**** it, I'll start. Guns. Here's a set of takes. Tell me why registration and similar measures would not meaningfully reduce gun deaths in America, or why some of this is unworkable, etc.
Basic Gun Control
Oct. '15:
Quote:
Originally Posted by CPHoya
Things:
1. We should use some LEGAL GUNS to shoot Fallen Hero's wheezing pony. He knows what I'm talking about.
2. Gun policy in America: it's bad.
3. Guns: they're designed to kill people. Perhaps, then, that makes them dangerous enough to require some specialized training and rigorous background review before they can be sold to the ****ing imbeciles who populate this country? Seems that way to me.
4. Ammunition: it's designed to kill people. Perhaps, then, the sale of ammunition should be strictly regulated and require a statement of purpose for each purchase, with each purchase being in a volume limited to the stated purpose? Seems that way to me. Perhaps the ammunition can also be kept at the location of the stated purpose: for example, if it is for shooting practice, your ammo stays at the range. After all, you don't need it until you're practicing.
5. Mental health: clearly, we do not actually care about this, as a country. Clearly, we regard mental illness as a problem for the mentally ill, rather than a problem affecting everyone. This is wrong, both ethically and practically. We are stupid about mental health. We are basically bigots about mental health, which causes us to prefer suffering to betterment. We suck.
6. School shootings: DVaut already parodied this in politics, but I am sure we are going to hear a litany of arguments suggesting that if the community college had NOT been a gun free zone, this would have been stopped. It will be a stupid conversation. The problem with school shootings is that the shooter can waltz into a learning environment with regimented attendance and know he has a stable of victims sitting in desks. It's a lot like an office shooting. If, as a country, we insist on allowing everyone to rock out with their glocks out because CONSTITUTION, or whatever the ignorant moron explanation for gun proliferation is, then we have no choice but to post armed guards at learning institutions. All of them.
Anyway, I mean, beyond these mad issue statements above, the real issue is we have so many ****ing guns floating around that regulation is doomed to be ineffectual for generations. That's because we're stupid gun-toting *******s with stupid priorities who bow to both the gun lobby and the armament industries, and so do our stupid politicians, who are themselves mostly ethically bankrupt idiots running a fantastic SCAME on the rest of us.
There are days that USA#1 is put into stark relief for the joke it is. This is, you know, another one of them.
Dec. '15:
Quote:
Originally Posted by CPHoya
The only thing I'd change about that gun post Mr. loldolphins quoted is that I'd soften my position on the hopelessness of regulation. I still think it's a multi-generational project, and as I said even then I of course 100% support aggressively pursuing gun control and gun regulation no matter how fatalistic I am about the productivity of the project, but there may be room for a little more optimism than I expressed there.
Re: Appropriate Gun Rights Advocate Response to Mass Shootings and "Prayer Shaming"
Dec. '15:
Quote:
Originally Posted by CPHoya
I want to be able to have some faith that American politicians -- who are of course NRA-funded and gun lobby funded -- who feel really bad when legal and legally-obtained assault rifles kill Americans will actually ponder whether it might be that allowing legal assault rifles to be legally obtained so easily IS PROBLEM? Rather than washing their hands of it by praying on Twitter while investing resources in making sure no regulation of any kind might affect what I term the "PROBLEM."
I also want it to be OKAY to come at them, when they are vulnerable, when they espouse great sympathy for gun violence victims. Your position basically states that I should have patience and political sympathy for those who enable gun violence through policy because WHEN THAT POLICY RESULTS IN DEATHS, there isn't much they can say.
THAT'S THE POINT. It's to some degree -- a degree far lesser than the shooters -- on them, and the NRA, etc. I don't have to be tolerant of their tough political spot whenever Americans with legally obtained weapons slaughter Americans. That's a situation of their political creation which they seek to enforce because lobbyists and voters and media narratives. The downside of their policy preferences is held in stark relief, literally every day, in this country. It cannot be that those who oppose those policies are muzzled by PROPRIETY, or by a need to MAINTAIN FAIRNESS IN DEBATE while people continually get shot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CPHoya
And, just to come full circle, that "muzzling" is exactly the work that the term "prayer shaming" is supposed to do. It's supposed to make it impolite and taboo to come at pro gun rights people / politicians after shootings. Because it's anti-Christian. I know you get this.
Anyway, those are political takes. Interested in responses / arguments / STATS / etc.
