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At least the guns are okay

The Thriller

Well-Known Member
At least no harm has befallen the guns. Thoughts and prayers because our country refuses to regulate guns like other industrialized countries. Just heartbreaking. And frustrating because deep down we all know the solution but we either can’t speak out against our tribe or we know that legislative and judicial branches will fail in enacting gun control.

 
23rd of the year in the country I think they said. 6th in Cali alone. I guess Cali's stricter gun laws don't do much to restrict mass shootings.
 
When someone steps forward in situations like this, I ask myself “what would I do?”. I think the guy who disarmed the shooter had the split second understanding to do the only thing he could do. To live.

A couple of interviews.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bruu2zHzDBQ


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wiIEw6rHSaw

The struggle…

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=odPTr3Wij94

Crazy. Sounds like he followed the mantra "hide, run fight", and was at the "fight" stage no matter what. I would hope I would do the same thing. I am kind of a nihilist so I would probably go looking for the guy.
 
At this point I feel like im more likely to die from a random stranger randomly shooting me than I am to die from covid or myocartis or the vaccine combined. Yet it seems no one wants to really talk about it or do anything about it.
Of course I have always been in the camp of "nothing can be done about it" so I have nothing regarding solutions.
 
At this point I feel like im more likely to die from a random stranger randomly shooting me than I am to die from covid or myocartis or the vaccine combined. Yet it seems no one wants to really talk about it or do anything about it.
Of course I have always been in the camp of "nothing can be done about it" so I have nothing regarding solutions.
That is part of the problem, no one has a solution. Trying to confiscate guns will precipitate an armed response from many people, and will result in only the law-abiding citizens getting their guns taken away, add to that the constitutional aspect and that is a non-starter. With millions and millions of guns already in the hands of owners, restricting gun sales will only be a minor inconvenience for people who really want to get guns. You could try to limit ammo, maybe a tax on it or a waiting period or you can only have so much at one time, but even then you are still likely looking at people having hundreds of rounds instead of thousands, and a possible armed uprising against it. Then talking about the mental health side of things, we have been clamoring for decades to get a better response to mental health issues, but we are as far, or farther, away on that than we are on race relations and look where that is right now. Really the outlook is incredibly bleak. I don't think that means we don't start at all, but man will it just be baby steps when you think about the influence we can actually have on any of this at the legislative level.
 
That is part of the problem, no one has a solution. Trying to confiscate guns will precipitate an armed response from many people, and will result in only the law-abiding citizens getting their guns taken away, add to that the constitutional aspect and that is a non-starter. With millions and millions of guns already in the hands of owners, restricting gun sales will only be a minor inconvenience for people who really want to get guns. You could try to limit ammo, maybe a tax on it or a waiting period or you can only have so much at one time, but even then you are still likely looking at people having hundreds of rounds instead of thousands, and a possible armed uprising against it. Then talking about the mental health side of things, we have been clamoring for decades to get a better response to mental health issues, but we are as far, or farther, away on that than we are on race relations and look where that is right now. Really the outlook is incredibly bleak. I don't think that means we don't start at all, but man will it just be baby steps when you think about the influence we can actually have on any of this at the legislative level.
My opinion on the escalation of this **** in recent years is it is facilitated by social media. Many of these guys want to be on the news, they want the notoriety, they see others get their 15 minutes of fame, and want to get that same validation. Many of them suffer from mental health issues, I guarantee depression is part and parcel, and I think they see others get recognition and validation as doing something big, and they want that same feeling, to feel like they did something and made people take notice of them. And for the world to see how they righted their perceived wrongs in their lives. I am not saying this is 100% the entirety of what is really a highly-complex issue with many facets, but it is one facet at least, nonetheless. And a large one for many of them, imho. Even all the way back to Columbine where a driving force there was who would make the movie about their lives and which actors would play them in the movie. Hell, look at the Christchurch shooting that was broadcast in facebook live or whatever, others have done the same thing. Even things like suicides, with the spate of people hanging themselves on live stream through social media a few years ago.

IMO social media is a bane and a cancer on society, where the negatives so far outweigh the positives that you almost cannot even measure it. And if we have a real downfall as a society it will be one of the major components of it, if not the ultimate driving force.
 
This happens so frequently that the Onion just posts this every time, with the locations and details changed.


 
23rd of the year in the country I think they said. 6th in Cali alone. I guess Cali's stricter gun laws don't do much to restrict mass shootings.
I’m guessing that many of the guns come from gun show loopholes and state with little to no gun regulation. And at this pt, it might not matter what states do because guns have saturated every inch of this country. Without federal law and national programs, I don’t think we can begin to solve this issue. Yet another example of “sTaTeS’ rIgHtS” failing.
 
I’m guessing that many of the guns come from gun show loopholes and state with little to no gun regulation. And at this pt, it might not matter what states do because guns have saturated every inch of this country. Without federal law and national programs, I don’t think we can begin to solve this issue. Yet another example of “sTaTeS’ rIgHtS” failing.
I'm guessing that gun show loopholes are involved less than 1% of the time.

If you care to, Thriller, please explain how the gun show loopholes work in your opinion.

Most guns purchased at gun shows are subject to a background check. Being at a gun show in and of itself does not provide any relief from background checks. People should stop calling it a gun show loophole because it has nothing to do with gun shows specifically. A private citizen can sell their personally owned firearms to another private citizen without a background check. A FFL holder (someone with a license to sell firearms commercially) must do background checks on all guns they sell, even at gun shows. And no, the FFL holder can't claim it is their personal gun and sell it without a background check.
 
That is a loophole, and should be fixed.
Sure, that is the private seller loophole. Let's fix it!

Any sale of a gun from one private citizen to another must be completed under the supervision of an FFL who is paid a fee and conducts the background check. I'd go a little further and require a background check on both the seller and buyer, but I would make an exception for transfers to people living within the same household and for immediate family. If immediate family is too lenient then I'd be okay with an exception for guns being transferred as part of an inheritance, and or a free self-service background check in such cases.
 
I'm guessing that gun show loopholes are involved less than 1% of the time.

If you care to, Thriller, please explain how the gun show loopholes work in your opinion.

Most guns purchased at gun shows are subject to a background check. Being at a gun show in and of itself does not provide any relief from background checks. People should stop calling it a gun show loophole because it has nothing to do with gun shows specifically. A private citizen can sell their personally owned firearms to another private citizen without a background check. A FFL holder (someone with a license to sell firearms commercially) must do background checks on all guns they sell, even at gun shows. And no, the FFL holder can't claim it is their personal gun and sell it without a background check.
Okay… so end the private citizen loophole. End them all. Make the obtaining of weapons, from AR15s to handguns as hard as our peer nations. Compel gun owners to pass classes. Getting rid of permits is insane. Jack up their health insurance. Sure, you can own a gun, but pay $1,000 bucks more a month in insurance for it. Freedom!!! You can still have a 2nd amendment while regulating guns, discouraging gun ownership (clearly it makes our society less safe), and holding people accountable. Nothing about the 2nd means unfettered access to semi automatic weapons and unlimited ammo with zero training.

Hell, treat guns as Utah treats alcohol for all I care! ;) Why don’t we discourage gun ownership like smoking?

Obviously, letting basically anyone buy any weapon and unlimited ammo in little to no time is working just wonderfully for a country that has more guns than people and more mass shootings in one week than most industrialized countries have in entire years.
 
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Okay… so end the private citizen loophole. End them all. Make the obtaining of weapons, from AR15s to handguns as hard as our peer nations. Compel gun owners to pass classes. Getting rid of permits is insane. Jack up their health insurance. Sure, you can own a gun, but pay $1,000 bucks more a month in insurance for it. Freedom!!! You can still have a 2nd amendment while regulating guns, discouraging gun ownership (clearly it makes our society less safe), and holding people accountable. Nothing about the 2nd means unfettered access to semi automatic weapons and unlimited ammo.

Hell, treat guns as Utah treats alcohol for all I care! ;) Why don’t we discourage gun ownership like smoking?

Obviously, letting basically anyone buy any weapon and unlimited ammo in little to no time is working just wonderfully for a country that has more guns than people and more mass shootings in one week than most industrialized countries have in entire years.
I have said for about 20 years now that alcohol laws in Utah are like gun laws in NYC. They are made by people who consider the item being regulated as evil and unnecessary and who also have no actual knowledge of the technical details of the item or the culture surrounding said item.
 
I have said for about 20 years now that alcohol laws in Utah are like gun laws in NYC. They are made by people who consider the item being regulated as evil and unnecessary and who also have no actual knowledge of the technical details of the item or the culture surrounding said item.
The status quo is working out just swell!
 
The status quo is working out just swell!
It isn't. I'm not arguing for that at all. I have100% reached my breaking point on this and I am a FORMER gun rights advocate. The reality is just too horrific for me to continue.

That said, message discipline is important in this issue especially. There are opportunities to make real changes and to win over MANY who have traditionally considered themselves significantly pro 2A. But you don't do that with insults and BS. If you want to persuade gun owners, and I'm talking to you, Thriller, you need to learn the language and you need to learn the culture around guns. If you can't or won't do that then sit this one out and vote or whatever when the opportunity is there. The gun crowd is extraordinarily proud of their firearms knowledge. Too many on that side have extremely sensitive BS detectors for some ****ing clown like Bloomberg to come along and spout off nonsense about guns (that is false) as one of the leading advocates for gun regulation for any pro 2A person to listen to and say "humm, he does have a point there..." Reasonable people who own guns and are part of the pro-gun community are willing to negotiate if only there were reasonable people in the anti-gun camp they could work with. Calling it a "gun show loophole" discredits you immediately in their eyes. Calling an AR-15 an assault weapon discredits you immediately. Not knowing the difference between semi-auto and full-auto discredits you immediately. Calling full metal jacket ammo "armor piercing" and hollow point ammo "cop killer bullets" discredits you immediately.

Lean the language, learn gun culture or STFU. You aren't helping.
 
It isn't. I'm not arguing for that at all. I have100% reached my breaking point on this and I am a FORMER gun rights advocate. The reality is just too horrific for me to continue.

That said, message discipline is important in this issue especially. There are opportunities to make real changes and to win over MANY who have traditionally considered themselves significantly pro 2A. But you don't do that with insults and BS. If you want to persuade gun owners, and I'm talking to you, Thriller, you need to learn the language and you need to learn the culture around guns. If you can't or won't do that then sit this one out and vote or whatever when the opportunity is there. The gun crowd is extraordinarily proud of their firearms knowledge. Too many on that side have extremely sensitive BS detectors for some ****ing clown like Bloomberg to come along and spout off nonsense about guns (that is false) as one of the leading advocates for gun regulation for any pro 2A person to listen to and say "humm, he does have a point there..." Reasonable people who own guns and are part of the pro-gun community are willing to negotiate if only there were reasonable people in the anti-gun camp they could work with. Calling it a "gun show loophole" discredits you immediately in their eyes. Calling an AR-15 an assault weapon discredits you immediately. Not knowing the difference between semi-auto and full-auto discredits you immediately. Calling full metal jacket ammo "armor piercing" and hollow point ammo "cop killer bullets" discredits you immediately.

Lean the language, learn gun culture or STFU. You aren't helping.
I think there already is a pretty broad consensus on gun reforms. So I don’t think the problem is those “ignorant mean anti gun” language.

The problem relies in legislative and judicial branches and the lack of incentives to enact good legislation. Enacting reforms at the state level isn’t effective. They need to be enacted at the federal level, so they’re national reforms and nationally enforced. But we can’t enact even basic reforms because of the senate filibuster (that’s what happened after Sandy Hook. Over 85 percent of the public supported the Senate bill but getting 60 senators to agree that the sky is blue is impossible. Especially if it would’ve been a huge win for a black Democratic president), let alone much needed robust reforms and buyback programs. Even when reforms are passed, we need to deal with a 6-3 court majority.
 
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I think there already is a pretty broad consensus on gun reforms. So I don’t think the problem is those “ignorant mean anti gun” language.

The problem relies in legislative and judicial branches and the lack of incentives to enact good legislation. Enacting reforms at the state level isn’t effective. They need to be enacted at the federal level, so they’re national reforms and nationally enforced. But we can’t enact even basic reforms because of the senate filibuster (that’s what happened after Sandy Hook. Over 85 percent of the public supported the Senate bill but getting 60 senators to agree that the sky is blue is impossible. Especially if it would’ve been a huge win for a black Democratic president), let alone much needed robust reforms and buyback programs. Even when reforms are passed, we need to deal with a 6-3 court majority.
Okay cool...

The pro-gun crowd is in control. You think that because the majority of Americans are enthusiastically for meaningless and vaguely defined reforms means you don't need the gun crowd's support. Good ****ing luck with that.

I am being harsh because I want change and that change can only happen with pro-gun support from top to bottom. If you think you can just popular opinion your way past the 2A and our current supreme court then all I can say is that the etiquette is puff, puff, pass.
 
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