, that is likely to be very true.

2, 3 & 4. Those are extremely complex and controversial issues that aren’t going to be fixed overnight. Long term policies to fix sociological issues will help in the long term, gun control policies will help in the short. Victims of gun violence don’t have time to wait for things like poverty to be solved in order to protect their lives, same with the victims of other crimes that poverty has a significant impact on (like rape and property theft).

5. In much the same way that Trump-haters need to accept that he was voted in as President by the majority (arguments about popular vote/electoral college aside), gun rights activists might also need to accept that attitudes towards gun control are changing - that more people are becoming dissatisfied with current laws and an increasing amount of people would prefer tougher controls (I linked the Gallup poll previously). If you’re serious about creating less division, then reasonably accepting the truth needs to come from both sides.

6. This has very little to do with the gun control debate and everything to do with capitalism and economy. If you believe in capitalism, then you can’t really get upset when a corporation shifts jobs offshore because the capitalist thing to do is to maximise profit. If labour in the US is too expensive due to high salary and benefit expectations, it’s reasonable to expect companies to look overseas for cheaper labour. In fact, they have been doing that for decades. The smashing unions across the West was about trying to reduce the cost of labour so that businesses could stay in countries like the US but they still ended up leaving eventually. Now you have less jobs and salaries and benefits that are lagging behind the cost of living because you have no unions standing up for workers, and no companies to employ them.

7. Fixing the Justice *and* policing system would go a long way to reducing the persistent culture of distrust people have in the government. Agreed.

8. Affirmative action has no bearing on gun violence or gun control. This just feels like something you’re aggrieved about and decided to include. What is relevant is that your call for sociological problems to be resolved in order to fix the “root problem” of gun control also applies here. Affirmative action does a number of things wrong, but also does a number of things right - and those right things are to the benefit of those minority groups who are still waiting, like you, for solutions to sociological problems that will finally make them equal. You’re far more likely to earn a university degree if your parents have degrees. Women are undoubtedly still not valued equally to men in some professions, in spite of their high skill sets and experience. The younger generation are learning, through these affirmative action policies, that you can’t judge someone differently based on gender or race or whatever. That’s what long term change looks like.

9. This is a social learning period of people as a whole. We never knew we could cancel shows or shut down businesses by creating an online movement. We also didn’t expect that creating a database of information that exists forever would mean we’d find ourselves at the end of such cancel culture. It’s got nothing to do with people “not being able to take a joke” or “not understanding different points of view”. Some perspectives have been around long enough now that we can all agree that they’re dogfluff. Nazism, homophobia, and racism (even against whites). Deciding to put the boot into individuals, groups or companies that think slagging off gays, being sexist or dabbling in racism is okay isn’t an overblown response, it’s where we’ve come to as a society with the new technological means we have available to us.

10. I don’t really know what this point is really about.

End of the day, I’m just saying that gun control doesn’t have to hurt legitimate owners and Americans can still have the right to bear arms without having to irrationally oppose anything that doesn’t equate to free, unfettered gun ownership. As a foreigner, protecting the lives of innocent people seems more important than the right of some to carry around a firearm in public, sell it privately to anyone without any sort of good character check, or the right to not have to keep your gun locked and secure, away from those who should not have access to it. You could even deny government moves to ban any weapons if the right controls existed elsewhere to ensure that those owners are supported in keeping their firearms from falling into the wrong hands.

No, an unstable person driven to murder based on ideological beliefs about "White Genocide" and "The Great Replacement" and other such bullfluff led to a seemingly one-off tragic mass murder in a nation that, despite its high rate of gun ownership, sees gun violence very rarely.

This is not a "currently seeing in New Zealand" situation. This is an exception, not a regular feature of New Zealand. If one instance is your measure of what constitutes a "current" "massive gun violence" issue, then the US is in an epidemic.

Yet your preferred plan of action is inaction. Funny that.



Both the US and New Zealand are representative democracies. The US is a republic with a codified constitution, a congress, and a President as your Head of State. New Zealand is a constitutional monarchy with a parliament, an uncodified constituion, and the Queen as the Head of State (represented in NZ by the Governor-General, though the Prime Minister is the head of the Government and the GG is generally a rubber-stamp position that gives Royal Ascent to any laws passed by Parliament).

Congress and Parliament both exist to serve the will of the people.



There were no pitchforks and torches following the announcement and subsequent passing of the legislation.



That would be an option *if* the government, police and people were seriously concerned about repeated similar incidents of gun violence.

As it is, all three probably accept that there's no need for ICE-level house raids to seize illegal guns and prosecute people. Things will happen as they happen.



With no real evidence to the contrary, it's nothing short of misleading to suggest that the poll numbers are anything but. Particularly as you probably far less about New Zealanders than I know about Americans.



There's no need for all that. They've already changed the law and they have a series of planned buyback sessions already scheduled. Again, the government are pragmatic and will reassess what needs to be done again after the Dec deadline. If they don't think they've been successful, they'll reevaluate their options.

That's what taking action looks like.



https://www.newsroom.co.nz/...ack-a-fiasco-or-a-success
https://www.newshub.co.nz/...olice-buyback-scheme.html

Again, the number is actually at 15,000 and has been a result of police-only run buyback events. A pilot is underway to allow gun owners to use national dealer, Gun City, to act as a buyback point for firearm owners who don't want to deal with the police. Gun City expects that this will likely increase the rate of firearms being turned in.

Either way, the Government has set its deadline as December - however, the biggest concern is that they haven't finalised the banned guns list yet. That is a fair and serious concern for gun owners whose firearms may be in limbo at the moment. If there's something the Government is dragging its heels on, it's this.



But New Zealanders largely are in support of moves to ban semi-automatics. In fact, many normal citizens interviewed in the wake of the Christchurch shooting exclaimed surprise that weapons that could kill that many people is so short of a space of time weren't banned already.

That's not to say that New Zealanders wouldn't support a petition to loosen those gun laws if they were found to be unfairly restricting legitimate owners (which, at the moment, the most legitimate case of disproportionate impact would be on sports shooters). They just need to make their case to the public, get support, and parliament would need to act.



https://www.stuff.co.nz/...ners-frustrated-by-police

Ridiculous. The country only has 4.7 million people. Only 300,000 people are estimated to be firearm owners and the rest of the country wouldn't accept the Government locking those people up unjustly.

And we wouldn't need firearms to force our Government's hand, either.



"Voted using their emotions" = Actually, voted due to the social climate gripping New Zealand following the shooting.



If millions of New Zealanders marches in response to a policy, the Government would be forced to take action. One, because we're a democracy. Two, because even a million is a quarter of our population.

What happens in the US when a million or more march and popular opinion changes?

https://news.gallup.com/...issatisfied-gun-laws.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_for_Our_Lives

Jon Favreau is also the creator and head writer for the new Disney+ Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. He hasn't directed any of the episodes but he has indicated that he's interested in doing that if there's a season 2.

The trailer looks bad ass, though it doesn't really hint at a story beyond "Look at this bounty hunter": https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7heq19

Of course. He's just salty that their sheep don't put out.

My dad was in Afghanistan with the RNZAF. I remember trying on his kit before he flew out (minus the magazines but getting to hold his Glock and Steyr Aug). Was heavy enough without the extra weight of ammunition. Thought it was excessive given that he's an airman but, even though he'd spend most of his time in Bamiyan, we understood he wasn't going to be safe.

I'd actually love to visit the country one day, if it's ever safe to do so.

Haha, yeah. For NZ and Wales, the sheep fluffer jokes are classic.

Colour me unsurprised that you can eat an entire box of Crayola crayons and still only come up with an insult so bland as “You’re an idiot lol”.

I suppose it’s at least a small consolation that, as a gun owner, you’re never likely to be a threat to anyone but yourself.

Hurr durr no, I've never said I want to take away guns from every American.

Back to eating your crayons.

I'm not proposing new laws for the US. I'm arguing about the effectiveness of certain types of gun control, and against stupid arguments against considering gun control.



First off, it's worth noting that this is not a New Zealand news source. It'll be important later.



https://www.newsroom.co.nz/...ack-a-fiasco-or-a-success
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/...d=1&objectid=12264562

Actually, the buy-back has seen more than 15,000 firearms returned, with more than 64,000 attachments being handed in. That's still shy of any estimates total affected firearms circulating around New Zealand. Still, the buy-back program has until December at this stage and New Zealand Government's are generally quite pragmatic; if it needs to be extended, then it will be.



Again, false numbers but I'll come to that later. Also, they aren't expected 1.5m guns to be handed in. You're right; we don't truly know how many should be handed back because there isn't a registry of firearms. One estimate is that there could be 170,000 banned guns needing to be handed in.

The Prime Minister has not indicated that a gun registration might be on the agenda but, again, we're a pragmatic nation. If we studies and examples of a law working elsewhere, we'll consider it. Like these:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26905895
https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/7/3/184



You might not want to hang your hat on Gun Control NZ; they're a pragmatic group that is supportive of gun control laws where they're proven to be scientifically effective in reducing gun harm, whilst advocating on behalf of legitimate gun owners' ability to own and use firearms responsibly.

They're not the NRA. In fact, the NRA probably wouldn't like them.



Firstly, the claim that owners are "appalled by the government's attack on the rights of innocent people" isn't a quote attributed to Yasbeck. That's why it's not in quotation marks. It cleverly follows a sentence that includes Yasbeck's name, but the "right" to own a gun is the wording of the author.. who isn't a New Zealander.

In fact, Reason has been criticised in New Zealand media for misleading readers about the facts of New Zealand's changing gun laws and buy back facts:

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/...ts-nz-gun-buyback-efforts

---- From the article:

[Dr Catherine Strong, a senior journalism lecturer at Massey University] believed that was the goal of the articles - to portray New Zealand’s gun reform efforts as a fiasco. “They want it to look like it was a failure. This is going to really ramp up.”

She also thought gun lobby groups could well be behind the articles, saying they were known for spreading fake news.

According to Strong, political groups like the United States’ National Rifle Association use New Zealand “as a patsy".

"They can say a lot of things about New Zealand because there’s no way of really proving or disproving it."

----

https://www.abc.net.au/...ch-mass-shooting/10990632
https://www.stuff.co.nz/...uyback-event-in-southland
http://theconversation.com/...distrust-gun-lobby-121736
https://newsregister.com/...ture--1567830858--34432--

Regardless of the very anti-gun control narrative Reason is pushing, New Zealand isn't the US. In fact, that last link is an article written by an expat American living in New Zealand when the Christchurch shootings took place. He's pretty much hit the nail on the head; we benefit from our size and isolation, we don't buy into that "personal protection" bullfluff that the gun lobby in the US spoon feeds people and, as a result, we don't suffer from a paralyzing fear of taking pragmatic action in our laws when someone decided to shoot 51 people.

In fact, read the comments of that article written by the ex-physician of McMinnville, OR. Look at all the same poor arguments brought up by those clearly offended by the author being impressed with New Zealand and its gun control laws. Britain knife fights, lefty/commie control, "But cars!", all those same soundbites. Are you all reading from the same playbook?



What's interesting is that Franz Csaszar's quote was written in the year 2000, while the report itself was written in 2016 (misleading connections seems to be par for the course with Reason as a media outlet). Even with the estimate of 260,000 illegal firearms floating about in the illegal market, the Australian report also says that 640,000 firearms were handed back in during the 1996 buyback. The total number of recovered illegal firearms by 2016 was 1.16 million (some recovered where owners of both legal and illegal firearms reported only their legal firearms stolen, but the illegal ones were recovered by police at the same time). So even if Csaszar's claim of only 20% of firearms being recovered in the buy back in 1996 is true, Australia has recovered double that in 20 years - a period of time in which there were only two mass shootings that took place in the country.

And, as the cherry on top for the Australian report, it notes that many of the owners who received money from the buy back in 1996 used it to purchase new, legal firearms. So the Good Guys with guns weren't disarmed, they were simply driven to purchase different guns that complied with the laws of their country.

Definitely keeping studying Australia, however. You might learn something.



New Zealand's parliament passed the legislation 199 votes to 1. That's democracy. Those are the peoples' representatives making a clear statement about the direction the country goes in in the wake of the Christchurch shooting. That's almost unanimous support for the ban across four of NZ's five political parties (the one dissenting vote is a single member of his party).

If you're choosing to break the law, you're choosing to do so in the face of democracy.

Turns out I attributed the claim of there being "1m+ victims " to Australia and the UK.

Even if you attribute it to the US, most studies of defensive gun uses tend to be far lower than 1 million. The often cited Kleck and Gertz study, that was heralded by pro-gun advocates as "proving" there are more than 2 million uses of a gun in self defense a year, has been roundly criticised for its methods and was even replicated by other researchers which found far lower instances of defensive gun use.

None of that matters anyway because people in both Britain and Australia, despite having had their gun laws tightened, still own guns legally. In the US, all of those people who are legal, responsible gun owners (like Buch) would still get to keep their guns, or have the right to purchase other guns.

So the claim that there would be 1m+ more victims because "laws took their guns away" makes the assumption that those people had their guns taken away. If gun control is done properly, there's no reason those people should be without a firearm unless they legally shouldn't have them under current laws anyway.

Besides. If 5 people shot dead in Alabama, 8 people killed in Odessa, 10 gunned down in Dayton, 22 in El Paso, etc etc aren't enough to bring about action to reduce the number of shootings, then 1m+ is surely nothing in comparison to the 329 million strong population of the US.

Just unfortunately collateral that comes with having a country that values the right of owning a gun above almost everything else.

It's exactly the same story, almost told in the exact same way (almost down to the same shots and dialogue).

There are a few surprises here and there; a song that's sung in a totally different style, a few gags that you're expecting that take a different turn.

The animation is quite stunning, though I felt like there was some magic lost in the use of more realistic animation that the cartoon one had.

For me, it was a trip down memory lane. Maybe like playing the remastered version of a game you like that you've played a lot of. The animation is new but you're still going down familiar territory.

My 5 year old niece fell asleep during it. Not sure if it was because she thought it was boring, or because she'd had a late one the night before (she was on school holidays). She said after that she would have rather have gone to Pets 2.

Not "some". I'll let you do your data analysis counting skills:

https://lawcenter.giffords.org/...versal-background-checks/

The spread of gun control laws across the US are patchy coverage at best. There's absolutely no way anyone could say that there is more effective gun control than not.



Just because he doesn't care about breaking a law doesn't mean that he can. You've completely missed the point that if background check laws with their patchy, inconsistent application across the country can still stop 3 million bad guys from getting guns, how many do you think it would stop if it was universally applied nationwide? It's not rocket science and you don't need 20 years experience of data analysis to figure it out.

And if you can't just sell a gun to any old body in any state, then obviously the rate of guns being trafficked and falling into the illegal market reduces. So even if he does go to the black market, he's going to find that firearms are likely to be more expensive due to their scarcity for people like him, and his options aren't going to be as plentiful as they were previously.

Comparing the situation to Prohibition is fine until you realise that making hooch in your garage is far, far easier (even with the invention of the 3D printer, because how many "bad guys" can afford those?) than making your own firearm. Even if you could make your own, you're not about to make a modified semi-automatic that can fire full auto with 100-round drum mags, are you?



1. How many fewer massacres would you need to see before you'd accept that gun control can have a positive impact? Because, as far as data and statistics seem to suggest, that's the way things would go. If you've got any counter studies, feel free to provide them.
2. Erm, where has anyone ever suggested that the nationwide list of registered firearms and/or owners would be public? Never. Because that's a stupid idea.



Who makes money off of delivering stronger gun control?

Actually, here's an easier question: How much does the gun industry stand to lose if gun control increases?



https://www.bbc.com/.../world-australia-44105129

Australian's have guns though. While total gun ownership per capita has declined since the Port Arthur Massacres in 1996, those who already owned guns have since increased the number of guns that they own - and are registering them at a higher rate. Despite this, there have only been two mass shootings in Australia since 35 were gunned down in Tasmania. Gun-related crime was already on the decline prior to Port Arthur but statistics showed that the declined doubled in the years after.

https://www.ecnmy.org/...ers-than-you-might-think/

Similarly, Britain hasn't been completely disarmed. In fact, there are still some 1.3 million shotguns registered in the UK - which just shy of one in every 64 people. The culture of the UK is that guns are for sport or for hunting, and the article cites a YouGov poll that indicated that 30% of Brits wanted a complete ban on guns, while 38% wanted tougher restrictions.

I pointed out earlier that the firearm homicide rate is higher in the US than in the UK, by a considerable amount.

Looks like the good guys do have guns in the UK and in Australia and there are less bad guys with guns as well.



Look at Britain and Australian - there aren't 1 million+ victims of bad guys with guns. Not in a year, not even over a decade. Not even if you combine the two countries together.

I literally don't have to tell those people anything because they mostly don't exist.

You're going to need a better argument.

Again, we're back to the boat holes scenario where you'd rather do nothing about the number of people dying by guns whilst waiting for your government to sort out the socio-economic factors that lead people to commit crimes, some of which are done with guns.

Facts are that creating mandatory Federal background checks in all states, for all purchases will absolutely reduce the number of guns transferring to the hands of "Bad Guys", with the likelihood of reducing the number of violent gun crimes across the country.

All the while, you can push for Trump to make his Border Wall a reality to create jobs for those criminals to do so they're not trying to figure out how else to murder or rob people without a gun, now that those Federal laws have kicked in.

See how simultaneous actions work better than putting blinkers on and being narrow-minded about a solution?

I'll try to keep responses brief for the sake of those playing at home (and apparently can't change the channel).



Great. Look, a number with no context, no examples. And it's good to know that the deaths of those in those nearly daily shootings in the US are justified because you're willing to risk your own life to have a gun.



You'll have to explain that to supporters of "Three Strikes" laws who believe that the threat of harsher sentencing is a deterrent to criminals.



So your solution is to do what? Have no checks?

Statistics quoted earlier suggest that more than 3 million people have been denied the purchase of a firearm since the inception of the law - would you rather those people have the weapons they were trying to buy?



If I can't buy a gun in one state because I fail a Federal background check and then the next state across also has a mandatory Federal background check, I'm not likely to get access to a firearm there either. So it stands to reason that if there are no states where the purchase of a firearm isn't run through a Federal background check, then it reduces the likelihood of guns falling into the hands of "Bad Guys" doesn't it?



Yeah, but if the law introduced withdraws my right to own a gun because I've been convicted of a felony - what's the problem? Laws don't stop everyone but having no laws stops exactly no one from "killing every person you have ever loved just for the firetruck of it".



Apply this to a convicted felon with a history of violent crimes and assault of other people. Should he still get the right to own a gun to defend his family, even though the likelihood that he might also use that gun to hurt others is higher than it is for people like you or Buch?

Or are we okay with that felon not having a gun, even if it means his innocent family members might die because another criminal is upset with him and wants to send a message via murdering his family?

Here are the Cliff Notes:

BROmanceNZ: "I'm a stupid foreigner trying to tell Americans to ban guns."
Tigress: "People getting killed by guns in America is just a fact of life. Guns are a right, I won't change my mind."
KoHeartsGPA: "HURR DURR MY GREEN CRAYON TASTES LIKE GRASS!"

That's probably all you really need to know so far.

The solution isn't to legislate gun ownership away one piece at a time, it's to strengthen the processes for ensuring that only "Good Guys" get to own guns. If you're a "Good Guy" then you have nothing to worry about, right?

And, as has already been pointed out, Britain's knife crime problem is only relative to the fact that they have an extremely low gun crime problem (but, then again, every developed country does when compared to the US). And, as has already been pointed out, if you look at knife crime US v UK, the US has a bigger knife crime problem.

And again, as has already been pointed out, there are a range of blade types and categories that are already banned in the UK, like some states in the US ban certain types in their jurisdictions.

The link again because I'm helpful: https://www.euronews.com/...do-the-us-and-uk-compare-



Have you actually been plugging leaks though?

https://www.historyextra.com/...ents-america-law-history/

-------- From the above article:

In most cases, debates about gun control in the US have followed periods of violence. Prohibition and the 1929 St Valentine’s Day Massacre, in particular, led to the first serious attempt by Congress to regulate firearms: the 1934 National Firearms Act, taxing and regulating ownership of certain weapons. The assassinations of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King led to the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the peak of urban violence in American cities in the 1980s provided the backdrop to the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act and the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Major debates also occurred after the 1999 school shooting in Columbine, and shootings in Virginia Tech in 2007, Fort Hood in 2009, and Aurora and Sandy Hook in 2012.

However, debate has not led to action. This is, in large part, a result of the fact that the politics of gun control have become so tangled, complex and politically toxic that it is now impossible to obtain the consensus needed to pass legislation. It’s also important to remember that gun control is a state issue as well as a federal issue. Lack of action at federal level does not mean inaction at state level, as the current patchwork of US state laws relating to guns testifies.

------

"But the author says that federal inaction doesn't mean inaction at the state level!" I hear you repeat? Of course. And, as has already been pointed out, states with strong gun control laws find those laws ineffective when they're surrounded by states with weak gun control laws.

A link because I'm helpful: https://lawcenter.giffords.org/...ak-laws-and-gun-violence/
Another link, again because I'm helpful: https://www.vox.com/...ival-shooting-gun-control



Yes, I played Far Cry 3.

Sure, I suppose when you control the narrative you can make the scenario play out anyway you wish. Like:

>> There's a man shooting holes in the boat.
Me: I need to tell him to stop shooting holes in the boat.
You: You can't do that! It's his right to have a gun!
Me: But it's not his right to shoot holes in the boat.
You: Maybe you should ask him why he's shooting holes in the boat.
Me: Can you plug the holes while I ask him?
You: Absolutely not. That doesn't solve the problem of why he's shooting holes in the boat.
Me: But it will help us not sink while I ask him why.
You: You're not listening. That's not important. The why is what's important. You can't fix the holes until we know *why* he's shooting the hull!
>> We approach the man shooting holes in the boat.
Me: Hello mate, can I ask why you're shooting holes in our boat?
Man: Because I hate the government.
Me: Right, well. If you keep shooting the boat we're all going to sink. I'm just going to take that gun from you, if that's okay, and store it somewhere safe until we get things patched up. Sound fair?
You: NO! It is NOT fair! You can't just take his gun away!
Me: But if I do, then he can't shoot any holes anymore.
You: But.. but.. he'll just use something else! Like a jackhammer!
Me: Will you use a jackhammer?
Man: Not really, there are no power outlets here to plug it in. Plus, I don't have one handy.
You: He'll just use a knife!
Me: A knife isn't really going to do as much damage to the hull as a gun would.
Man: Yeah, that's a bit like pissing in the wind.
You: Well, he'll just set the boat on fire!
Man: Oh, that's a good idea.
Me: That's okay because we have most of the flammable stuff locked up safe, and there are anti-fire mechanisms around to protect us too.
You: BUT IF YOU TAKE AWAY HIS GUN THEN YOU'LL TAKE AWAY MINE!
Me: But you're not shooting holes in the hull, are you?
You: No, but taking away someone's gun is taking away an inalienable right!
Me: Rights get taken away all of the time, though. The right of people to vote in their democracy is taken away if you're a felon in the US. The right to freedom is also taken away if you're sentenced to prison. The right to life is taken if you get the death penalty. There are plenty of examples where you take rights away when someone does something wrong.
You: But I haven't done anything wrong!
Me: No, but he has. He's shooting holes in the boat.
Man: Yeah, I have been shooting holes in the boat.
You: This is just the start. The start of the Slippery Slope, you'll see! Don't you dare try and take my gun away. You'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands!
Me: Well, they'll be cold, wet hands the way this boat is filling up with water and you've very solidly put your vote behind "Do nothing!" as a response.
Man: She did say you should ask me why as a way of fixing my action of shooting holes in the boat.
Me: And you said you don't like the government. What would make you stop shooting holes in the boat?
Man: If everybody died.
Me: Great, thanks. That's probably enough pew-pew for you. I'm going to take that gun, thank you.
Man: Oh fiddlesticks.
You: YOU CAN'T! THAT'S AN ABUSE OF POWER! YOU'RE A TYRANT!
>> Your voice trails off into the sound of bubbles and muffled ranting because, in this scenario, you're 4'7" and the water levels have risen enough that this was an amusing way of fading you out of this story
Man: What's her problem?
Me: She'd rather have holes in her boat than safe passage to where she's going.

[Cue Curb Your Enthusiasm music]

But I've not been coy or elusive with the data; stating that the US is responsible for 70% of the Rampage Killings listed by Wikipedia itself doesn't hide the fact that there are still 30% that take place outside of the US in the same region. Just because you don't like the statistic doesn't justify the story that data tells. Especially when it's "evidence" you put forward yourself.

While I appreciate that you have two decades worth of experience in what appears to be sales data analysis, analysing data related to public policy and social issues is a much different kettle of fish. Data is data, sure, but my career has been built around providing public policy advice to both governments, corporates and non-profits. Unlike you, I can't answer a demand for a policy that "Seeks to reduce the harm caused by firearms" by saying "Well, if you look at rampage killings, gun violence isn't so bad. Vehicle and arson are waaaay worse." and then give stakeholders a Wikipedia link. The people I work for wouldn't throw you out; they'd spend the next hour or so in a meeting ripping you to shreds in front of a committee for wasting their time. Then they'd walk out on you and you'd never work for anyone again.

That's way worse than being fired.

But let's look at your points then, all of which seem to suggest that gun deaths are not worth worrying about because other things kill people too - and, allegedly, in larger numbers, more frequently, and that humans have been killing each other since the beginning of time (lol).



The problem with trying to compare arson rampage killings with mass shootings is that not all arsonists intend to commit murder.

If you look at the top three US examples of arson incidents included in the rampage killings list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_rampage_killers_(other_incidents), you get:

1. The Hartford Circus fire 1944 where a suspect confessed to causing the fire but later recanted; no express confession to commit murder
2. Our Lady of the Angels School fire 1958 where a fifth-grade suspect confessed but also recanted; again, no express confession to commit murder
3. Happy Land fire 1990 where the offender was found guilty of arson and murder after admitting to starting the blaze

So we're looking at two out of three arson incidents not clearly showing an intent to commit murder, the deadlier two occurring more than 50 years ago, and the one murder conviction of the three was for a convicted who was said to have been fired from their job earlier, had just broken up with their girlfriend, had been drunk and then thrown out of the bar in which he later returned to and set on fire.

According to this Cummings Law page (https://www.cummingslawfirm.com/...operty-Crimes/Arson.shtml), whether a death occurs as a result of arson intentionally or unintentionally, a life sentence is always a possibility when a death occurs.

In any case, rampage killings (other incidents) only accounts for 112 cases, and those cases are worldwide incidents. If you really want to single out arson as a cause to compare it with shooting incidents, arson accounts for 51 of "other incidents" and US-based arson account for 12 of those 51.

Vehicular rampage killings total 50 worldwide, the US accounting for 8 of those. The highest death count was 11 for the US (21 in China), and the total number of vehicular rampage killings in the US is 45 - from 1980 until now.

The only statistics out of these categories that comes close to beating statistics related to gun violence is "total deaths", which arson ties with the Oklahoma bombing.



Which incident are you referring to? The 109 deaths by Jin Ruchao in China are mostly bombing deaths. The 67 killed in Sinasa, Philippines are also listed as Poison due to the incident being committed by a cult leader in a Jonestown style murder. Even the deadliest school massacre, by Andrew Philip Kehoe, used bombs and firearms as well as melee weapons.

Not entirely sure where you're pulling this claim from.



Granted, America has had a significant number of bombing incidents in the past century, however if you look at accounts of terrorism since 2000 (only because I can't find a list of straight bomb threats/attacks in the US), most attacks are committed as shootings now.

Think about right now; if you made your mind up that you were going to go and bomb some place to kill a large group of people, just how well prepared are you now to both source the materials and create that bomb? How technical would it be? Could you rig up a cellphone-linked detonator to it?

If your answer is to say "I'd Google it" then lol. It would be far easier and faster to obtain a firearm without so much as alerting anyone to your intentions.

Bombings are a danger of course, but they're not as easy and as quick to make as you seem to suggest they are (unless you're some hillbilly taping a bunch of dynamite sticks together or whatever).



The "People have been killing people since time immemorial" excuse is a lazy cop out; you're essentially saying that people killed by firearms were just destined to die and that there's nothing you or anyone could have done to stop them.

Actual bullfluff.



I've literally been asking you to think pragmatically for ages now. Remember:

"What's more practical for successfully murdering the most people you can: a bomb, a knife or a gun?"

What you're missing in your logic is that guns are of absolute equal availability, ease of use, risk of interference, and practicality as all other causes of death. That you haven't considered that a knife is too risky to use because of the close proximity you have to have with your targets (as well as the risk of being overpowered by someone bigger, stronger or more technically adept at physical combat than you are), that a bomb has far more steps than just "Buy gun, load gun, shoot people", or that a car attack literally has instantly diminishing returns as most don't turn out like Carmageddon where you can keep mowing people down as you drive from one end of a state to the other, all indicates that while you might understand how to read numbers, you don't really understand how to compare complex data sets with varying impacts and assumptions to be made.

You are right, however, in jumping to the conclusion: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" - but that doesn't mean that people don't use guns to kill people and that, as far as the statistics we can see here, guns are killing people more frequently and in much larger average numbers than any of your other causes of death (that don't include death by natural causes, or accidental deaths e.g. car accidents).



If you want to talk about change over time, consider that the 2nd Amendment was written in a time where its authors didn't have the knowledge and experience that we do now. Slavery was still near enough 100 years from being abolished. Women a century and a half from getting the vote.

These days, most nations have grown up. In law, we no longer keep slaves, we don't allow discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, or sexual orientation, we hold on to our religious beliefs but (with the exception of a tiny minority of extremists across the world) without resorting to the mass murder and torture of those who don't hold the same belief as us, and the quality of our democracy has increased in terms of representation and proportionality (no longer are governments just old, white men who own land).

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/...orlds-oldest-democracies/

The US is one of the worlds oldest modern democracies, often viewed as being *the* oldest depending on your definition. If you can't figure out how to keep your democracy safe without hanging the threat of armed rebellion above the head of your government, are you any better than those Middle Eastern countries struggling to maintain their democracies in the face of rebellious groups seeking to topple the law and order the government is trying to represent?

Let's put this a different way:

Democracy is the rule of the people and if the majority of people vote for countrywide gun bans and tighter gun regulations, are you a patriot minority for denying to comply with the law and putting up armed resistance as the government carries out its policies? Are you a freedom fighter? Or are you now a domestic terrorist?

Would pro-2A people value democracy over the right to bear arms? Or is their right to own a weapon far greater than the value of democracy?



There's no easy answer to this. Of course there's more to it than the sorts of problems that things like gun control laws deal with, but this is the equivalent of being on a boat with four holes that you can see are letting water into your hull - but you'd rather know how those holes were caused before plugging them up, all the while your boat takes on water and slowly gets worse and worse.

Its actually possible to plug the holes up, find out why the happened, and then put the boat on a course that reduces the holes happening again.



You're missing the twice-made point about *guns* and *suicide*. If guns are harder to access, those contemplating suicide are less likely to succeed in killing themselves because they have more time to talk themselves down.

Literally, there is no grey area here. Reduce gun availability = less suicides.

Again, just because you're dealing with gun suicides through policy doesn't mean you can't also address root causes of depression and suicide, or work on reducing the rate of suicides by suffocation.



Ignoring how people kill others in your search for a solution to reducing the number of people killing others is dangerously ignorant. As an opinion it's lazy, it's deflective, and it's devoid of any real value in a debate around reducing the harm that comes from firearms, solely because you know that it's a difficult thing to discuss if your end goal is not about the safety of other humans but to justify not liking gun control measures.

Well, I won’t argue with you on that - owning a gun in America is a right, rather than a privilege.

My paws are quite clean, however. I’m a stickler for good hygiene.

Not at all, it makes it easier to read and follow. Thank you.

I'm going to re-order what you've said a bit as you make your point about "rampage killings" in the second half of your post, while mentioning them in your first.



Firstly, I didn't strictly hold to discussion about mass shootings. I explicitly admitted that mass shootings are a tiny, tiny percentage of gun related deaths, with suicides being the highest type of incident, then homicides being next. CDC data suggests that, between 1999 and 2014, there were:

- 313,641 suicides using a firearm
- 198,760 homicides using a firearm

https://webappa.cdc.gov/.../ncipc/mortrate10_us.html

The problem of your "rampage killing" substitution is that the US still comes out looking far worse that most, if not all, other countries. In terms of number of rampage killings, you and China are claimed to be tied at 102 incidents each; though Asia's total is 201 while the total for the Americas is 144. That means that China accounts for 50% of rampage killings in their region and the US accounts for 70% of rampage killings in yours. Never mind the fact that having China, a country known for human rights violations and poor freedoms/liberties, as your closest example is less than ideal.

And those figures are just the basic "rampage killings" listed, they don't include the other categories of school shootings, workplace killings, familicide and hate crimes. I don't have the patience to go through and count them all up but a quick CTRL+F to find "United States" and "China" shows American mentions on the page of "rampage killings" winning 44 to 38.

Regardless, "rampage killings" are just as statistically minuscule as "mass shootings" are, and we're supposedly discussing gun crime, gun laws, and gun control. You seem to agree that looking at mass shootings is pointless as they're not even as common as the media make them out to be. True.

But 198,760 homicides using a firearm over 15 years works out to be around 13,000 a year. If that still seems paltry to you and unworthy of such overblown policy attention, then consider the total number of American deaths due to terrorism from 1995 to 2014:

- Total number of attacks: 510
- Total fatalities on US soil: 3264
- Total American fatalities outside the US: 3503

https://www.start.umd.edu/...ths_FactSheet_Oct2015.pdf

So over 20 years, the number of deaths falls well short of the figures gun homicides produce - and it's especially telling that if you remove the 9/11 deaths as being a freak anomaly in terrorist attacks, then you're removing 2902 deaths from the fatalities on US soil (making it 362 deaths over 20 years).

Deaths related to gun violence far dwarfs those as a result of terrorism, yet terrorism policy changes far outweigh those related to dealing with gun violence.



The point I'm making is that America seems to work far harder at trying to keep terrorism at bay while ignoring that firearm related deaths (suicides and homicides) are a far more serious threat to the personal safety of its people.

Like, apparently America can't multitask and simultaneously crack down on gun violence because it means that they'll have to stop arresting domestic criminals and thwarting terrorist plots.



The question is exactly as you've interpreted it. It might just surprise you that the data seems to suggest that there actually is an answer, and it's one that you won't like: lax laws regulating who can buy a gun makes it easier for those "determined low profile human beings" to carry out attacks. Fact. No moral judgment, no hidden agenda. That's what happens when you make something, anything, easy to obtain (e.g. cannabis).

That's why I asked you the "bomb, knife, gun" question. We're talking about what's the most efficient and convenient method for killing as many people as possible with a minimal risk of harm to yourself as possible? It's not the bomb because you'd have to figure out how to source parts and build it. It's not the knife because the close proximity required for harming others puts you within distance of harm. The gun wins hands down.

How is this relevant? Read the Harvard link I sent regarding suicide and firearms. The quickness and lethality of using a firearm to commit suicide leaves very little room for contemplation of whether or not the person attempting suicide truly wants to end their life. The longer someone has to think about the way they'll commit suicide, the less likely they are to go through with it. Literally, ever second counts and when you're walking to the roof of a building or trying to figure out which support bar in your garage will hold your body weight while hanging from some rope, that's plenty of time to talk yourself out of suicide. Far longer than it might take to load a gun and pull the trigger.

The same exists for those deciding to commit murder. Time might not stop everyone but it's clear that it does stop some people. For very little legislative pain, you could reduce a bunch of needless deaths.



No, it doesn't. But guns make things deadlier. You can't reload a bomb. Car attacks are one-hit wonders. If you take your Oklahoma bombing and 9/11 plane attack examples, bombings have been an irregular but not non-existent threat in America dating back to before WWI. That said, the Oklahoma bombings were the worst in US history, and the next deadliest bombings in the US after that incident happened in 1920 and 1910. The Boston Marathon bombings had a high number of terrible injuries, but only 3 deaths. As for the 9/11 plane attacks, there's been nothing of that magnitude since.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255us.html



I'm attempting to keep the discussion within the bounds of actual gun violence; I'm not the one suggesting alternative causes of homicide like baseball bats, vehicles and bombs as a way to deflect from discussing gun violence statistics. I'm not pointing to other countries as a way of watering down any suggestion that America has a problem with gun violence (and when I do speak to other countries, it's in response to you bringing them up, e.g. UK and knife crime, and I'll always bring it back to the topic of guns). I'm not just focusing on mass shootings, I'm talking about suicides and homicide deaths. Perhaps the one area I haven't discussed is accidental deaths caused by firearms, so here are some statistics on that:

- Between 2006 and 2016, there were 6,885 deaths from unintentional shootings
- Most accidental gun deaths happen to those under 25 years old
- Those killed in accidental shootings were three times more likely to have had a firearm in their home
- A 2001 study suggests that people are nine times more likely to die from an unintentional firearm injury in states with more gun ownership

https://www.aftermath.com/...ooting-deaths-statistics/

So if you're happy to talk about guns causing suicide, homicide or accidental deaths, we can chat about that. You want to bring up knife crime in the UK, bombs in the Middle East, government wars, arsons etc etc? That's fine but this discussion is supposed to be about guns, the issue of gun violence in the US, whether or not regulation can work to keep Americans safer. What you see as a "narrowing of what's admissible" is me trying to keep us on topic.



That's the joy of living in a democratic nation. If the people elect a government who, through the mandate and will of the people, introduce laws that ban certain types of weapons, or enforce certain actions be taken when exercising certain freedoms, then to act contrary to those laws is not only illegal, but undemocratic and, ultimately, selfish.

The question of privacy is also easily solved; you want to keep your life private, don't buy a gun. Owning a firearm should be a privilege and, with that privilege, comes certain expectations and responsibilities. Having that firearm registered to you and you being responsible for the appropriate transferal of that firearm to another responsible individual is not an unfair ask. When the aim is to reduce the illegal firearms market and, therefore, reduce the stream of guns available to criminals, everybody wins. Legal, responsible owners can still own firearms, while criminals will find it harder.

That might not solve random, one-off gun homicides by legal owners, but it'll reduce the number of guns ending up in criminal hands. Registering firearms and performing background checks in private sales is a small price to pay for that.

That's basic, but it's better. Good.

I think "your bad" is actually not understanding how sarcasm works.

Short of memory too, it seems. A cup of tea and a lie down might do you some good, mate. Sweet dreams.

Now you're projecting. The only one losing their rag here is you.

No one called you white. No one has claimed anger at white people. You're apparently not white but you're so angered on their behalf?

You should definitely sit this one out. It looks like you're done here.

Calm your snowflake outrage farm, no one even called you white.

If you're this triggered by words you don't understand, I don't imagine you're the most rational of gun owners.

Maybe you should sit this one out.

I'm not threatened by American gun laws, just baffled by the stupidity of some of them. And the people that defend them.

I suppose 9 deaths in Dayton are just more numbers in the unfortunate collateral of the American right to bear arms.

Here's to a bright future of a fully armed America with guns for all its people; black, hispanic and Muslim too. I'm sure white America will hold to its anti-gun control values when that happens.

Lol, let's move the goalposts again? Field goals will now be taken out in the parking lot. BYO binoculars.

How many people would he have killed if no one stopped him? I dunno. If he can kill 9 people immediately within 30 seconds, I imagine (even including lunch and nap breaks) he could probably wipe out a small town in a day. Unless remorse or fatigue set in first. Maybe he'd have a heart attack before the day is out, or perhaps an incapacitating fall from a ladder whilst trying to get an elevated vantage point. Who knows? It's such a deflective question that has no reasonable answer on purpose. If you know that, then you're intentionally arguing in bad faith.

Now you want to make the argument that gun free zones are pointless because bad guys with guns simply break the law and shoot people inside them? Essentially, you're saying that there should be no gun free zones and that we should probably just arm everyone in the US because you never know when some random with a gun is going to pop off.

That's the sort of world you want to live in?

I assume that means that people who aren't about that "Be armed at all times, be surrounded by people armed at all times" life should simply move elsewhere where gun control is tighter?

The problem with that is, as has already been pointed out, the research indicates that states with strong gun laws are often undermined by the weak and lax laws of other states. Significant numbers of guns used in crimes in California are bought in Nevada, and near enough 60% of illegal guns recovered by police in Chicago come from other states, with Indiana supplying 20% alone (IN has a D- score by Giffords).

Maybe they should just leave the US? If so, they should move further afield than Canada or Mexico. Canada who historically saw at least an estimated half (or more) of it's illegal firearms sourced from the US. Mexico still reportedly finds 70% of its firearms seized in crimes originating from the US. And those refugees from Honduras and Guatemala that Trump's got an erection about stopping via a border wall? They're fleeing violence fueled by firearms trafficked into Central America from (no points for correct answers, it should be fairly obvious).. the good ol' US of A. Ain't that just a funny fluffing dilemma - US guns have a hand in creating the refugee/migrant problem you have on your southern border.

https://www.latimes.com/...nevada-border-gun-control
https://www.chicago.gov/.../2017/October/GTR2017.pdf
https://lawcenter.giffords.org/scorecard/#IN
http://factscan.ca/bill-blair-crime-guns/
https://www.pbs.org/...lost-in-the-border-debate
https://www.insightcrime.org/...very-two-hours-guatemala/
https://www.insightcrime.org/...g-firearms-into-honduras/

Lol, let’s move the goal posts again then shall we? We’ve already gone from “Illegal gun sales are the problem” to “Baseball bats are as deadly weapons as guns” to now the good old “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!”

This is clearly going well for you.

How long did it take the good guys with guns to neutralise the Dayton shooter? 30 seconds? How many people do you think he could have killed if he’d replaced his legally purchased .223 rifle with 100 round magazines for your deadly, deadly baseball bat? Or a knife?