Hi this is my first post ever in this forum. I have some thoughts on gun control that may or may not be coherent enough for the likes of this forum, but I'm gonna share anyways.

Disclaimers: I'm just another crazy American that dreams of a peace loving society in which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness flow like the ****ing Amazon River. I'm mentally ill and have been weapon free for almost a decade. I used to carry weapons all the time. Now, I haven't brought a weapon into public since I emptied my pockets as they checked me into the psych ward at a Boston Hospital way back in 2010. I don't own any guns and I don't want to own any guns. I have a big problem with the abuse of power by politicians and police, but at the same time I have nothing but the utmost respect for the good cops and politicians that come from all walks of life and all political partisanship. If the voters of <insert a conservative voting state's name here> want conservative acting politicians in charge of making laws, then that's fine with me. If the voters of <insert liberal voting state's name here> want lots of government services that help those in need, then that's fine with me as well. We all have a say and every vote matters imo, no matter the intellect, or lack there of possessed by each and every voter. I also have nothing but respect and admiration for all the good cops out there. Some stranger with a badge and a gun that would take a bullet for me? Doesn't get any better than that as far as public service goes imo.

Just imagine a tyrannical American regieme that lets uncertified hot dog vendors wreak havoc on the people. You'll wish you had your AR-15 then.

war makes strange bedfellows

America is not the only entity capable of projecting power on the NA continent

"magic bullet"

Tattle Hard 2: Tattle Harder


OK, done. But now that you're talking about it, why do the citizens need guns? Shouldn't they just engage totalitarian dictators on the merits of their ideas?!?!?!?!


Go back to POG, dude, maybe they buy this **** there?

If what you meant to say all through that weepy insufferable Charlotteville thread is that you disapproved of punching Nazis when easy access to firearms makes shooting them a superior option boy do we all owe you an apology.

Why revolvers and bolt-actions over clip/magazine loaders?

The "hundreds of thousands of real lives" is a statistic from a status quo that I'm talking about changing wrt access and control.

I am arguing for gun control, jfc.

"homosexual rights" feels like a tell.

nah, keep it symmetrical - E. Coli coated darts much more appropriate

I was pretty clear that once violent aggression has occurred the time for talk has passed.

I endorse the Kinsey scale, but for the sake of brevity I think that phrase is fine in the context.

The hilarious irony here is that had the US lost the war of independence it would probably have ended up a normally functioning parliamentary democracy like Australia or Canada. No slavery, no civil war, probably no Jim Crow laws, no segregation, no ghettos, the list goes on and on. Hell it may have even prevented WWI and as a result WWII.

Plus as an added benefit, a fraction of the gun deaths and violent crime every year and free health care for everyone.

Slightly higher tea prices though. So yeah, totally not worth it I guess.

I mean, ok, this isn't necessarily bad but those making the argument you're countering in large part don't actually even believe 'mental health treatment' is a beneficial thing. They think it's pseudoscience and have no basis of understanding what's involved with mental health work. It's purely being used as an attempt to distract and change the topic.

A better response, IMO, is to just dismiss false dichotomies for what they are.

"I agree that focusing on mental health is important, and I'm glad to hear what I assume is a desire to increase funding and access to treatment (LOL obviously not true). Fortunately we don't have to choose between gun control OR mental health initiatives, we can have both! So since we totes agree on mental health, let's continue talking about how gun control can, would and has saved lives."

Well it's important to note it's not just a false dichotomy but often gun control advocates claim prohibition of products is difficult or impossible, then pivot to something EVEN MORE impractical. Governments can and do control the trade and distribution of physical things all the time. Which government has mastered ensuring mental health? The argument is always coming from faux libertarian types too, as if government taking on the role of 'mental health provider' is a natural fit.

So sure, it is a false dichotomy. But it's also gun advocates saying the government shouldn't prohibit an industrial good, too hard, can't be done, and instead the government should tend to the emotional and psychological well-being of hundreds of millions of people, the easy common sense thing. The American government can't even guarantee an emotionally stable President; think asking it to take on 350 million people is a tall order.

So yeah, gun control MIGHT BE a practical challenge, but I'm quite confident "collective mental health" is way ****ing harder for the government to ensure.

I like how our current government, which fights tooth and nail to ensure that thousands and thousands of people continue to die each year from gun violence, is somehow the NON TYRANNICAL version in these ******s' fever dreams.

Is that where they'd go with the mental health stuff though? I could instead imagine some nebulous "Let's just change how we think about mental health services and remove stigmas" or something, so like public awareness campaigns at most. IDK though TBH I don't wade too deep into gun discussions.

The government murders black people for holding toys, but hey, nah, we gotta have guns in case the government tries to take our guns away.

I think this problem is on the people. The more we stigmatize mental health problems, the more people will hide and ignore their own mental health problems. The more we talk about mental health as if it's ok to be sick, the more people can freely admit that they have a problem.

This begs the question: If someone plans and executes a physical attack, can we categorize them as mentally ill? I think it's a slippery slope here, but generally speaking, yes.

There's a huge difference to me between a crime of passion, and one that is premeditated.

Minorities don't tend to be as big into country music concerts or pills as white folks so sometimes they have to be inducted into the suicidal death cult by force.

EXTREMELY HOT TAKE:

A lot of "woke" Twitter somehow skipped an important step and they've gotten to "admitting they have a problem" without the necessary next step of "I am now taking steps to solve it" and now just use that problem as a cudgel against criticism. FDB, for example, who literally invented a rape accusation against a dude he was mad at online then his defenders were all "hey don't say that's wrong, he's bipolar".

It is absolutely BONKERS that people keep doing fawning soft focus covers of someone like Mike Cernovich as a meme guy, mixed with some harder hit piece responses blasting him as a racist rape apologist, but everybody kind of studiously avoids the elephant in the room that he's obviously and severely mentally ill.

All of "call-out culture" Twitter essentially treats crazy people as objects of sport, and hell, we do it too. I don't want to name names, but on 2p2 there have been a lot of forums that have essentially deputized a crazy regular as a "wacky mascot", that **** is very very harmful.

The RAF turned out to be quite good at it, back in the day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield

The Second Amendment grants the right to bear arms for the sole reason of defence of the state.

What about registration? Storage requirements? Storage checks? Ammunition limitations? Limits on number of firearms that can be owned?