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General News Get Behind Your President's Actions Re. Gun Control Americans

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Open Arms, Jan 5, 2016.

  1. Cauldron

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    This a step in the right direction, Considering during the Ronald Reagan administration he signed an assault weapons ban in the 80s. I mean these days you can still buy an assault weapon under "Emperor Obama".
     
    #21 Cauldron, Jan 6, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2016
  2. KyleD

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    This is good news. I live in Jamaica where 80% of people are killed by the gun and most of them come from the United States.
     
    #22 KyleD, Jan 6, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2016
  3. sldanlm

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    I don't think that most reasonable people find it acceptable, they just differ on what the solutions should be for it.

    ---------- Post added 6th Jan 2016 at 10:38 AM ----------

    When you say come from the U.S., do you mean smuggled in or imported?
     
  4. AwesomGaytheist

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    The New York Daily News really knocked it out of the park today:

    [​IMG]

    PRO-DEATH PARTY: GOP composed of liars stoking fear on guns - NY Daily News

    I cannot understand how someone can be that cold-hearted to think that massacres of schoolchildren are perfectly fine as long as you can buy your penis enhancer AK-47 without any background checks. If you're a "law abiding citizen" and a "responsible gun owner," then you won't have any trouble passing a background check, now will you?
     
  5. KyleD

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    They buy the guns in the U.S and smuggle it to whichever country they want.
     
  6. Zen fix

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    At the moment we don't really have many facts or data because we've never had universal background checks. I truly hope that I'm wrong and you are right and that we see a decrease in gun violence as a result of these measures. But at the moment it seems to me like these are some very soft interventions. But despite being soft it is a fact that the GOP will use this to get their voters to the polls. I've seen that 90% of Americans favor background checks but they aren't going to change their vote to preserve it.
     
  7. sldanlm

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    I don't have nor do I want to buy an Ak, but I have no problem with a background check to buy one. I see the bolded analogy a lot though when it comes to guns of any type, not just Ak-47's. If a guy supposedly owns a gun to compensate for a small penis, what does a woman own a gun for? (other than to compensate for the fact that she can't physically fight off a gang of males wanting to rape her)

    ---------- Post added 6th Jan 2016 at 06:13 PM ----------

    ---------- Post added 6th Jan 2016 at 06:21 PM ----------

    And we still don't have them now, even after the new EO's, according to a lawyer I know. The "clarification" regarding who is a dealer or not and who has to do background checks or not is exactly the same as a month ago, at least on the federal level. There might be a decrease in gun violence based on the other EO's, but it won't have anything to do with background checks.

    Some had theorized in the media that this will motivate the right wing Republicans to vote for enhanced background checks. With all the name calling back and forth in this election year by both sides though, I'm not confident this will happen.
     
    #27 sldanlm, Jan 6, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2016
  8. DMark69

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    Interesting though that the organization responsible for the NICS background check as it is, and actually wants to add more names to the list is the NRA. That's right, the NRA helped get the background checks going and wants them to add all the felons, and those deemed mentally unsafe to the database, but states aren't doing it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLTMkg1RLW0
     
  9. Aussie792

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    [YOUTUBE]JNlFps28fqE[/YOUTUBE]

    Jon Snow (the journalist) addressed this in a polite but savage interview with a speaker from Armed American Radio, which incidentally sounds more like a South American guerrilla front's propaganda wing than a US advocacy group.

    Some exchanges were quite strong:

    In any case, Obama's proposals are extremely mild. Comprehensive background checks are such a simple idea that don't even do much. Opposition to them is utterly insane. Background checks make you feel good and they catch a tiny number of people. But ostensibly normal people are capable of extremely horrible things. They aren't enough. Only reducing the availability of new guns to everyone and having people surrender their guns (be it through voluntary buyback schemes or confiscations) will reduce the United States' horrendous gun deaths.

    American individuals are not immune to the statistics of gun deaths. You are not exceptional. Those statistics apply to you, whether you own a gun or not. To accept guns is to accept danger. Guns do not make Americans safer on average. The guns you think will protect you are also the guns of the people you seek protection from. Average people cause gun deaths. Average people die. Crazed criminals after your head are so much less likely than accidents, suicide and domestic abuse. Privately owned guns do not make you safer. They do not make America a safer place to live.

    ---------- Post added 7th Jan 2016 at 03:00 PM ----------

    But it is completely unreasonable to pretend that guns can contribute to solving the problem they pose. In this issue, it's certainly not a matter of "everyone's right if they just followed their idea to the fullest extent." There is no evidence that private ownership increases general safety. There is demonstrable proof that weak gun controls cause higher rates of homicide, suicide and accidents. There is no happy middle ground of solutions for America's gun problem.

    In exact policy solutions, there of course exists a grey area. But there is next to nothing that justifies opposition to comprehensive background checks and stronger limitations on purchasing firearms.
     
  10. sldanlm

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    I don't have the feeling that private gun ownership increases general safety either. Crime is still going to happen to someone somewhere whether an individual person has a gun for protection or not. If you do own a gun you increase your odds of having an accident with one just the same as if you own anything else that might harm you if you're not responsible with it. Gun safety rules are extremely basic and simple, and yet some people violate them every day. (including sometimes police officers) Some criminals in the USA will still get guns regardless of the gun laws, because that's what they do.

    Some people have said what the president did was ineffective, and that the only real and effective solution to America's gun crime problem is legislation like what Australia and England has. I'm curious as to how that could happen in the entire U.S. I've lived in areas of the US with strict gun control, and it's pretty useless when guns can come in from other areas. I suppose a future president might say that gun violence is a clear and present danger and declare martial law, order a confiscation, but I still don't know how that would be implemented in reality.
     
    #30 sldanlm, Jan 7, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 7, 2016
  11. Open Arms

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    I don't think the majority of Americans "get it" yet Aussie. They still believe they are safer with a gun than without, which they are NOT. They still believe "it's part of life in a free country" which other free countries have proven it is NOT. They still don't see that their widespread belief in the right to bear arms takes away other rights, and that this is a far too great a price to pay.

    The brainwashing goes so deep and is so widespread that it has seeped into their young generation too. They even have trouble getting background checks passed for goodness sakes, which the majority say they do agree with.

    We can talk until we are blue in the face, Americans still think they know better, so one after the other drops daily of gun violence at a very alarming clip (to us), but apparently not nearly as alarming to the average American citizen.

    Some of the guns and mentality from the USA are leaking across the border into Canada. Up here though we will work our butts off to get stricter and stricter gun controls, and we will be successful because we are the majority, but I'm afraid the US will not. :frowning2:
     
  12. Ryu

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    This is what I like to call a good comprimise, especially since nobody seems ti be brave enough to stand up to the NRA. It's better than the English gun laws (nobody has guns except farmers) and it's better than the old american gun laws (everone and their cat has a gun). More countries need to adopt a simmilar middle of the road stance, in my opinion.
     
  13. Open Arms

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    I've been studying up some more on why the US has such a different way of thinking about guns, and I think another huge part of it is many Americans do not trust their authority figures or their government Also, they see someone coming to their borders or door as a potential enemy, not as a potential friend.

    With distrust comes fear and that leads to wanting to protect oneself.

    I don't see any conspiracy theories popping up in Canada, England or Australia for example. They all seem to originate in the US. At the root of conspiracy theories is distrust.

    When an American with a gun hears something, he/she thinks it's an intruder, so is ready to shoot. May just be the cat, a neighbour or a person whose vehicle broke down, but bang, bang and another innocent person is dead.

    It's such a different way of looking at life, but if one is raised to be suspicious and not trusting, I guess the result is thinking I need a gun to protect myself. So whenever there's a mass shooting, those of us in Australia or Canada or the UK are thinking... We need to tighten our gun laws. In the US, people are thinking, I need to get a gun or a more powerful gun. Opposite ways of thinking.
     
  14. KyleD

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    As far as I know private gun owners in the US are not required to report stolen or missing guns and these legally purchased guns can end up in U.S states with strict gun control laws and other countries near to the U.S such as in Latin America and the Caribbean. So these guns are not just costing U.S lives but lives of international citizens in third world countries where a lot of people die from guns originating in the U.S. One of the measures implemented by the President will help to prevent this by tightening regulations on reporting missing and lost guns so they can track them more easily. So when a gun that was legally purchased in the U.S is used to commit a crime in Mexico we can track the source.
     
    #34 KyleD, Jan 12, 2016
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2016
  15. sldanlm

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    I've encountered a few conspiracy theory people but of the people I've met that are gun owners they don't represent the majority. The majority of gun owners I've met own guns for two main reasons: hunting and personal defense,

    The guns my father had were mostly for target shooting and hunting, although he did own a handgun that he carried sometimes when he was out on business. If a gun owner is suspicious about crime it isn't because they're anti government, it's because for some people, crime is a real possibility. As of the 2013 FBI statistics:

    A murder occurs every 37 minutes
    A robbery occurs every 1 and a half minutes
    An assault occurs every 39 seconds
    A rape occurs every 6 and a half minutes

    Sometimes you hear, "I'm okay with someone having a gun in their home for protection, but I don't understand why someone would want to carry one." According to the stats, you are more than twice as likely to be a victim of just robbery alone outside the home as in it.

    ---------- Post added 12th Jan 2016 at 10:16 PM ----------

     
  16. KyleD

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    ^ I agree with you sldanlm. Tightenning regulations on stolen and missing guns will save countless lives.
     
  17. baconpox

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    I know I'm in the minority here, but I really disagree with gun control. Owning a gun isn't going to lead someone to shoot people, most people wouldn't. People need assault rifles because they're quick for self-defense and they're more intimidating if someone breaks into your house; waiting periods don't do anything; background checks need to be better, there doesn't need to be more of them. Also laws cost a lot of money to enforce and we're 18 trillion dollars in debt, the solution isn't to make more laws out of fear.
     
  18. 2112

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    I'm not arguing for or against gun control here, but I'm pretty sure the cost of our imperialist wars is far greater than the cost of gun control. That seems like the first thing we should look at if we're worried about debt.

    I also don't think money should be prioritized higher than lives. Again, I'm not necessarily saying that gun control is the solution, but it seems absurd to me to disregard a potential solution to something that's killing people just because of money, especially when much more is being spent on more wasteful things like corporate subsidies and, ironically, killing people.
     
  19. sldanlm

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    Well, it might, if there is also enforcement and prosecution of those regulations. In addition, the judges have to do their part. I don't have the link in front of me right now, but there was a guy that was arrested and convicted of illegal gun selling. He also knew he was selling the guns to criminals. The guy could've gotten many years in prison, but the judge basically gave him a legal version of a slap on the wrist. The guy's lawyer commented when questioned about his client getting off the hook that since the guy is now a felon, he can no longer go out and legally buy guns to resell illegally, therefore that should be punishment enough. :rolle: If I were a judge and had a case of someone doing what that guy did, he'd get the max on every count, and it would be served consecutive, not concurrently. Any one of those guns will likely be used in a crime.

    ---------- Post added 13th Jan 2016 at 09:52 PM ----------

    Perhaps one solution to the debt problem is to cut back on some military programs, like maybe ordering only half of the 100 Billion price tag of the Ballistic Missile subs the US is ordering. Just one sub has enough nuke warhead capacity to destroy the entire world, based on radiation spread and the theory of nuclear winter with a certain number of explosions. Despite the nuclear reduction treaty, the US, Russia, China, and France have together enough nukes to destroy the entire world a few times over. The total number of warheads number in the thousands. and it costs billions to pay the personnel, the maintenance and the infrastructure to sustain this.

    SSBN-X Subs: Congressmen Promote Refresh, Have Sub Bases Districts
     
  20. dano218

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    The problem with politicians which i can understand is they obviously have to support the views of their specific voters and until a huge majority of people move in that direction there will be no strong gun control laws. It is a huge conflict for many people and many politicians will be voted out of office if they support a gun ban and a more pro gun candidate would get elected. I personally think there are other issues that surrounds gun violence also and they need to be focused on too in the meantime.