The point I was trying to make is statements laced with insult are a sure way to destroy productive conversation/debate. Demonization of the "enemy" was part of the process in preparing me to go to war. Again, not the way to have a productive and peaceful discussion.
You mention the idea that "assault weapons" is valid. The problem is thโฆ
The point I was trying to make is statements laced with insult are a sure way to destroy productive conversation/debate. Demonization of the "enemy" was part of the process in preparing me to go to war. Again, not the way to have a productive and peaceful discussion.
You mention the idea that "assault weapons" is valid. The problem is that it is not productive. In places like California they tried to define them with absurdities like bayonet lugs, pistol grips, magazine size, etc., having little to nothing to do with what you are thinking of, "weapons used for mass assault."
The defining and relevant feature of those is that they are semiautomatic with detachable magazines. That also defines the vast majority of firearms manufactured during the lifetime of any living American. If banning them is the objective, and I think it is, the Kool-Aid drinkers are absolutely and undeniably correct, you want to take away the guns, because semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines are essentially "the guns" manufactured during my lifetime. Denial can only be naivety, disingenuousness or a bold-faced lie.
The use of that phrase unmasks the agenda the Kool-Aid drinkers and the ILA talk about. Do you think that contributes to compromise and laws that are effective and acceptable in America?
[Edit update: And this is the problem with Steve QJ's statement in the Commentary. "๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฃ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ ๐จ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ด? ๐๐ฐ ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฎ. ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐ข ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ง ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ณ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ข'๐ด ๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฌ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฃ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ช-๐ข๐ถ๐ต๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ค ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด."] Sorry Steve, it is a problem, a huge one. I don't know a single gun owner who does not have at least one semiautomatic one.
A 'Koolaid drinker' is one who buys into a narrative without questioning it, whether it's the 'transwomen are women' set, the 'Trump won' brigade, or the now-ludicrous "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." As mass shootings have now become a multiple-daily occurrence, everyone knows that's as much of a Koolaid lie as anything else the NRA is pushing at the Toxic Cocktail Open Bar, since that almost never happens. I know it did happen once, last week, for the first time in several years. The purple-moustached NRA crowd is over the moon with that. "See? See? We tolja!" Except for that annoying FBI report that shows only 3% of mass shootings or even just gun crimes are stopped by civilians with guns, and that the vast majority, if they're stopped by anyone, are with unarmed men.
Clearly, y'all are never around when we need you, which is genuinely weird since we have more guns than probably any country on earth.
And while I regard you as a largely critical thinker here, Dave, and understand your perspective is a little different as a veteran (which means I take you more seriously since you've been trained on how to use a gun, as well as to how to dehumanize the enemy), I still find you a little suspiciously grape-smelling. The carping and kvetching you're doing about semantics reminds me rather a lot of the gender identity set. Trying to distract with semantics and fine points from the fact that too many people with guns are clearly too irresponsible and violent to have guns, and it goes far beyond convicted felons.
So yes, *those* people - the nutbags who clearly shouldn't have them, like Uvalde Boy - should be very, very afraid. We ARE coming for their guns. Whether we'll get them or not remains to be seen, but there are many thousands of black marks against the 2A Forever set, and not just mass shooters. There's all the suicides and gang murders/massacres - the latter being the ones Black Lives Matter remains silent upon.
I've often said (maybe not here, since we don't talk about guns much) is that I'm not against guns, I'm against idiots with guns. America has a lot more idiots than it had fifty years ago. That article I referenced covers pretty much everything wrong with the NRA today, and why so many so-called 'law-abiding' gun owners, well, aren't. Domestic abusers have *got* to be shitting their pants in fear right now. They should be.
And *no* civilian needs military-style weapons, period. Another big freakin' honkin' mountain of evidence against the Koolaid-drinkers is all the countries who don't have our gun homicide problems because they *eliminated* this shit. It even happens here. We enacted a ban on assault weapons and Congress let it lapse. And homicides shot way up, but not as much as they have today, especially in the last two years after the pandemic made *everyone* a little nuts (or more.)
Look, if you're a 'responsible gun owner', none of this should be a problem for you. The evidence would be too convincing to you too, and you'd say, "I agree, Nicole, only responsible, non-violent people should have guns. People with a violent history shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them." And you don't need assault weapons to protect your family or hunt. I know there are different types of weapons for different occasions, you buy a handgun for protection against home intruders and different types of rifles for different types of game. But there's no need for assault weapons for any of this. The only place where they're arguably used in defence is in military combat. In America, they're used solely to mass murder.
So if you 'responsible gun owners' want our respect, you're going to have to drink less Koolaid and pay more attention to the evidence. You can carp about technical details all you want, but we don't care - you're right about one thing, guns don't kill people, *people* kill people. So we don't want the wrong people having or owning guns, and we need to close a lot of loopholes to reach that.
I'll start this by saying that I agree with you that some people should not have guns. The trouble is that laws don't prevent them from getting them. If laws prevented crime, we'd have no need for prisons.
Lumping everyone who shares a thought with Kool-Aid drinkers as you defined them has issues that I'm sure that you can see. You saw fit to splash a little grape juice on me for expressing the logical thought about the agenda of the anti-gunners even though I said that I understand why some people want that. Some for thoughts that are reasonable, and some who are drinking a different brand of Kool-Aid.
My objection to the label "assault weapon" is that it is in a practical sense a thinly veiled reference to all magazine fed semiautomatic firearms. On an emotional level it is often the ones that look military though the black, pistol griped, plastic stock rifle is something that occurred during my lifetime. If I had gone to Vietnam a year earlier, I would have been issues a wooden stocked M-14 which is in every sense of the word a worthy battle rifle but with a short magazine looks like an ordinary hunting rifle. Next up, my bolt action deer rifle will be a "sniper rifle" that should be banned. The target of anti-gunners changes. Remember when inexpensive handguns than people who wanted one for self-protection and didn't want to spend what it takes to by a quality handgun were demonized as "Saturday night specials"? The fact that the camel's nose "progressive" is the one honest label for a certain political tribe is not Kool-Aid. Let's get this one and then the next one, [...].
A ban on the ubiquitous and common semiautomatic firearm is essentially a gun ban and the current Congressional bill to find and identify grandpa's guns is clearly a prerequisite to a confiscation enforcement. No Kool-Aid drinking required to see the obvious, I think you can see that. I respect that you might be just fine with it, but I am not.
Americans are not Brits or Ausis and the passage of that will likely bring a violent resistance from some. Most likely more than the 15 minutes of fame nutters that shoot up schools, churches and shopping centers. Contrary to what our demented POTUS said, American military pilots are not likely to bomb American cities with our F-15s. America sucks bad at counter insurgency (think Vietnam and Afghanistan) and it will be worse when the insurgents look like us. After seeing what war and insurgency looks like I vowed that I would never take up arms against my fellow Americans. A vow that I will keep, and I am not unique in that thought. How many in our military will refuse to take guns from the cold dead hands of other Americans is unknown. I don't write that with any kind of approval, it is one of my greatest dreads. I truly wish it was simple, but it's not.
"The trouble is that laws don't prevent them from getting them. If laws prevented crime, we'd have no need for prisons." And yet we have prisons nevertheless. Laws don't stop everyone from driving drunk, as Jon Stewart pointed out years ago, but they reduced them by two-thirds. If stiffer gun laws reduced gun homicides by two-thirds (all of them), I'd be good with that.
There's no easy quick-fix, it will take generations of getting American (mostly men) used to the idea that there must be limits on owning and using guns, and that it should be, like the essential right to drive a car *also a privilege*, like driving a car. Drunk drivers and others lose that privilege and 'right' when they fuck up. Gun owners should be considered the same. So if you want to own a gun when you're eighteen, don't fuck up too much as a teenager.
BTW, I realized a few years ago I don't actually care how many women want or own guns. Not even crazy-ass Trumpy QAnon chicks. Women and guns aren't much of a problem in this country, it's mostly men. However if the homicide rate went up *by* women I'd revisit this.
Re semi-automatic vs 'assault' weapons. A genuine national discussion of guns would also include the different types of guns that are legal *now* and whether they need to be legal, or under what circumstances. Now I'm curious about what you said about not take up arms against your fellow Americans. Thinking about under what conceivable circumstances one might need a high-capacity weapon to fire loads of ammo in seconds, what would you do if a riot in your neighbourhood occurred and you thought your family was in danger? Whoever you are afraid might get violent and threaten you - MAGAs, BLM, Antifa, whatever. I'm curious. That's a situation where a high-capacity weapon might arguably be useful, although I'd prefer to see them in the hands of the Capitol guards now ;P
"and the current Congressional bill to find and identify grandpa's guns is clearly a prerequisite to a confiscation enforcement. No Kool-Aid drinking required to see the obvious," yeah, actually, there's some serious Koolaid going on here. Look, Dave, you're lumping everyone Alex Jones gets hysterical about into one group. We're no more monolithic than your side, and for your occasional Koolaidy carping I'm mostly getting logical thought from you. I'm not thinking to myself, "Damn, we'll need to keep an eye on Murray!" Do we want to confiscate *all* guns? Some do, but I believe they're in the minority. Some of us woudl favour it for *some* - like those who no longer qualify because oh, look, you put your wife in the hospital a few times and threatened a few times on social media you might 'go postal'. Yes, I realize how difficult this woudl be and if we needed to pry them from a few cold dead hands so be it. Many of these changes would be very gradual, you're not going to see Alex Jones hysterics scenarios wherein the gov't is knocking on your door demanding all your guns. Maybe it might be first a freeze on all new gun licences until it's determined whether someone can have them or not. And enforcing background checks. You fuck up a background check and some asshole shoots up a church or a rival gang, the law is coming for *you* too.
I splashed you with a little Koolaid because I detect a touch of it in you. You're not going to die from it but "laws don't stop people from owning guns" is a bit grapey. There are lots of ways we can keep a stronger grip on gun ownership and they'll all give the NRA nightmares. Like a national register for gun owners, to which any objection the NRA set throws out will be, "If you can keep a Friends and Enemies list, we can keep a list of everyone who should and shouldn't own guns."
How about a standardized process for anyone that wants to buy a gun? Including a background check and a waiting period which you don't have everywhere. And that you have to stick to whether you're at a gun store, a gun show, or I'm selling you my gun. Howzabout that new law where those with DV convictions can't get a gun? Yeah, I don't know how effective it will be but it's a good start. I'd like to see it expanded to include too many DV calls to one's house, whether by the victim (highly unlikely) or neighbors (somewhat more likely). I would also want to see controls put in place so that women don't abuse this (and yes, I think some would, claiming DV for reasons other than actual DV).
I hear what you're saying about how one side demonizes the other, just pointing out that that article I cited covers everything wrong with the 2A crowd today and how little logic and critical thinking you get - too much anti-gov't whackjobbery and "THIS IS NAZI GERMANY!!!"
I don't like the extremists on the left either, but I'll note that in my lifetime (I'll be sixty next year) I have yet to see a genuine left-wing coup against the government, but I saw one from the right last year, and while I suspect the left might one day become more violent (like they did in the '60s and '70s) they have NEVER been as violent in this country (Marxist & Communist other countries are another matter). So yeah, my jaundiced eye is more on your side than the other since the right is pretty much always more violent than the left. Also, y'all smell grapier when you talk.
I favour anyone who can handle the responsibility owning a gun, and anyone who can't, shouldn't. Just as I don't care if reckless drivers, drunk, high, or not, lose their right and privilege.
This shouldn't be a problem for truly responsible drivers. Or gun owners. When they protest too much, I tend to smell more grape than logic.
I think there should be some limits on firearms. Easy for me to say since I've had a secret security clearance on four different occasions, at one time had a red "Do not detain this person, he is on official Federal government business" card and have been investigated in two states for weapons permits. The government knows all about me. It isn't practical for everyone who wants to buy a gun to come under that kind of security.
My thoughts are not derived from the NRA or Jones. I don't expect rioters in my neighborhood but if a SHTF event like a major solar storm or EMP takes out national power and internet within a few days there might be people thinking that a couple in their 70s would be easy prey is probable when there is no food, gas, or the ability to access your money. As I've written before, I don't have any firearms that are considered assault weapons in California. But a Bic pen is a deadly weapon I could assault someone with. Assault is a verb.
I have no fantasies about lasting longer than a large amount ammunition in a firefight all by myself against an armed group. The world is not like the movies where bad guys can't shoot straight and come at you one at a time. I'd go down fighting, but down I would go in that situation. Would I kill someone who was trying to set my house on fire with me in it? Of course, so would you if you could. Since I don't want to kill the people across the street, a shotgun would be a better choice than an AR-15.
When a SWAT team on a forfeiture fishing trip killed Jose Guerena their AR-15 rounds went thru his house and thru the stucco wall of the house behind him. When nobody answered the door, they broke in to make sure there was nobody laying in the floor with a policeman's bullet in them. A downside to rifles.
As an aside, preppers keep large amounts of ammunition as barter items more useful than a gold bar. A can of beans might cost two shotgun or ten .22 rounds for example. A purpose more common that fantasies about firefights.
We both have our biases as an influence on our thoughts.
I'm with you on the SHTF stuff although I don't worry about it overmuch - a solar storm knocking out power would last probably 10-15 years or more, upon which we're all fucked. What I've seen so far - in the Western world anyway - is major SHTF and the world didn't come to an end. Crime actually went *down everywhere* after 9/11, even in New York where you would expect others would most take advantage of it. Mostly what they dealt with was downed Internet and phone/mobile service but everyone, even Millennials, could remember a world without Internet so everyone somehow survived. Here in Canada, when Rogers went down for a day and people couldn't get money, we didn't riot in the streets or slit each others' throats for food money. Granted, it was only down for a day, day and a half but we still made do some how some way. When we had an ice storm here Christmas 2013 and power went down for up to three weeks in some parts of the city (as a Tier 2 resident in a skyrise pocket I got it back in a day and a half, and stayed with my friend in a nearby town until then) and it was unhappy for many people, but still not mass chaos.
So if the SHTF events are short-lived I suspect, at least in Canada, we'll be okay, not sure about the Ignited States anymore. I know there were riots and mass vandalism in some places with the death of George Floyd and the rise of BLM, the latter of which AFAIK wasn't behind the violent shit, but social movements *do* draw violent hotheads.
I'm not sure *what* I'd do if we lost power here for a great length of time, apart from the 2013 ice storm the worst Toronto had seen was the 2003 blackout, and according to everyone who was here for it (I was still in CT, in a largely untouched pocket), everyone just kinda dealt...even in NY and the Midwest they dealt, ate their ice cream together and finally learned their neighbours' names.
OTOH, I do expect someone like you to have a more reasonable understanding of what a SHTF event is...the Alex Joneses of America...and there are a lot of them...think they're living in Nazi Germany when they're asked to put on a mask to not kill their families.
The point I was trying to make is statements laced with insult are a sure way to destroy productive conversation/debate. Demonization of the "enemy" was part of the process in preparing me to go to war. Again, not the way to have a productive and peaceful discussion.
You mention the idea that "assault weapons" is valid. The problem is that it is not productive. In places like California they tried to define them with absurdities like bayonet lugs, pistol grips, magazine size, etc., having little to nothing to do with what you are thinking of, "weapons used for mass assault."
The defining and relevant feature of those is that they are semiautomatic with detachable magazines. That also defines the vast majority of firearms manufactured during the lifetime of any living American. If banning them is the objective, and I think it is, the Kool-Aid drinkers are absolutely and undeniably correct, you want to take away the guns, because semiautomatic firearms with detachable magazines are essentially "the guns" manufactured during my lifetime. Denial can only be naivety, disingenuousness or a bold-faced lie.
The use of that phrase unmasks the agenda the Kool-Aid drinkers and the ILA talk about. Do you think that contributes to compromise and laws that are effective and acceptable in America?
[Edit update: And this is the problem with Steve QJ's statement in the Commentary. "๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ธ๐ข๐ฏ๐ต ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฃ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ ๐จ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ด? ๐๐ฐ ๐ฑ๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ฎ. ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐ข ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ง ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ต ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ณ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ข'๐ด ๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฌ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฃ๐ข๐ฏ ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฎ๐ช-๐ข๐ถ๐ต๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ค ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด."] Sorry Steve, it is a problem, a huge one. I don't know a single gun owner who does not have at least one semiautomatic one.
A 'Koolaid drinker' is one who buys into a narrative without questioning it, whether it's the 'transwomen are women' set, the 'Trump won' brigade, or the now-ludicrous "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." As mass shootings have now become a multiple-daily occurrence, everyone knows that's as much of a Koolaid lie as anything else the NRA is pushing at the Toxic Cocktail Open Bar, since that almost never happens. I know it did happen once, last week, for the first time in several years. The purple-moustached NRA crowd is over the moon with that. "See? See? We tolja!" Except for that annoying FBI report that shows only 3% of mass shootings or even just gun crimes are stopped by civilians with guns, and that the vast majority, if they're stopped by anyone, are with unarmed men.
Clearly, y'all are never around when we need you, which is genuinely weird since we have more guns than probably any country on earth.
And while I regard you as a largely critical thinker here, Dave, and understand your perspective is a little different as a veteran (which means I take you more seriously since you've been trained on how to use a gun, as well as to how to dehumanize the enemy), I still find you a little suspiciously grape-smelling. The carping and kvetching you're doing about semantics reminds me rather a lot of the gender identity set. Trying to distract with semantics and fine points from the fact that too many people with guns are clearly too irresponsible and violent to have guns, and it goes far beyond convicted felons.
So yes, *those* people - the nutbags who clearly shouldn't have them, like Uvalde Boy - should be very, very afraid. We ARE coming for their guns. Whether we'll get them or not remains to be seen, but there are many thousands of black marks against the 2A Forever set, and not just mass shooters. There's all the suicides and gang murders/massacres - the latter being the ones Black Lives Matter remains silent upon.
I've often said (maybe not here, since we don't talk about guns much) is that I'm not against guns, I'm against idiots with guns. America has a lot more idiots than it had fifty years ago. That article I referenced covers pretty much everything wrong with the NRA today, and why so many so-called 'law-abiding' gun owners, well, aren't. Domestic abusers have *got* to be shitting their pants in fear right now. They should be.
And *no* civilian needs military-style weapons, period. Another big freakin' honkin' mountain of evidence against the Koolaid-drinkers is all the countries who don't have our gun homicide problems because they *eliminated* this shit. It even happens here. We enacted a ban on assault weapons and Congress let it lapse. And homicides shot way up, but not as much as they have today, especially in the last two years after the pandemic made *everyone* a little nuts (or more.)
Look, if you're a 'responsible gun owner', none of this should be a problem for you. The evidence would be too convincing to you too, and you'd say, "I agree, Nicole, only responsible, non-violent people should have guns. People with a violent history shouldn't be allowed anywhere near them." And you don't need assault weapons to protect your family or hunt. I know there are different types of weapons for different occasions, you buy a handgun for protection against home intruders and different types of rifles for different types of game. But there's no need for assault weapons for any of this. The only place where they're arguably used in defence is in military combat. In America, they're used solely to mass murder.
So if you 'responsible gun owners' want our respect, you're going to have to drink less Koolaid and pay more attention to the evidence. You can carp about technical details all you want, but we don't care - you're right about one thing, guns don't kill people, *people* kill people. So we don't want the wrong people having or owning guns, and we need to close a lot of loopholes to reach that.
I'll start this by saying that I agree with you that some people should not have guns. The trouble is that laws don't prevent them from getting them. If laws prevented crime, we'd have no need for prisons.
Lumping everyone who shares a thought with Kool-Aid drinkers as you defined them has issues that I'm sure that you can see. You saw fit to splash a little grape juice on me for expressing the logical thought about the agenda of the anti-gunners even though I said that I understand why some people want that. Some for thoughts that are reasonable, and some who are drinking a different brand of Kool-Aid.
My objection to the label "assault weapon" is that it is in a practical sense a thinly veiled reference to all magazine fed semiautomatic firearms. On an emotional level it is often the ones that look military though the black, pistol griped, plastic stock rifle is something that occurred during my lifetime. If I had gone to Vietnam a year earlier, I would have been issues a wooden stocked M-14 which is in every sense of the word a worthy battle rifle but with a short magazine looks like an ordinary hunting rifle. Next up, my bolt action deer rifle will be a "sniper rifle" that should be banned. The target of anti-gunners changes. Remember when inexpensive handguns than people who wanted one for self-protection and didn't want to spend what it takes to by a quality handgun were demonized as "Saturday night specials"? The fact that the camel's nose "progressive" is the one honest label for a certain political tribe is not Kool-Aid. Let's get this one and then the next one, [...].
A ban on the ubiquitous and common semiautomatic firearm is essentially a gun ban and the current Congressional bill to find and identify grandpa's guns is clearly a prerequisite to a confiscation enforcement. No Kool-Aid drinking required to see the obvious, I think you can see that. I respect that you might be just fine with it, but I am not.
Americans are not Brits or Ausis and the passage of that will likely bring a violent resistance from some. Most likely more than the 15 minutes of fame nutters that shoot up schools, churches and shopping centers. Contrary to what our demented POTUS said, American military pilots are not likely to bomb American cities with our F-15s. America sucks bad at counter insurgency (think Vietnam and Afghanistan) and it will be worse when the insurgents look like us. After seeing what war and insurgency looks like I vowed that I would never take up arms against my fellow Americans. A vow that I will keep, and I am not unique in that thought. How many in our military will refuse to take guns from the cold dead hands of other Americans is unknown. I don't write that with any kind of approval, it is one of my greatest dreads. I truly wish it was simple, but it's not.
"The trouble is that laws don't prevent them from getting them. If laws prevented crime, we'd have no need for prisons." And yet we have prisons nevertheless. Laws don't stop everyone from driving drunk, as Jon Stewart pointed out years ago, but they reduced them by two-thirds. If stiffer gun laws reduced gun homicides by two-thirds (all of them), I'd be good with that.
There's no easy quick-fix, it will take generations of getting American (mostly men) used to the idea that there must be limits on owning and using guns, and that it should be, like the essential right to drive a car *also a privilege*, like driving a car. Drunk drivers and others lose that privilege and 'right' when they fuck up. Gun owners should be considered the same. So if you want to own a gun when you're eighteen, don't fuck up too much as a teenager.
BTW, I realized a few years ago I don't actually care how many women want or own guns. Not even crazy-ass Trumpy QAnon chicks. Women and guns aren't much of a problem in this country, it's mostly men. However if the homicide rate went up *by* women I'd revisit this.
Re semi-automatic vs 'assault' weapons. A genuine national discussion of guns would also include the different types of guns that are legal *now* and whether they need to be legal, or under what circumstances. Now I'm curious about what you said about not take up arms against your fellow Americans. Thinking about under what conceivable circumstances one might need a high-capacity weapon to fire loads of ammo in seconds, what would you do if a riot in your neighbourhood occurred and you thought your family was in danger? Whoever you are afraid might get violent and threaten you - MAGAs, BLM, Antifa, whatever. I'm curious. That's a situation where a high-capacity weapon might arguably be useful, although I'd prefer to see them in the hands of the Capitol guards now ;P
"and the current Congressional bill to find and identify grandpa's guns is clearly a prerequisite to a confiscation enforcement. No Kool-Aid drinking required to see the obvious," yeah, actually, there's some serious Koolaid going on here. Look, Dave, you're lumping everyone Alex Jones gets hysterical about into one group. We're no more monolithic than your side, and for your occasional Koolaidy carping I'm mostly getting logical thought from you. I'm not thinking to myself, "Damn, we'll need to keep an eye on Murray!" Do we want to confiscate *all* guns? Some do, but I believe they're in the minority. Some of us woudl favour it for *some* - like those who no longer qualify because oh, look, you put your wife in the hospital a few times and threatened a few times on social media you might 'go postal'. Yes, I realize how difficult this woudl be and if we needed to pry them from a few cold dead hands so be it. Many of these changes would be very gradual, you're not going to see Alex Jones hysterics scenarios wherein the gov't is knocking on your door demanding all your guns. Maybe it might be first a freeze on all new gun licences until it's determined whether someone can have them or not. And enforcing background checks. You fuck up a background check and some asshole shoots up a church or a rival gang, the law is coming for *you* too.
I splashed you with a little Koolaid because I detect a touch of it in you. You're not going to die from it but "laws don't stop people from owning guns" is a bit grapey. There are lots of ways we can keep a stronger grip on gun ownership and they'll all give the NRA nightmares. Like a national register for gun owners, to which any objection the NRA set throws out will be, "If you can keep a Friends and Enemies list, we can keep a list of everyone who should and shouldn't own guns."
How about a standardized process for anyone that wants to buy a gun? Including a background check and a waiting period which you don't have everywhere. And that you have to stick to whether you're at a gun store, a gun show, or I'm selling you my gun. Howzabout that new law where those with DV convictions can't get a gun? Yeah, I don't know how effective it will be but it's a good start. I'd like to see it expanded to include too many DV calls to one's house, whether by the victim (highly unlikely) or neighbors (somewhat more likely). I would also want to see controls put in place so that women don't abuse this (and yes, I think some would, claiming DV for reasons other than actual DV).
I hear what you're saying about how one side demonizes the other, just pointing out that that article I cited covers everything wrong with the 2A crowd today and how little logic and critical thinking you get - too much anti-gov't whackjobbery and "THIS IS NAZI GERMANY!!!"
I don't like the extremists on the left either, but I'll note that in my lifetime (I'll be sixty next year) I have yet to see a genuine left-wing coup against the government, but I saw one from the right last year, and while I suspect the left might one day become more violent (like they did in the '60s and '70s) they have NEVER been as violent in this country (Marxist & Communist other countries are another matter). So yeah, my jaundiced eye is more on your side than the other since the right is pretty much always more violent than the left. Also, y'all smell grapier when you talk.
I favour anyone who can handle the responsibility owning a gun, and anyone who can't, shouldn't. Just as I don't care if reckless drivers, drunk, high, or not, lose their right and privilege.
This shouldn't be a problem for truly responsible drivers. Or gun owners. When they protest too much, I tend to smell more grape than logic.
I think there should be some limits on firearms. Easy for me to say since I've had a secret security clearance on four different occasions, at one time had a red "Do not detain this person, he is on official Federal government business" card and have been investigated in two states for weapons permits. The government knows all about me. It isn't practical for everyone who wants to buy a gun to come under that kind of security.
My thoughts are not derived from the NRA or Jones. I don't expect rioters in my neighborhood but if a SHTF event like a major solar storm or EMP takes out national power and internet within a few days there might be people thinking that a couple in their 70s would be easy prey is probable when there is no food, gas, or the ability to access your money. As I've written before, I don't have any firearms that are considered assault weapons in California. But a Bic pen is a deadly weapon I could assault someone with. Assault is a verb.
I have no fantasies about lasting longer than a large amount ammunition in a firefight all by myself against an armed group. The world is not like the movies where bad guys can't shoot straight and come at you one at a time. I'd go down fighting, but down I would go in that situation. Would I kill someone who was trying to set my house on fire with me in it? Of course, so would you if you could. Since I don't want to kill the people across the street, a shotgun would be a better choice than an AR-15.
When a SWAT team on a forfeiture fishing trip killed Jose Guerena their AR-15 rounds went thru his house and thru the stucco wall of the house behind him. When nobody answered the door, they broke in to make sure there was nobody laying in the floor with a policeman's bullet in them. A downside to rifles.
As an aside, preppers keep large amounts of ammunition as barter items more useful than a gold bar. A can of beans might cost two shotgun or ten .22 rounds for example. A purpose more common that fantasies about firefights.
We both have our biases as an influence on our thoughts.
I'm with you on the SHTF stuff although I don't worry about it overmuch - a solar storm knocking out power would last probably 10-15 years or more, upon which we're all fucked. What I've seen so far - in the Western world anyway - is major SHTF and the world didn't come to an end. Crime actually went *down everywhere* after 9/11, even in New York where you would expect others would most take advantage of it. Mostly what they dealt with was downed Internet and phone/mobile service but everyone, even Millennials, could remember a world without Internet so everyone somehow survived. Here in Canada, when Rogers went down for a day and people couldn't get money, we didn't riot in the streets or slit each others' throats for food money. Granted, it was only down for a day, day and a half but we still made do some how some way. When we had an ice storm here Christmas 2013 and power went down for up to three weeks in some parts of the city (as a Tier 2 resident in a skyrise pocket I got it back in a day and a half, and stayed with my friend in a nearby town until then) and it was unhappy for many people, but still not mass chaos.
So if the SHTF events are short-lived I suspect, at least in Canada, we'll be okay, not sure about the Ignited States anymore. I know there were riots and mass vandalism in some places with the death of George Floyd and the rise of BLM, the latter of which AFAIK wasn't behind the violent shit, but social movements *do* draw violent hotheads.
I'm not sure *what* I'd do if we lost power here for a great length of time, apart from the 2013 ice storm the worst Toronto had seen was the 2003 blackout, and according to everyone who was here for it (I was still in CT, in a largely untouched pocket), everyone just kinda dealt...even in NY and the Midwest they dealt, ate their ice cream together and finally learned their neighbours' names.
OTOH, I do expect someone like you to have a more reasonable understanding of what a SHTF event is...the Alex Joneses of America...and there are a lot of them...think they're living in Nazi Germany when they're asked to put on a mask to not kill their families.