What do you want?
I’m going to try to make this my last post on this topic. I know many of my friends don’t exactly agree with me here and I certainly don’t want to chase you all away.
What do you (personally) want out of gun control? Do you want to never see a gun in the hands of a civilian again? Do you want to feel safer? What is it that you really want? What problem do you want to solve? I mentioned this in a comment on another thread and I think it warrants a wider discussion, in case my friends think I’m deranged for thinking this. In my opinion, and so far I can read and (even liberally) interpret from the Constitution (although, many recent laws seem to disagree), you don’t have the right to feel safe. You have the right to be safe.
Not trying to preemptively neuter any arguments here, but some interesting facts:
- According to the FBI, violent crime is down by 50% in the last 20 years. National murder rates are down slightly more. You are, in fact, safer today than any time in the last half century despite gun laws across the nation being lessened.
- The bulk of our national violent crime and murders come from large metropolitan areas, many of which have the strongest gun controls in the country.
- While the number of mass shootings are up in the last 3 decades (the statistic depends on how you define a mass shooting and who is doing the reporting), you are still more likely to die in a plane crash than by some mad man wielding an “assault weapon”. This of course is no excuse for the shootings and by no means a reason to take no action, but we should be asking if the actions we want to take are a solution in search of a problem instead of meaningful actions meant to deal with the problems we’re facing.
A couple more videos (also posted to Facebook):
I agree with “you don’t have the right to feel safe. You have the right to be safe.” I think it is very important to be safe, rather than just feel it. After all, we live in a world where there is numerous ways to kill ourselves in impressive fashion (fireworks, cars, etc).
I’m apathetic to more/less control on guns for the most part, as that sort of policy it not my specialty so I prefer to leave it to people more informed than I.
What I want from gun laws:
Generally, although the media loves the massacres and other terrible news stories (and I choose to willfully ignore them as much as possible so not to “empower” the shooters by acknowledging their acts), I believe that mass shooting are very rare overall. I haven’t looked at the deep detail of any shooting, but it is my understanding that assault weapon bans would not have any effect on the shootings.
As you’ve pointed out earlier, there are also useless laws that ban guns around schools. I don’t get the point of those, we already know that the shooter is going to ignore the law by murdering people, breaking another isn’t going to stop them.
I liked your recommendations for closing loopholes in getting firearms, and the others that I agreed with.
Overall, if I’m not shooting or having a “gun party”, I am uncomfortable around guns. They are deadly tools, incorrect care or careless actions can directly lead to harming someone. I realize that such incidents are extremely rare, but the fact that they can and do happen is discomforting *personally*. I emphasize the personal part because you are correct in that I have a right to be safe, not necessarily feel safe. If the situation is under my control (i.e. my house), and if I didn’t request guns in the house, then most likely I’ll request that they be left in the car or outside my house. In someone else’s house, well, that’s their house, their rules. To my best understanding, the way the laws are, and how my friends are, this is already how things are, so I’m OK with these laws.
Assault weapons/large weapons: I have a general apathy to these and the laws that pertain to them. I see both sides of the argument, but it isn’t my focus. The geek in me is always interested in biggest/baddest/etc, but personally I don’t much care.
The TLDR version of what I’m saying is that for >90% of whatever you feel about gun control, I’d support you and anything you have to say about it, but personally, I don’t have a dog in the race to care. I think the media blows it all up and looks like fools and that gun hugging rednecks are idiots. I don’t think it is a god-given-right to own a gun anymore than it is a god-given-right to own any material object, and I think some are extreme and idiotic in their thinking that go that far (I do not think that anyone here that reads this post falls into said group). I think it is a god-given-right to defend yourself, protect you and your family’s welfare, and keep the government in check (I’m alluding to the point Zeev made in the gun control? post). I’m fine with gun control laws as they are today frankly.