I agree they're not mutually exclusive, but I want people to adjust their expectations on what common gun control can and will do. It would NOT have prevented todays shooting and the Dallas shootings.
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Blaming lax gun control in the US is sweeping the real issues under the rug
- Thread starter walking fiend
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rokkerkory
Member
Real issues? Or real root causes?
There's many root causes here, NRA + politicians voting against 90% of gun owners wanting more reasonable gun laws is one of them. Likely one of the larger causes.
Can we get those politicians to actually represent their constituents for once?
There's many root causes here, NRA + politicians voting against 90% of gun owners wanting more reasonable gun laws is one of them. Likely one of the larger causes.
Can we get those politicians to actually represent their constituents for once?
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Completely missing the point. London MET aren't killing hundreds of black people annually.
Because they aren't armed themselves. Because there's an extremely low probability that the suspect will have a gun. Because they're illegal and hard to get.
They're not hard to get. Illegal sure. I can go online and buy firearms from inside the United Kingdom and have them delivered to my door from a reputable vendor if I wanted to.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Exactly. I mean, I've always said to people that if we had the same lax gun laws in the UK, London would be just as bad, because the MET police are trained to fear black and asian minorities too. Shit just doesn't escalate because of the lack of firearms.
GoldenEye 007
Member
Constitutional amendments are incredibly difficult and not really a viable route of reform on this issue. The reform will need to come from Congress and also in part from SCOTUS.
Spyder_Monkey
Banned
Lax gun laws are a major problem in the U.S. Or do you think that 50 people died at once in Orlando with rainbows and sugar cookies? It's this sweeping under the rug that's making real gun control laws difficult to realize in the United States.
I'm not saying that can't be done, but you can't buy them in Tesco along with a bottle of whisky and your weekly shopping.
Most people don't see it as being worth the risk, because you'll have the entire countries police forces after you. Even out fucking criminals would rather use knives and hammers.
Skellig Gra
Member
No one said it's the only problem. Just one of many.
Jezbollah
Member
If that was the case we would see more incidents of armed police units killing people.
Unfortunately the stats say otherwise. In 14,666 armed police operations, only 6 of them resulted in a discharged firearm.
Now, I would speculate that a large percentage of that 14k number might not involve a gun by the criminal, but just to say that we "lack firearms" doesn't mean we don't have incidents where police with firearms doesnt occur. We just have better trained armed police - and we have learnt the (very deserved) harsh lessons from the Jean Charles De Menizes incident.
The standard operating procedure is still different because of the lack of presumption of the other party being armed.
Spoiled Milk
Banned
No, blaming racism in the US is sweeping the real issues of improper training of police officers, militarization, and excessive availability of guns.
Jezbollah
Member
I am trying to find a link to standard deployment procedure but I expect the presence of armed police is because of a direct threat of the incident involving firearms by the criminal.
I know it's not super relevant, but man there is a world of difference between these two institutions.
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
I disagree. As per friends who work in the force, the MET police have the same culture of mistrust of minorities as US police seemingly do. I'm confident that if you added thousands of firearms into the mix on both sides, you'd see a sharp increase in these grimes.
You even admitted that a large percentage of that 14k most likely didn't involve a criminal who had a gun themselves, which is the key issue here. If those 14k officers worked on the assumption that their target would most likely have a gun, and be prepared to use it, and that was indeed the case, those statistics would look very different.
Precisely.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
I havent seen anyone that claims gun control will solve all of our problems.
IdreamofHIME
Member
...and the cops excuse is always that they believed that the suspects are armed. No matter how petty the suspicion is.
How can they use excessive force if people don't have access to the weapons these cops say they were carrying?
ArkhamFantasy
Member
"He reached for his pocket" .....after you told him to show ID
Ragnar Blackmane
Member
Please delete.
shadowsdarknes
Member
Stricter gun laws isn't a fix for poverty stricken and crime ridden areas.
It's a means of preventing violent situations from becoming more violent.
It's a means of preventing violent situations from becoming more violent.
Yep /closethread
MatrixMan.EXE
Member
Oh shit, I think we're actually on the same page. My bad dude.
Vicetrailia
Banned
If you wanna reduce violence, doing something about guns will make a big difference.
Gotta do a better job of keeping guns off the black market. Right now it is effortless to obtain one no matter where you are (and easier in the inner city) and there is no accountability from manufacturers or gun shows.
Gotta do a better job of keeping guns off the black market. Right now it is effortless to obtain one no matter where you are (and easier in the inner city) and there is no accountability from manufacturers or gun shows.
cookie-monster
Member
I feel like racism and xenophobia are just the expression of deeper rooted insecurity about self worth and unearned privilege. The idea of birthright being an attribute that trumps the ambitions of more talented immigrants is pretty unjustifiable as well as being a recipe for a steady decline. You can easily see that it doesn't sit well with ego, that the idea that the only reason you're entitled to certain privileges was through birth and nothing to do with ability. From there, violence isn't a huge step.
partyphone
Banned
why are guns so fucking important to people?
social conditioning
walking fiend
Member
I completely understand your point and agree with it; however, creating a similar situation in the US is short of impossible right now.
The stricter gun control at best will prevent further circulation of weaponry, and it will not address the fact that there is 'already' more than one weapon available per US resident. And since they can't get rid of these guns, they will not be asking police to stop carrying their weapons either, and police will not stop using the excuse that they were afraid either [not to mention that even carrying a bat is frightening enough to some of them to shoot the people...]
There are always creative ways to express violence that doesn't involve guns. There was a recent incident which is so horrible I don't even want to name it again...
LordRaptor
Member
It's a good thing the Founding Fathers didn't add a relatively loosely worded amendment that had an entirely different contemporary meaning about something like "constraining freedom of travel" or we'd have people lobbying to prevent any moves to have regulations on seat belts fitted in cars
I don't think a lot of people are truly blaming gun control. It's just low-hanging fruit that would at least potentially save some lives while we can address the larger issues.
Some of the proposed gun control measures won't have much of an issue on many gun owners. Most of the proposed measures are defeated largely in fear of the slippery slope arguments. The fear that if you let someone take away a little bit of a freedom, the rest will follow at some other point.
Some of the proposed gun control measures won't have much of an issue on many gun owners. Most of the proposed measures are defeated largely in fear of the slippery slope arguments. The fear that if you let someone take away a little bit of a freedom, the rest will follow at some other point.
I don't think they really are that important. It's more an issue of people perceiving the government taking away what was a right. For many people, some of which are underprivileged, they feel like they're constantly losing any control in both the government and their lives in general. They feel it's the government directly responsible for this, and trying to restrict gun ownership to them is a very tangible example of this. Fighting the issue, and occassionally winning, probably makes them feel like they're able to resist the government and have some control in their lives.
Just like with cases of sociopathic killers, it's not usually one cause but a series of causes that leads them to the main event. The gun violence in the USA isn't just an issue of lax gun laws but one of many things in a cocktail of many things. There's the racism, there's the distrust, there's the mental issue, abuse, lax gun laws, many other things that when combined forms this deadly combination
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Guns aren't illegal nor hard to get. I can get a shotgun in 6 months if I wanted to. The slippery slope argument does have some merit considering first we banned semi auto centerfire rifles then handguns after that based on isolated tragedies. Also, look at what airsofters and Scottish airgunners have to go through now. The UK targets non-firearms in their quest for gun control.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
No, it's not sweeping the real issue under the rug. Poor gun control is an issue that needs to be solved, along with many other.
Here in the US I can get one in 15 minutes. Well not today, because most gun stores are closed at this hour on a Sunday, but any other day I could.
Here in the US I can get one in 15 minutes. Well not today, because most gun stores are closed at this hour on a Sunday, but any other day I could.
kame-sennin
Member
Thank you.
Racism, apathy, lack of empathy and paranoia are part of the problem -- this is the culture that we've sown for ourselves. There's nothing immediate when can do about it, but there is something that can be done about guns; however, the aforementioned usually keep this from happening.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Didn't the EU vote for a proposal to ban semi auto rifles with more than 21 rounds in the magazine (with exceptions for sports shooters) in committee recently as well as common standards to stop blank guns from being converted, etc? And plenty of Europeans can get AR-15's, handguns, etc, it's only the UK that is truly extremely anti-gun in Europe (sadly, our laws compared to those in other Euro countries are draconian). Pretty much unique in this aspect, the new Conservative leader apparently hates guns.
Systolique
Member
What's better :
1. A racist who has access to guns
2. A racist who doesn't have access to guns
1. A racist who has access to guns
2. A racist who doesn't have access to guns
IdreamofHIME
Member
Royal_Phalanx
Member
It's not like a seemingly normal person can't get guns even if there is firearm registration and licensing. Not like any of that could stop them just because 'they're racist'. Sure, I agree with sane gun control and I want this to happen in the US, but let's not pretend this is a 100% panacea to the issue.
Tranqueris
Banned
Never gonna happen, the best possible scenario we'll get is at least 2 years of a Democratic President and Congress actually working towards trying to stop these massacres. I mean, it's not like they're going to suddenly stop long enough for politicians to forget about them.
It is truly amazing to see that the NRA has gotten such a stranglehold over the laws in this country that the only possible way to get some progress on this at a national level is to wait until an election and hope that politicians in the NRA's pocket get voted out.
Systolique
Member
This was more to mock the pointless and easy rhetoric of the OP than to argue about a legitimate idea.
Gnome Scat
Member
This.
Prime crotch
Banned
The issue is how gun manufacturers made owning a gun an integral part of the American mythos. So I think gun control would help matters.
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