[August]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I just fail to see what the problem of every American being a responsible gun owner by law is. Isn't that what the NRA wants? Every American who owns a gun to be a responsible gun owner?

We can't we be responsible gun owners without another useless law trying to mandate it? The overwhelming majority of firearms owners certainly are responsible and we're the only ones who would pay any heed to such a law. Not to beat the car analogy to beyond the grave but in my research on firearms fatality rates I saw a stat that says around half of the child deaths in vehicle accidents were related to them being improperly or completely unrestrained in spite of laws to the contrary. So if someone is so irresponsible as to allow a child to get their hands on a firearm what makes you think that they would care how the state says they should store them?

That's a capitalistic problem though, the noose which we've made for ourselves in that things to make life safer are priced so that only the rich can be safe. Some way of subsidising to force the prices down might help, perhaps the NRA could have some say in this, I mean how much does the NRA receive each year? What about firearms manufacturers? That's a market that's got to be a good earner, surely they could put a bit aside to subsidise either cheaper guns safes and/or research into safer storage systems.

That's a typical socialist answer. Pick one group of people to pay for the sins of another group. Why should I subsidize every jerk who acts irresponsibly? The NRA conducts far more gun safety classes than any other organization including the government yet that's not enough they must pay for it too? As I mentioned above what makes you think passing law 20,001 is going to make anyone act more responsibly and use those safes instead of pawning them for another crack rock?

It's the way in which people shrug their shoulders when a school gets shot up that frustrates me, as though no-one really wants to try and stop it any more because of the fear that in trying to do so the 2nd Amendment will be infringed in some way.

What is causing these incidents is a flaw in our society, not the presence of an inanimate object that existed in peoples hands long before they started happening. What you interpret as a lack of caring about the incident is really the expression of frustration that once again any other possible cause is immediately ignored in the controllers zeal to once again move the bar a step closer to their goal of banning gun ownership.

Well, yeah, the Hood is going to take a little more tactical approach to it, armed LEOs and that, but those kinds of areas are probably used to armed LEOs paying them regular visits anyway.

That'd be real poplar with the Black Lives Matter folks but it's not just the Hood. There are plenty of others who wouldn't put up with it either.
I can't think of a better trigger for that civil war you mentioned

Pity...it should be at least considered as an optional school activity.
It is tricky though because of how some kids are in this day and age, once upon a time you could teach firearms as part of building discipline and skills...but now you're just as likely to get a kid shoot his teacher with it. That comes down to something we did agree on earlier on how society and culture has changed and not necessarily for the better.
Trouble is, it's very difficult to change society, it tends to happen spontaneously.

Tricky is an understatement when even biting a pop tart into the shape of a gun earns a kid a suspension. That's a sign of some serious paranoia over firearms that predates these incidents and I believe actually contributes to them.

Surely though, both pro and anti gun people can agree that the number of school and college shootings in America needs to be reduced? I mean, surely that's one thing we can agree on, even if we can't agree on the how or why, we can agree on the what.

I know that's certainly what gun owners want, we'd much rather go back to arguing among ourselves over the merits of 9mm vs .45acp in letters to the National Rifleman (the NRA monthly), but I'm starting to wonder about the other side, the purely political organizations like the Bloombergs and the Bradys. They need these incidents to keep their gun control cause alive because without them they get ignored. It's why their public support never lasts very long after these incidents. People realize how their solutions never actually target the problem itself (universal background checks are a prime example of this) and their momentum withers. They even pre-plan their responses to the next incident from what i've read, spending far more on lobbying and media efforts than the NRA could ever hope to match which is not nearly as rich as has been portrayed by the anti-gun media.

Yeah, I get that it's not a black and white world, heck I've been saying that about many things for many years, but I think that if we have the possibility of improving things, especially if it improves things for our children, then we really should try.

Well just remember that things have already improved enormously in a comparatively short period of time for our species. While I agree we should always seek to improve more, not being able to achieve perfection does not mean that we haven't been really trying to get to (and keep) this point. It's not so far away from either of our countries that childrens lot in life is far far worse.