11 year shoots 8 year old dead!

This is another one of my favorites. The majority of Americans live their lives without ever owning a gun or suffering from the paranoid delusion that they would only have rights if they did own guns. Lots of guns. Lots of BIG guns.

Tell me Garamet, how did the colonies win free of Great Britain? Was it thru harsh language? How was Europe liberated from Nazi tyranny? A strongly-worded letter to the League of Nations? How is the law enforced? Stern looks from scary-visaged policemen?

"Delusions" indeed . . .

Ah, but that was in a different time! Nobody would mess with the US these days because we live in a civilized world of peace & harmony - except when we don't.

You're the guy who claims he owns guns to protect himself from his own government. Got something big enough to take down the black helicopters? All you really need is one of these:



Unless, of course, it's a kid who wants to see the puppy. You'd better let the kid see the puppy.

Thats us on page 2, and I haven't seen any gun owners answer the question I originally postulated. Forget Gturners tall tales, and Garamet poking you with a stick, can we have a discussion as to what will it take before you think enough is enough??

Ok, so you can have a powder barrel loading single shot gun. There, happy?

Military tech has moved on since the 18th century.

But not enough for gunforge to support any action. That is for sure.

I don't know what happens, but there must come a tipping point when people are willing to accept that something drastic is required? I've just read that there have been more mass shootings in America this year than days. Very tragic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...15-274-days-294-mass-shootings-hundreds-dead/

Nope. Not an error. I'm very much aware of the rationale behind the very poorly-worded second amendment. If the founding fathers wanted to enshrine the right to self-defense, why didn't they just say so? I'd say Amendments III, IV and V adequately provide protection from government tyranny (notwithstanding the fact that successive federal governments have shit all over those amendments).

Yanno, I love it when @Packard schools Americans on their own language, and this is another delicious irony - a Canadian understands the U.S. Constitution better than those waving it like a bloody flag.

Frankly, I don't think it's possible to have that discussion in America in 2015. If twenty dead elementary school kids didn't change the discourse, nothing will.

Most British police officers have never carried a firearm, and yet the UK's per capita violent crime rate is much lower than the United States'.

The sad thing is it isn't even twenty. Since 2010 alone it's actually 125. 125....and that's only the deaths from shootings in schools, colleges and universities. It doesn't include any other mass shootings, like the cinema shoot ups, and cases like the one in the OP.

If it were just one incident I could understand the denial. But with figures so high I don't see that there is any credible argument whatsoever that there isn't a problem to discuss. What it boils down to is the fact that these people are selfish. They want their toys guns and they really don't give a shit wh0 has to die for it. Out of sight, out of mind. Typical of the selfish society that now exists in the West.

And you can publish leaflets to share your opinions if you wish, but the Bill of Rights says nothing about posting on the internet.

Communications tech has yaddayadda.

Nope, you cannot address America's mass shooting problem without addressing it's gun problem. Yes, we should have universal health care including mental health care but, no, most mentally ill people aren't violent nor have most mass shooters had a history of mental illness.

"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech."

Seems pretty clear to me.

And how do you reckon that right continues to prevail?

And Garamet's silliness aside, the Second Amendment is not written poorly at all, but rather says exactly what it means to say. Translated to modern idiom it would go something like "Since the right of the people to provide for their own security is obvious, their ability to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Because you Gots Gunz, obviously.

Is that a practical comparison though? The internet is just another medium of communication, and there are laws against it's misuse, such as laws which make malicious communications and harassment a criminal and/or civil offense, in every US state. Nobody is up in arms about such laws. They aren't hitting the streets to protest at such laws existing.

In contrast, you have the opposite attitude towards bearing arms. Yet the advance of technology doesn't out date the purpose of the First Amendment, whereas there is a credible argument that when the Second Amendment was drafted the Founders did not envisage a situation where the possession of hand guns and rifles would no longer be an effective remedy against a government that possessed advanced military technology. Technology sufficient enough to make an overthrow impossible. Thus, the whole concept of the right to bear arms, as interpreted to apply to individual personal weapons, has been made redundant by the advancement of the power of the state. For this very reason it need to revised and consider in light of today's world.....and the problem that people making your argument have is that unless the second amendment is expanded to include more sophisticated technology, including proper military hardware and, dare I say it, even nuclear weapons, then there can never be an even playing field. So I just don't think the whole "protection from tyranny" angle really stands up in the modern era. Point is that once protection from tyranny realistically becomes redundant, as it arguably has, then the whole purposes of the Second Amendment is open to question.

It is infringed. The state is far more powerful than the citizens that live under it, and so the right to bare arms would need to include any and all forms of weaponry to afford an even playing field, which clearly isn't the case.

EDIT: The problem with much of the pro-gun argument is that you all state "it is my right". But none of you ask "why is it my right"?

Laws and civil liberties are man made concepts which can and do evolve over time.

Watch the Last Week Tonight video I posted in one of the gun threads. It lists that.

There. I posted it again.

I will accept any and all answers that end with "and so the 11-year-old couldn't get it and use it to kill someone."

It's region locked.

Ahh. Any way it has that little factoid. It is a really good piece so it is well worth looking up "Last Week Tonight Mental Health" and watching it.

Not that I have any links to offer up, but it always struck me as something of an excuse making exercise that every time there is a mass shooting the shooter is immediately labelled as mentally ill. What if he or she isn't mentally ill at all? What if they have just grown up believing gun use and violence to be acceptable and/or are simply arseholes who want to inflict harm on others?