Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

While I commend those who've gone out of their way to speak up about this issue, I don't believe it'll solve anything in the long run. It's become so routine that I don't even pay that much attention anymore, but the fact these shootings just keep on happening is perfect proof this problem is never going to be solved anytime soon.

The same thing happens every time: Some monstrous madman comes out of the wood-work, gets ahold of either the one gun or an entire arsenal, finds a school or an crowd area, shoots the place up, the killer's either arrested or gunned down on the spot, the media parades them around the news and the victims are lost to time, debates about gun laws are heated up, and come a week or so it's all forgotten…

This "marching for out lives" is a product of people's frustration for nothing being done about these problems, I know, but really…nothing's going to happen after this. A lot of assholes who couldn't care less about any of this tend to say this, but as harsh and cruel as they sound, I have to agree with them on this one:

The people out there who want guns, no matter how many laws you put into place, WILL find a way to obtain them. It's horrifyingly saddening, but it's the simple fact that there're a lot of evil people out there who don't have a single regard for human life.

And that's just something this generation and the generations before this one will just have to come to terms with.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Adam Lanza, James Holmes, Elliot Rodger, Dylan Roof, Stephen Paddock, and now Nikolas Cruz…

There are going to be a MILLION just like these people, because people like this are inevitable.

They are a disease…and the sad fact is that this is a disease with absolutely no cure.

>the fact these shootings just keep on happening is perfect proof this problem is never going to be solved anytime soon.

obligatory

‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1823016659

Fun fact. Switzerland requires all able bodied males to be armed and trained with automatic weapons. Many micronations require this. YET they don't have mass shootings.

There is something in US culture. Something that says men (mostly men) cannot release their feelings or talk about them and still be men.

So people hold it in, bottle it up and the experience this sort of break down. Most just shoot themselves.

It was a farce from top to bottom. Like so many demonstrations of the last decade, March for Our Lives adds up to a group of uniformed protesters venting their rage against an enemy who just so happens to oppose the organizer’s ideology. What did the protesters want done? No specifics. Just vague anti-gun, anti-Republican sentiment. Let’s not talk about how badly the authorities fucked up with Nikolas Cruz, from failing to involuntarily commit him when multiple school counselors pointed out that he was a ticking timebomb, or the deputies cowering outside the school while the shooting took place. No. It’s the NRA, who control the Republicans or something.

Then there is the cynicism of youth politics. Being young does not grant you a special understanding of the world. Being a victim of violent crime makes you sympathetic but does not lend expertise on policies that would have prevented the shooting. Most notably, the Stoneman student David Hogg has behaved like a vile little shit, claiming the NRA and Republicans in Congress simply hate children. He equates Marco Rubio, one of the few Republicans openly working with Democrats on gun control legislation, with the Parkland shooter. To point out how disgusting he is acting immediately attracts condemnation. How dare I criticize a school shooting victim! He is so young and his knowledge on this issue is immutable. Bullshit. Once you start talking policy, your ideas become fair game for rebuttal. In short, these handful of kids being exploited by activists have not demonstrated any understanding of gun control legislation. But the romanticism of youthful rebellion is too good a story not to cover. So, like Occupy before it, the spectacle becomes historic and noble.

America does have a gun violence problem, but school shootings are the least of it. There are approximately 55 million school children in the United States. Each year, an average of ten die to gunfire at school. That’s fucking sad, but not evidence of a crisis. Activists, however, will treat it as such to create a trojan horse for much stricter gun control legislation.

Asinine. Predictable. Tedious.

@Farm Zombie

I'm not gonna argue with you on your overall point because I don't want to get too involved with this thread and get all bitter, but I wanna correct a little bit of info you said that might misinform folks. There is actually clear things they want that the movement listed on their web page: https://marchforourlives.com/how-we-save-lives/

Just wanted to note the existence of this, carry on with the debate.

@Poochyena The gun situation in the US is unlike every other country, while I agree with your sentiment against defeatism, please don't use that meme. Comparing the situation in America to other countries just stalls the discussion in both directions.

@Uttamattamakin I love how that 'fact' gets copy pasted in all gun control debates but they leave out the fact that ammunition is strictly controlled and few people have any, meaning all they have is a fancy club at best in Switzerland until war breaks out.

If you want better control over who can own a gun in America, you need to address not only how easy it is to get a gun, but what to do about the large amount of guns already on the street, something almost no one on the gun control side seems to talk about. Mainly because any plan to reduce the overall number of guns in America is a plan that will take decades to accomplish since you can't have a country wide gun raid and a buy back program isn't working in gun culture central.

As OP said, with the amount of guns available in America, it's simply too easy for a bad man to get their hands on a gun, regardless of laws. I don't agree that there isn't anything we can do about it though, just that all we can do is gradually reduce the number of guns on the street, which would require a lot of new gun laws working together, a lot of time, and a massive change to gun culture in America. Given how deadlocked Congress is about the issue, how impatient the American people are when it comes to change, and how prominent gun culture is, it's all very unlikely to happen, but not impossible.

I guess for now, I'll have to get used to that stupid Orion article meme.

@Ryumaru Borike
>Comparing the situation in America to other countries just stalls the discussion in both directions.

How silly of me to point to solutions to the problem.

@poochyena You didn't? You just posted a bad meme

Whether something actually does change for the better or everything stays the same, I just wanna say that this is something I'm glad happened.
20 fucking years of mass shootings, both sides of this whole debacle have done nothing--all that happened were online arguments. I'm glad that at least one side is taking action, which happens to be the side of the victims. Yeah you can say they let their emotions get the best of them (which I agree to an extent), but they have good reason to say what they needed to say.
And yes there are more issues aside from gun control (mental health, security, parenting, bullying, etc.--all of which should be addressed), but to be fair they bring up fair points about regulating (not banning, just strict regulations).

TL;DR: whether something happens or not, at the end of the day I'm glad these guys are letting their voices be heard.

@Ryumaru Borike

I guess you don't understand the meme. Lets put it in chart form

Only one developed country has this problem. The idea that "nothing can be done" is ridiculous.

If you read the rest of my comment, you would have seen that I agree that the idea "nothing can be done" is ridiculous. I wasn't saying that.

I was saying that the meme you posted was bad because it implies we can just do what other countries did and expect it to work the same when the gun problem in the US is much different than other countries and when I pointed out that your meme was bad, you claimed you were submitting an idea when you were just badly posting a bad meme that does nothing to help either side of the debate.

Again, the situation in the US is different than those countries so just copy-pasting their laws onto out laws isn't going to work, you need to come up with a solution that deals with America's specific problems, You can look to other countries to get ideas and see what gun law does what, but this whole "Europe can prevent this from happening, so it must be easy for the US to as well" idea is flawed

Considering something like 80% of gun violence in America is gang related, you would surmise America has a gang problem.

But nope, guns guns guns.

>the US is much different than other countries

yea, hence the problem.

Thoughts and Prayers less than nothing.

You do realize that they literally count every single bullet and it's very heavily regulated right? If you're missing a single bullet you have to explain why it's gone.

Nothing's going to be solved if we keep insisting that nothing anyone does will help.

https://marchforourlives.com/how-we-save-lives/

1. One of the speakers at March for Our Lives, shooting survivor Deleney Tarr, said, "When you give us that inch, that bump stock ban, we will take a mile." In other words, all these solutions are just the beginning. They want more and giving in will inevitably lead to Second Amendment infringement.

2. Last Friday, Trump signed the Fix NICS Act, supported by both houses and the NRA, meaning criminal background checks and continued research into gun violence as a public health issue is already on the way.

3. Again, the overwhelming majority of gun violence in America is perpetrated with handguns. Most incidents are related to gangs, suicide, or accidents. Mass shootings are rare and becoming less common as the overall crime rate decreases.

4. School security, the only thing that could actually save school children, isn't even discussed.

People like to point at one issue and say "This will solve the problem!" and ignore the many other facets of the issue.

Because thinking is hard, but social outrage is easy.

@iBlewupthemoon
And doing nothing is even easier!

I'm just going to say, it's funny how the people leading this campaign as it's voices, were some of the same people who used to bully this shooter during his time at school.

Maybe the problems not so simple as the person having access to guns, and has more to do with the person having had a reason to want to do this in the first place. But nah, millions of people have access to guns and only 10 of them go on a rampage, better just ban them all.

Would be nice to see people with this attitude for other high fatality activities. Thousands of people die to drivers who get drunk, let's ban all alcohol from the country. No reason for people to get drunk on the first place, nothing bad could possibly happen from taking this thing away from them wholesale.

@Black Graphic T
Not everyone is asking for total wide bans, just close the loopholes, ban certain ultra powerful than normal weapons, add waiting periods and not issue any who has and maybe is associated with people who have mental health problems.

It ain't perfect, but it's something. The USA also needs better mental health care, but I don't see that happening when general health care is also in the shitter.

They already tried that. It was called the Prohibition.

You know what resulted from that? The rise of the Mafia in the US.

The problem with these marches and such is that there are some ideas that are fairly straightforward (such as background checks) but then other ideas which are feel-good measures that don't actually prevent anything (like banning bump stocks).

Considering there is already a bunch of absurd gun laws in the US it makes a lot of gun owners feel threatened when someone else tries to pass something. Which is to say that they shouldn't be completely resistant to new laws, but they have to be something that everyone can agree on will be a benefit.

I guess forgetting to include an /s at the end of some of my statement made it lose all context. I figured the hyperbole and exaggerated language would be enough to clue some people in.

That only works when your hyperbole is something people aren't actually suggesting. One must always be mindful of Poe when being sarcastic on the internet.

I'm sorry, guy; I know you want a solution, but no solution exists. Not every story has a happy ending, and this is one of those stories. The best thing you can do is move on…

And hope and pray YOU don't end up staring down the barrel of a gun one day, too.

If I'm Corrected, Swiss man do have gun BUT they also required to have a few years of military training. So comparing US with Swisterland without seeing the context, will not gave an accurate picture.