Guns
Rants, World April 17th, 2007Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control. Initiate gun control.
At a federal level. I don’t know how to make myself any clearer. No it’s not the fault of the video games, the education system, the parents, drugs etc etc… IT’S GUNS. THOSE THINGS FIRE METAL EXPLOSIVES AT INCREDIBLE SPEEDS INTO PEOPLE. Fuck the Constitution, Goddamnit America, get your act together, hold a referendum and change that bloody section. It’s killing people. Make people have licences before they can carry those damn things.
Ugh. How many more people needs to die before they realise that hey maybe, JUST MAYBE America is better off WITHOUT guns being so easy to acquire and that, maybe I dunno, it’s REALLY DANGEROUS?!
16 Responses to “Guns”
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You don’t need a license to get a gun here? I was sure that you did. And then there’s a waiting period and everything, where they do background checks. Most people don’t even consider the second amendment to mean that all citizens have the right to own firearms.
What’s gun control like in other countries, anyway?
Apparently there is gun control and licensing in many states of America however, the problem is that it’s not enacted at a federal level. That means that gun regulation varies hugely from state to state. This may give you some idea, for example note the difference between, say, New York and Michigan.
The crappy thing is that because there is significant amount of gun politics in America, and a number of powerful pro-gun lobby groups, any talk of a massive, country-wide restriction on guns, I would think, is quite limited, unfortunately.
In Australia, all gun ownership requires permits as well as a “genuine reason” to be given. This was mostly a response to a couple of terrible massacres and shootings in the 90s after which the government spent a great deal of money to “buy back” many many guns from citizens. That’s why nowadays it’s quite difficult to legally own a gun in Australia and hence why there is so little gun-related details in Australia, especially compared to the US.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for gun control (and the control of all weapons, to be honest) but I think there’s something wrong with the US that goes deeper than just the fact of owning versus not owning a gun. Almost every American I’ve ever met has in some small respect scared me with a flippant attitude towards violence. I had a (US) room mate once who was a perfectly nice guy… yet he had a habit of, after an incident of assault in our street, trying to persuade my other (Australian) female room mate to walk up and down the road at midnight while he hid in the bushes, solely with the intent of picking a fight against anyone who tried to hassle her.
I’m having a hard time putting my unease into words, exactly. But it’s definitely there; it’s almost like the US is soul-sick. Easy access to devastating weapons certainly doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the cause of the problem…
There are certain states in the US that do not require a license to purchase a rifle or hand gun, though most states do require a permit/license to own. It varies from state-to-state, but do you really think a piece of paper is going to control gun usage?
It doesn’t matter at all, because people will find a way to get it. Besides, with the VTech shooting, it was a college atmosphere with people 18+. Most states will allow you to purchase a rifle/long neck gun at 18, and hand guns at 21. The kid who opened fired could’ve legally owned a weapon.
Take guns away and you still have other means of weaponry, not only that but that will increase more criminalistic (apparently that’s not a word :() acts as well as more illegal bearings. It’s just like when America had the prohibition act. People are still going to get it one way or another when it’s illegal.
You can’t really prevent these shootings from happening, or anything else that allows a human to take away another life. It’ll happen no matter what kind of limits they’re given. It’s sad, but it’s a realization.
I’m with you. I’d rather have people complaining than people dead. :/
To Jordan: It’s not merely a piece of paper, it’s about enforcement and leading by example. That’s why it won’t work at a state-by-state level, with some states being harsher and some more lenient, there must be some sort of federal control over this gun problem.
And yes it’s doable. Australia is a fine example. Before the huge gun buyback that happened over here (the federal government had to raise taxes by 1% that year because of the sheer amount of money needed to buy back all the guns) and now we haven’t had a massacre since then. The rate of gun-related accidents and fatalities have dropped dramatically. It’s about not so much needing a piece of paper, but a reason to own a gun and maybe lessons or whatever.
Of course there are illegal ways to get guns over in Australia, however it really kills off the number of deaths relating to guns when there’s no easy way for everyday people to own a gun. We’re not talking about these one-off tragic massacres, we’re talking about all the thousands of everyday accidents people have around guns. These NOT happening if there were more control.
And if a person is determined to kill someone of course they could do it by other means. They could push someone off stairs, buy rat poison etc. However, it IS doing something to get rid of one BIG source of the problem: that is to eliminate the ease of owning guns. It’s eliminating all the deaths involved with accidentally firing a gun that happened to be in the house, it might even be if whoever the killer over at VT didn’t go through an arduous process of getting a gun, maybe he would’ve used a knife and fewer people would be hurt. The thing is there IS a difference when you have a tighter, country wide control over guns. It’s not good enough to simply shrug one’s shoulders and go “oh well, there are guns about, I guess that’s that”.
I can’t believe after the Virginia Tech incident things are still unlikely to change in the United States. Citizens seem to think that it is a right for them to carry firearms. It’s not. It’s not a right - because that signals that by doing so it’s “okay”. It’s not okay at all. These incidents happen far more frequently within the US then they do in the UK - guns over here are controlled much more tightly even if there are still shooting incidents too frequently. Some states don’t even need a background check from the person for them to purchase a gun. How ridiculous.
This article on “Gun Control Issues” pretty much sums it up for what I have to say.
Hear, hear! People are just careless about guns and it’s especially so with children. They just find the guns their parents haphazardly hid in some drawer, go out into the streets to show it off and set it off.
My mom and my friend’s mom warned me to be careful today since the shooter was Korean. I wonder if there’s going to be some racial backlash. o.o
Agreed.
Although it was bewildering to open the paper this morning and see: “Rampage shocks nation … Related news: McCain: We have the right to carry weapons”.
Um, hello? Could you have better timing please?
I’d be outraged that this is what it’s come to — but I also have the awful idea that no one else is going to notice. Too many people are going to say “Violence, whatever” and continue to demand that they have a right to own a gun. Sure, you have a right to own a gun. I believe you! But you do not have a right to own a gun if you don’t have a fantastic reason for it, in my opinion. Such as being a hunter, I guess. Handguns are not okay to me, because they’re created with the purpose of killing PEOPLE. I read an article a while ago saying that if we get rid of the death penalty that we’re saying we condone murder. I think it’s not like that at all: I think being able to purchase guns so easily and talk about them and handle them so easily shows that we condone murder.
… Which is why I don’t like to think about it very much at all, because it is just too depressing.
To Jordan: (Re: the article) It’s so misleading when people tote the phrase “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. You know what’s more correct? “People kill people but people with guns kill MORE people”. Of course, I realise that once properly restricted, the world isn’t going to be magically all nice and lovely again. However, the solution isn’t going to be “if we can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”. We need social reforms, education changes, welfare etc etc and we also need to restrict gun use.
Comparing gun restriction to prohibition is ridiculous. I wonder why that article dosen’t make the comparision to drug control. People take drugs illegally anyway, why not just legalise them? People go rob places everyday, why not legalise theft? The problem with prohibition was because people didn’t really see the harm of alcohol at face value, it was like a common social drink amongst people. However, guns do in fact kill, like how heroin and cocaine can kill.
I would say the stats quoted about the states are misleading too. Crime rates go up for many reasons; recission, unemployment, gangs etc. It’s not necessarily linked to gun ownership. Even if it is, then gun control needs to be tightened up at a federal level to fix the problem. The solution is not to make it EASIER for people to have such weapons.
And when it comes to the issue of defence, there are other ways to defend oneself. Tasers, capsicum spray for example. If the ease of getting guns is reduced (i.e. making guns not available from the shop down the street) then at least a portion of desperate petty crime would be reduced. I personally would rather be threatened with a knife than with a loaded gun.
Paranoia about crime going out of control if guns were stricted country-wide is unfounded. Just look at Australia as an example. Is it total anarchy here? No. Gun-related violence has dropped since the buyback. Of course, what is required is a change in mentality too. It shouldn’t be a common thought to go “well I have my trust gun with me in case anyone attacks me I can shoot them”. I’m glad to say I’m confident that most people in Australia don’t have that mentality which was why the buyback was so successful. As Dee mentioned above, much of the US has a terrible, violence-driven thought pattern to how solve problems. There needs to be more social changes in that respect.
@Dee and kind of in general: While we were discussing this in history class today, my teacher made a point that I pretty much agree with. It’s not just a matter of gun control. It’s also a matter of our society. America was founded on guns. When people came over from Europe, they needed guns for protection against attacking Native Americans, and to hunt for food. After settling down, they needed guns to fight off the British. Following this, they needed guns to live on the frontier and fend for themselves in the wild. Then the Civil War, then the Wild West, etc. All throughout the American legacy, there are guns.
Guns have always been a part of our society, and we don’t seem to want to let them go. Instead of fighting Native Americans, we’re fighting opposing gangs.
I don’t have much that I want to say about this right now except that I agree with Josh and Dee. It’s American culture that is the problem. Kids killing each other, kids having sex with each other in front of other kids. I personally think there is a huge f*cking problem with their culture and these are the results of that problem, not the problem itself.
I haven’t seen anybody here say such a thing and I presume that the mentality is more of an “American” style of thought. In fact, over here at least, we are campaigning for harsher punishments for those with guns and knives.
Speaking as someone from the United States…..I see two very big problems here with all you have said (and I simply stumbled onto this page while looking for the definition of “someone who causes drama”…..
First of all….nearly every one of you has lumped all “Americans” into one big pile……the man who hid in the bushes is an idiot who could have gotten someone killed…..whether or not he was/is an American is irrelevant.
It is obvious to me, that your news media spins the story of what happened at VTech to give you more reasons to believe they are right in taking guns away from law abiding citizens.
You speak of this event and things in America and you don’t even have the true facts of the situation. And yet you talk like you know everything. He would have killed less people if he had a knife?? Good God that is one of the most ignorant things that I have ever heard.
I have learned some things if not about your country, but about yourselves.
You are prejudiced. You judge a whole country by the actions of one person (the guy in the bushes).
You are ignorant…the dangerous kind of ignorance that causes chaos because you speak of something without even bothering to research what you are talking about.
Your government has you exactly where it wants you……SHEEP. Compliant, do as your told without question…..SHEEP.
It is quite disturbing.
Firstly, no I don’t lump every American into the same group. As I’ve stated in my comments above yours (and in my other posts) the vast majority of Americans are great people. There, I’ve said it again because that’s what I believe. What happened at VTU is the works of a sole, deranged mentally ill person and the consequences of it was tragic. But my post here is not about “OMG SEE AMERICANS ARE ALL STUPID” it’s about gun control.
Secondly, I stand firmly by my argument that guns SHOULD be heavily regulated by the government, especially at a federal level. What are the “true facts of the situation” that you speak of? It doesn’t take the government to brainwash me to know that knives ARE safer than guns. A gun can sweep across a crowd of people and kill and maim many more people than a simple knife would. This is the same for other weapons such as tasers and mace, if we’re to talk about alternative self-defence weapons. This is not rocket science, and just by you saying that it’s “the most ignorant things” you’ve heard doesn’t actually constitute an argument.
Thirdly, as I said above, no I do not judge your country. I have nothing against the people. I do have a gripe about how the American GOVERNMENT has not done more about regulating gun control though. That’s not an arbitrary prejudice, there are strong, rational reasons behind that (mainly because guns are incredibly dangerous).
Besides that, I’ve nothing else I can reply to your comment. Calling me “ignorant”, like a “sheep” etc, WITHOUT ANYTHING TO BACK UP SUCH VAGUE STATEMENTS, makes you look stupid. Oh and when I say that, I mean just YOU, not the American people.