[Macros]

Considering how many people died here in the troubles, I shudder to think what the body count would be if guns were as easily available here as they are in the states.

People can own guns here Nico, it's not illegal. But they have to obtain a license, get two references on their character and the references must be people of good standing, I can't see why you think this would be a bad thing. We have 2 guns, a shot gun and a rifle. They are licensed and kept locked in a gun locker. They are for hunting and pest control. They are not for home defense because a gun locker in a cupboard is not a defense weapon.
A gun not locked in a cupboard is a danger.
It's a catch 22 so don't try and bring it up again.
What I read in your post is that broken homes and society are to blame, I think most single mothers in the world would tell you to fuck right off with that attitude.

The problem is, and always has been, the access to guns. And don't trot out the tired arguement of people will get guns on the black market. Most people would shy away from buying a gun illegally.
And don't trot out the criminals have guns bullshit either.
The criminals you so fear aren't the ones gunning down kids in schools
It isn't the terrorists either.
It's white Americans who bought their guns legally over the counter. And cracked.

This is not rocket science. Mad man can't buy gun. Mad man don't shoot kids.

[EmperorMagus]

Even assuming that broken homes and lost values ARE the reason why people go on rampages ...

Which one is easier? Making sure the crazy don't have guns or making sure there are no single parents and 'the values' are regained?

It's a farcical argument used to divert people from the real issue. Even responding to it is a waste of time.

[worry]

Nah. In my observation, generally speaking, the kids have more sense, more savvy, and better values than every generation before them. They're not beholden to the useless dogma and sacred cows that gild over the rot of greed, selfishness, and hate. They're not interested in fighting the culture wars while profiteers suck them dry. They're for sure waaay more tolerant of differences and braver in the face of change. I also sense they're less inclined to value money over people's welfare than previous generations.

And one of the best things about them, they're also cooperative problem solvers. And right now they know the problem is guns, period, and aren't interested in burying their heads in the sand while people get slaughtered. They know every other developed country recognizes this, have done the work, have solved the problem, and are shouting at us desperately to do the same. The kids recognize the absolute hubris (or indifference to life) in older generations to think the country where this ALWAYS happens knows better than the countries where this doesn't happen (and again, that's every other developed country...all of them...100% of them). We don't have to speculate, hypothesize, brainstorm, gather our wisest scholars. We have the solution already.

The data is in and the kids see it plain as day.

[HoosierDaddy]

I'm pretty sure Nico just pulled the Welfare Queen card with the single mother quote.

Also, what values have we lost? I'd like to say we're less racist... but then there's Trump's alt-right. A little less misogynistic... but then you have the statement above. I'm surprised the LGBTQ weren't mentioned yet. I'll give it some time.

What a joke.

[Slow Ben]

H. D., on 17 February 2018 - 03:01 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure Nico just pulled the Welfare Queen card with the single mother quote.

Also, what values have we lost? I'd like to say we're less racist... but then there's Trump's alt-right. A little less misogynistic... but then you have the statement above. I'm surprised the LGBTQ weren't mentioned yet. I'll give it some time.

What a joke.

Did you not know that a lack of God in schools and a lack of discipline at home are the cause of all of this?

[HoosierDaddy]

Home-schooling for everyone!

That's the ticket. You see, then parents can instill PROPER values. The vast swaths of Americans are far more qualified than professionals who are for the most part recipients of 6 years of undergrad and masters degrees programs specifically designed to create good teachers.

[Tiste Simeon]

Nico, this is basically your post:

[worry]

I too wonder what the answer to that question is. In fact, I wonder what the question to that question is.

[worry]

In this case I literally have no real idea what you mean by "juicy steaks".

My best guess is you think Nico is trolling and everyone always takes the bait? Thus we are wasting "juicy steaks" of thought on him?

[worry]

I think NIco knows his rep on the board and plays it up sometimes but I don't generally think he's trolling or even playing devil's advocate on this topic. And however earnest, he's representative of a real philosophy. Ron Paul is real and was a major presidential candidate once upon a time. His dimwit son wields power in the Senate right now.

So sure, libertarianism is the kind of philosophy you'd come up with if you never developed Theory of Mind as a five-year-old, but we're stuck with the reality that those people exist and want to shape policy (or stymie more sensible others from shaping it).

[Tsundoku]

I hope this man is the start of something better. OK it's just one weapon so far, but like I said, it's a start. It's his attitude which is more important.

http://www.news.com....82d4d52c8c4394e

‘I could have easily sold this rifle, but no person needs this’
AS he grappled with another school massacre, this hunter ran out of “thoughts and prayers” and gave up one of his deadliest weapons.

BEN Dickmann knows he’s probably one of the most hated demographics in America right now: a gun-owner who believes in his right to own a weapon.

He’s hunted since he was a child, but the mass shooting at a Florida school last week left the 40-year-old “sickened”, “mad” and “tired”.

Mr Dickmann wanted to offer more than “thoughts and prayers”. So he walked into a Florida police station and gave up one of his deadliest weapons: a semiautomatic AR-57 rifle.

“No person needs this,” he said of the weapon which he asked police to destroy.

He posted his surrender in a Facebook post which has been shared more than 220,000 times.

He joined many other Americans who have reached breaking point with America’s gun culture in the wake of the latest mass shooting.

Detailing the surrender of his AR-57, Mr Dickmann said he is “a responsible, highly trained gun owner”.

“However, I do not need this rifle. No one without a law enforcement badge needs this rifle.

“I enjoyed shooting this rifle immensely but I don’t need it, I have other types I can shoot for the same enjoyment,” Mr Dickmann wrote.

“I could have easily sold this rifle, but no person needs this. I will be the change I want to see in this world. If our law makers will continue to close their eyes and open their wallets, I will lead by example. #outofcirculation”.

In an earlier at post, Mr Dickmann spoke of his “struggle to make heads or tails of another senseless mass shooting”.

“I can no longer offer only my ‘thoughts and prayers’,” he wrote. “I have to stand up and say ‘this must stop’.

“I don’t want my friends to worry about sending their kids to school (or worry about my wife doing any one of her countless high school visits as part of her job). I don’t want my pastor friends to worry about the congregations during worship. I don’t want my concert touring family to worry their events.

“I’m tired. I’m tired of hearing about thoughts and prayers. I’m tired of hearing now is not the time to talk about gun control. I’m tired of hearing there is too many guns in the market that we can’t control it.

“I’m tired of hearing it’s purely a mental health issue. I’m tired of hearing it’s purely an ‘assault rifle’ problem. It’s all of these things. All of them”.

‘WE NEED BETTER’

Mr Dickmann said he’s a member of “probably the second-most vilified demographic in the country currently ... a conservative-leaning, gun-owning, middle-aged, financially stable white male” — and that it’s this group who must drive gun law change.

“My demographic is the majority of gun-owners, the majority of law makers (being bought by the gun lobby) and the ones that always stand behind the 2nd Amendment as an omnipotent shield,” he said.

“We need better, more comprehensive gun control, ownership, and training requirements in this county. We need to start this now. We needed to start this 20 to 30 years ago in all reality.”

Mr Dickmann called for an end to the domestic manufacture and import of new military style semiautomatic weapons and parts. “No one can deny the statistic that these are the most popular class of weapons used in mass shootings,” he wrote.

“I have owned rifles in this category. I get it. The rifle can be cheap, the ammunition is cheap. I know the buyer. They ‘look cool’, they are fun and easy to shoot.”

But he added the sobering detail: “For the sadistic, they come standard with 20-30 round (even 50 round in the case of the P90), making mass killing easy and fast”.

He said there was no need for them to be in public.

“People will argue them as a hunting rifle, but, I’m sorry, this is not a good hunting rifle if you are a true sportsman. If you are a true hunter, you want the most accurate rifle you can buy, and short barrelled, semiautomatic rifles are not the most accurate things out there.”

REGULATIONS ARE ‘A JOKE’

Taking aim at the “golden shield of the gun rights activists, the 2nd Amendment”, Mr Dickmann said owning guns “can be a right” but “anyone who says it’s well regulated at this point is lying to themselves or living in a cave” because current regulations are “a joke”.

“In Florida, you can get a concealed-weapons permit which allows to you carry a gun, and purchase one without a waiting period in a day,” he wrote.

In his class, only half the participants had previously shot a gun, Mr Dickmann said.

Passing the class required only sitting through three hours of a video presentation, “then go to the range and put a couple round from a .22 caliber handgun on a paper plate at 10 feet,” he said. “Literally anyone can do this.”

He said anyone serious about their “right” to keep and bear arms should be “willing to prove your ability to maintain that right”.

“I am. I know I would pass. Any responsible gun-owner should be able to,” Mr Dickmann said. “There are so many other types of guns out there that you can still own and use, we don’t need the military style rifles in the public market.”

Mr Dickmann was lambasted as much as he was lauded when he posted his surrender on Facebook.

Many welcomed his move, but others noted he still kept a number of his guns, and challenged him to get rid of all of them.

Some gun owners said he was “plain stupid”, and accused him of attention seeking.

Mr Dickmann told npr that he has no master plan when he handed his gun in, but was happy to have sparked debate.

“Hopefully [it] causes some action. I hope somebody — be it the students, be it the next generation — picks up the torch and does something,” he said.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 20 February 2018 - 08:25 AM

[Macros]

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[Lady Bliss]

Frankly, at this point I would be open to moving out of the country if it wouldn't be a legal battle to move my kids. I don't feel safe here anymore, and am disgusted with the direction our politics have gone.

[stone monkey]

While the US is happy (or at least willing) to regularly sacrifice thousands of its people each year to the God of Guns and Money, this isn't going away. We're going to be here again and again. And the dead will be piling up again and again. And nothing will be done.

[HoosierDaddy]

It'll happen eventually. I have faith and I'll vote that way. So will millions of others.

[worry]

Tend to agree with HD. And at risk of being a broken record, it's impossible to overstate just how divorced from older generations' 'conventional wisdom'-as-excuse-making the kids really are. They're just not that conservative about a LOT of things, guns (increasingly) included, and changes will come more rapidly than a lot of people expect, I think. I'm not saying there won't be any more 2-steps-forward-1-step-back, or that it's inevitable in an arc of the moral universe way, and it's gonna require generational die-off too, I'm afraid (but not actually afraid, good riddance)...Ultimately I have a surplus of faith that the kids are more ready and eager and able to organize for social, political, and economic justice like nothing we've seen before. There's negatives to their ability to organize (the alt-right, most obviously), but the numbers are stacked in favor of structural progress, not regress.

[Nevyn]

I'll believe it when I see it.

The numbers "always" look stacked to progress when incoming generations are polled. But as they gain influence, their political leanings and biases evolve, and tend to fill out a fuller spectrum. And the current american political climate is designed to push and pull them to extremes, with no more accepted voice of moderation standing above it all.

Some issues you will see continue to progress. Others ....

[worry]

It's frankly odd to me to think of the political climate in the U.S. as pulling towards extremes. We have two major parties: a reactionary right slipping into fascism (GOP, fairly extreme), and a soft-libertarian/neoliberal one (Dems, not extreme) that is just as likely to cave to the GOP as not. That's why there's no "voice of moderation" worth taking seriously. It would be redundant. To be a moderate between those two 'extremes' is to be a scumbag or a troll, either one in it for the money. Just look at the NYT op-ed page's best and brightest: "If you want to stop school shootings, it’s not enough just to vent and march. It’s necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points." Link What the hell kind of moron wants more of that?

If anything, young people are a corrective to that "middle ground at any cost" nonsense. They'd put the economic center where it should be: the New Deal. They aren't growing up with the myth of the friendly neighborhood patrolman. They're not science deniers. They're much less likely to be stuck on stupid when it comes to race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, abortion, status, you name it. All these old wedge issues are falling by the wayside as even viable. They can see plainly, nakedly what wealth imbalance and runaway capitalism mean for life on earth, human and otherwise.

That said, I think "I'll believe it when I see it" is a fair enough response. I recognize I'm making predictions. But this does seem to be the way things are trending, fast, and I don't personally see them falling back into wedge issue thinking.

[QuickTidal]

These post-Millenial kids...the ones protesting after Parkland (you know...the ones the alt-right is swearing are actors coached by the liberals or FBI plants) are the change in the water. They are not buying the lies. As the baby boomer generation gets old and dies out, these kids who are not gun nuts, or willing to buy alt-right lies, and are fed up with this current administration, and the GOP supporting it....they are the change that is coming. Someone at a town hall in Colorado (upon booing the congressman there who supports "force with force") said it best. "There is an avalanche coming to Washington. And it's being led by our kids"

This shit is happening in the backyard of a generation that has grown up in this hellscape...and they are coming of age just in time to unseat the dirty politicians and flip the script.

I think the change well and truly starts with them.

This is an interesting time to be watching this.

[Macros]

I really hope you guys are right.

But I have a sinking feeling it won't change much