Best Posts in Thread: March for our lives is flawed.

While I disagree on many of the points they are promoting, I applaud them for getting involved in the civics process. To me the 2nd amendment is not to stop criminals with guns or for home defense but ultimately to save our people in the case of a tyrannical government, as well as what the founding fathers framed this amendment to be a defense against.

However, what we see now is equally dangerous for many reasons. If we continue to do nothing in the name of the 2nd amendment then this amendment will no longer be looked at as a stalwart against tyranny but part of the problem itself, which we can see is already beginning.

Opinion | John Paul Stevens: Repeal the Second Amendment

John Paul Stevens is a former GOP appointed Supreme Court Justice. Supreme Court Justices, former or not, rarely wade into political debates yet this one is advocating for a repeal of the amendment. This is quite spectacularly rare. The issue at heart with repealing the 2nd Amendment is that once we begin to repeal fundament rights found in the Bill of Rights, what is there stopping repealing of other ones, such as freedom of press/speech/religion or unreasonable search and/or seizure.

Personally I do not advocate for any weapon bans above the current status quo, but we need to do a better job enforcing the laws already on the books as well as measures within our mental health system in order to get the correct information where it needs to be. We also have to look at how we do background checks as currently an understaffed FBI complete these checks and sends back a Yes/No to the inquiring party. However it's been ruled that checks past three days is unconstitutionally prohibiting people from purchasing a firearm.

Additionally, people who have weapons should be mandated to take a competency test every 4 years and failure of such test would prohibit the person from acquiring (legally) firearms until a course is taken and the test passed. This would address the sheer number of unequivocal deaths from accidents stemming from incompetence, which averages 6000+ yearly.

Lastly we need to stop arguing these points on emotions because they are not relevant and nobody cares how you feel. We need to argue the points on their merit based in fact and reasonable assumptions. We do not need to arm teachers or make our schools feel like prisons and we do not need to keep spreading this paranoia because the fact is being caught up in a mass shooting statistically is extremely, extremely low.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018, Original Post Date: Apr 2, 2018 ---

This point is not relevant because it does not take into the culture of the nations you are using to compare. America fundamentally has a different culture than most of Europe / the western world. Firearms has been in that culture since we broke free of tyranny through war. Firearms will continue to be in our culture for a longer time to come.

Yes, the cost is more deaths however an armed population is the ultimate deterrence against tyranny. Why do almost all authoritarian nations opt to disarm their people?

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018 ---

Fully automatic guns are already banned with exception of historical guns which are extremely expensive. Nobody is spending that much to go on a shooting spree.

I wholly disagree with armed security in schools. I have children in school and while statistically them being in a mass shooting is extremely low, statistically them being around a stupid human being who cannot handle his firearm and being caught up in a discharge is a concern.

Schools should not be prisons.

Kids do not learn and grow in those environments

Of all the gun control ideas, this is the worst.

Yeah they would. Using the most recent example, Australia. They have a buyback program which bought back over 600,000 firearms. In America there is over 300,000,000 firearms.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018 ---

Whataboutism means your point is flawed and you are ignorant enough to not be able to argue a point on it's merits.

Don't be stupid

Don't engage in whataboutism.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018 ---

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018 ---

What is a military grade weapon? For a law to be enact it would need to be detailed and standardized.

What is military grade? Automatic weapons are already banned. Assault rifles are already banned.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018 ---

Engaging in the civic process is never ever ever ever a waste of time.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 2, 2018 ---

The Gun Show - More Perfect - WNYC Studios

I highly recommend this podcast. It's the story of how the NRA went from a gun enthusiast club to a lobby group.

 

this thread is centrism at its best tbh

I clicked on this thread because i thought you might actually mention the two flaws it does have, recognized even by those who generally support the movement. Those flaws are that:

1) disarming a population but not its police leaves the population vulnerable to their corruption and violence (disproportionally POC)
2) the calling for mental health databases to be accessible demonizes mentally ill people, endangers them, and disregards their right to privacy.

the movement is led by kids even younger than me, so it's not going to be perfect, but its general message of banning military-grade weapons is very popular among voters (do i even need to cite this), so if nothing else I hope it can atleast accomplish that. Their point about how politicians receiving money from the NRA have been bought out is simply facts y'all, I'd like to remind you that the NRA has banned even the research of how gun violence effects america. We can't even have this argument on equal footing due to missing those stats, instead everyone has been lead to believe there wont be any worth note.

The roasting of Marco Rubio that they did? Simply amazing, though he just got voted in last year so we have to suffer with him for another 3. Their message of voting out those who receive NRA bloodmoney is definitely taking traction, but will be fruitless in the face of current gerrymandering.

it's exhausting to read all of your comments, it's like I've stumbled onto foxnews

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 31, 2018, Original Post Date: Mar 31, 2018 ---

japan

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 31, 2018 ---

wow? wow. we have more school shootings than any other country, that's not an issue to you ? at all? and need i remind you NONE of the school shooters were actually mentally ill, they were white guys with a bunch of entitlement. stop using this conversation to demonize the mentally ill, they aren't the violent ones here. Also really? overpopulation? you getting all social Darwinism on us?

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 31, 2018 ---

AGAIN. the violent ones ARE NOT the mentally ill. A much more suitable step would be to prevent anyone with a history of domestic abuse from having or buying a gun, which is a much more common thread among shooters. GOD you guys stop at nothing to demonize mentally ill people

 

neither of these arguments hold any water. a difference in culture is not an excuse when we both have democracy, I'm not attempting to compare standards to China or Russia. Japan's constitutional monarchy isn't so dissimilar from our government that we can't pass this legislation, if anything, it should be easier to pass the legislation in our government. Just because they're on the other side of the globe doesn't mean we can't learn from their legislation and enact in here. The arguments that "America is just too different" or "America is way too big" are cop-outs, and completely unsubstantiated.

and WHAT are you going on about? their TV? please elaborate on how japan's gun legislation has effected their TV, which is apparently more important than people's lives.

 

I don’t understand the politicians that think guns should be fully removed from shelves. It doesn’t make any sense, meth isn’t on the shelf but people still obtain it? How would that be any different for guns? And I saw on twitter than some highschool is making student wear clear plastic backpacks. I was in the car with my dad and I told him that and we instantly came up with an idea for how a kid could sneak in a gun, carve out a book, put it in a folder? Gun laws can be altered but those alterations won’t stop someone from getting a gun and shooting people if they really wanted to. And I think all the kids walking out of schools protesting about the school shootings are stupid as well. They need to stay in the school and actually learn something. If you notice everyone wants to blame the NRA for gun violence which is stupid. The NRA teaches about gun safety and doesn’t support violence on others with guns.

 

That's such an awful argument. "Most drugs are obtained illegally so how would restrictions on legal drug ownership have any affect?"

 

Their marching will do nothing, waste of time.