http://internetisinamerica.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/why-are-there-so-many-mass-shootings-in.html How many more people have to be slaughtered on the sacred altar of your 2nd amendment. Let's not forget that the authors of the 2nd amendment couldn't even imagine the weapons available today, yet alone what was being done with them and I am sure would roll over in their graves if they knew what you were doing to protect it.
It is not political but cultural and you can see the same effect start taking place in China . People snap under the burden of expectations .
The authors of the amendments protecting free speech couldn't imagine things like the internet. So i guess we should do away with that amendment too?
I was expecting an answer like that. To my way of thinking, all these excuses are an insult to the US as a nation, to the authors of the constitution, and to everything those before you, fought and died for. The US makes out its the bastion of freedom, the epitomy of democracy and the policeman of the world. Yet the most significant argument for having their citizens armed to the teeth is to protect yourselves from your government and each other. Freedom is something that thousands of children will never know, they will never know again the feeling of the warm sunshine after the snows melt, they will never again enjoy a spring breeze, or laugh as they run through autum leaves. They will never again feel the security of their mothers arms, they will never love or have children of their own. All so those insecure people, can arm themselves crying that they are loosing their freedom, by having to register their weapons and get a gun licence. Thank God I live in Australia.
Cultural traits are not problems thus there are no solutions Things could change if you start putting less pressure on everyone starting with your kids , if you be less punitive for violations , less strict about the rules and above all less competitive in personal level ...but of course you are not going to do it because you are nor Italians neither Jamaicans.
Culture traits can change quickly. Not so long ago, before the Mothers Against Drunk Driving movement, it was acceptable to drive drunk. The punishments were light, as was the social shame. "One for the road" was a common term. Today, a few decades later, the punishments are harsh and the shame is severe. I think that any culture can change, and in this age of liquid modernity, the change comes faster.
I doubt that the "big society" term will soon receive any meaning there , from what i see in the forums , in the news and even in the films everyone is way too intrusive to others life . This is not an accusation , most ex- colonial countries are inhabited by similar people determined to survive on their own it is just that after (mostly) defeating the elements of nature now you have taken the struggle in a personal level. Pressure is frustrating not only for those receiving it but also for those applying it, who cares if X had an abortion , Y married a same sex partner , Z smokes weed at home , F politician has an affair and posted his willy in facebook, your son came last in swimming race, P is a satanist ? many do and it is stressful .
To paraphrase Michel Foucault: real power is given, not taken. Taking power at gunpoint has never seemed to work. We live in an age of ontological insecurity. We no longer know how long we'll have our job, our social networks change continually, we relocate more often. Life is tenuous and this brings anxiety and an obsession with risk. Today's risk society has brought paranoia, gun proliferation and fetishism, religious zealotry, and a distrust of others and the government. Individualism, self-sufficiency and governmentality are the new normal.
In America the constitution is written in stone it is not something that is easily changed to appease one groups agenda or belief. It is not there to give rights to the people the way many other constitutions are, no it is a limit on the government and it was designed that way by the authors of the constitution. They fought and died to have a government with limits, not a government where rights are extended to the citizens at the governments discretion. It's true that children will never know any of those things but millions of children will never know nor have ever known those things. Children die every day from horrible situations, abuse, carelessness, stupidity, anger, fear, hate. Removing guns from the equation wont change the fact that children die be it from violence, maltreatment etc. Or is that all that matters is when a gun is involved? So many champions of children hurt by guns. No one seems to want knife restrictions after the recent school incident, so this is clearly not about children being hurt. This is about guns, children are just a convenient prop. The funny thing about this is that 21 students were recently stabbed, no gun, two knives. Where are people hollering about knife control....nope the crickets still chirp. So violence against children is not that big a deal, obviously. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's the killing of children. Seems morbid to believe that a person would only care so long as a child has died but usually this is how the world works. No compassion for the children who don't die and we call ourselves humane. Not that the child can really care if they are dead, no but parents and everyone else can. Still, the most recent event needs to be examined critically. Why? well because no gun was involved. A kid stabbed 21 classmates. Do we still believe guns are the actual problem? Did access to guns allow him to do this? What about this. What if he had no access to guns he still CHOOSE to do what he did. Guns are not the problem, guns don't make people do things, guns don't get up and walk down the street and start shooting. People do, and even if they don't have guns they just use a different tool. Here is an idea though, why not take a critical look at the school system in the US. Why not look at the insane levels of medicated students. Teachers and principles calling the law enforcement for a plastic Lego gun. Why not criticizes a school system that is producing children with no way out but to kill and hurt other students for it all to end. But of course such a leap of logic is too much for most. It's easier to lay emotional blame at an intimate object than to exercise reason. DominorVobis that is your answer. The US has the f***ing worst education system ever. It sucks, its not fun, it's about pleasing teachers, not causing waves and behaving like a perfect little girl (doesn't matter if your a boy). It's about knowing your place, not speaking out against a teacher because you have a different opinion, that you even have an opinion seems not to matter. It's about cliques and groups, what you wear, where you went, who your friends are, what sports you play. It's about going to school everyday the same old bull(*)(*)(*)(*), doing the days quota of busy work, trying to keep out of this or that ***holes way, siting in a desk and listening to an idiot drone on and on why they should do this and not that. It's about trying to make through the day going unnoticed because it's better to go unnoticed than it is to be noticed. It's the popularity contest from hell and the teachers are no help. One last question that I pose. What prevents the people who registered their weapons and did a background check from using that gun to hurt someone else? Nothing, numerous countries in Europe had such things happen. Hell even the gun Adam Lanza used was obtained legally, still didn't really matter though in the end did it? It has more to do with that fact. People can go through all the insane regulations you want but in the end there is nothing stopping a person from getting a their legally acquired gun and hurt people. Just as there is nothing stopping someone from using a knife, a car, or a can of gasoline. Someone wants to cause violence they will find a way. You cannot legislate human issues away, they will always be there just different names.
Finally, we have an expert on American law and the Founding Fathers. If our Founding Fathers were so hot for gun control measures, please list what even one signer of the Dec of Independance or the US Constitution said to support a single law or rule that would require any vestige of gun control that you imagine. Where are these American gun control laws from the mid to late 1700's? I can't find them. If you even knew Jack Diddly Squat of the gun control debate you would have said something about the "Militia" by now. So if the Founders only wanted free males from 17 to 45 years of age to have a gun, then why didn't any of the Founders give up their arms after they turned 45? Why didn't they grab guns from women--- and children under 17? The Founders in their Militia Act of 1792 even demanded that some troops carry pistols (handguns that are a big no-no down under). People were even allowed destructive devices like cannons back then for their own use. Please do some research beforehand. Thank you.
Congratulations, DominorVobis! You're the very first person in history to ever bring up any of this. Please take advice from Greataxe, and find out what you are meandering about. Please take advice from me, and do a little search of this forum for whatever issue (original, to you) comes to mind, and see that your rants have been repeated here, ad nauseum.
You clearly don't have any idea of the issues we are facing in the US, certainly you have no clue as the outright taking of our rights by the government, the disaffection of the American people for their government, and the extreme isolation of the government from the governed. Our "leaders" blatantly lie to us, and then lie about the lies. There is no rule of law, the laws are for the common people, not the elites. The US used to be the epitome of democracy and freedom, no longer. While you have probably heard of the government surveillance of citizens (and the world), I doubt you have any knowledge of the militarization of our police forces to the point they act as paramilitary gangs who view everyone as the enemy and who citizens are afraid to call for help. In the US, you are 8 times more likely to be killed by the police than by any terrorist. The police have killed more innocent people than all troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan - and the police get away with it because they police themselves. And then there is the gun issue. In the 1980's, the gun banners were very clear their intentions were a total gun ban: first a registry to identify who had the guns, then confiscation. Over time the banners changed their tactics because the direct method was failing. They switched to administrative methods to create de-facto bans by mandating safe storage laws, safety permits, concealed carry permits, firearm purchase permits, and making the process as difficult as possible. After many court battles the banners have lost in the administrative areana, now the banners have switched tactics again. Instead of "control" they use gentler terms such as "common sense" and "gun safety legislation" and "its for the children" to disguise their agenda and mislead people, but the agenda is the same. It might be wise for you to shed the propaganda, and learn the history and current situation here in the US before you step in from 8,000 miles away and tell us our domestic business.
How many more people need to be gassed or starved by their governments for your gun control? The Authors of the 2A knew that governments may become corrupt and that the people needed to be armed in order to defend themselves against such tyranny. They are rolling in their graves because you are destroying the amendment that protects the rest of them.
In the eyes of the founders, we were never supposed to be the policemen of the world, rather a beacon of freedom and opportunity. What about the children of the Holocaust, the starvation of Ukraine and China, or the slaughter of Armenians in Turkey after being disarmed? Will you neglect their right to live, to choose who they wish to be, what about the orphans in Chicago, whose parents were lost because they could not defend themselves? Will their tears change your mind, will history change your mind? No, so enjoy Australia, I will live in America where I have a right to defend myself against anyone who decides to do me or my family harm.
In a country of over 320 million, it`s easy enough to find plenty of examples to support any agenda. The anti gun agenda is a particularly easy one, providing we follow a few simple guidelines, and refuse to consider inconvenient factors like. The areas of highest firearm incidents in the USA, are overwhelmingly those with the strictest gun control. The areas of highest concentration of firearm ownership, invariably have the lowest crime and firearm incident rates. The Australian firearm laws have failed, primarily because they targeted responsible licensed firearm owners, with registered firearms. Prior to this, criminal ownership of firearms was predominately restricted to theft from licensed owners. This source now being largely dried up, has created a higher demand for black market hand guns, which in turn has increased the viability of smuggling in new hand guns by criminal gangs. The silly thing is, now anyone can buy a black market hand gun in Australia. If I was naïve enough to believe in prohibition, I`d be the greatest supporter of anti gun legislation in the country. Sounds good in theory if we don`t dig too deep, but in practice, it doesn`t work. More realistic laws wouldn`t have had the negative effects. There`s an ancient saying, "if a man be of a mind to beat a dog, he will find a stick". A firearm in responsible, trained hands, is a harmless inanimate object.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/...e-gun-free-uk-is-800-of-the-heavily-armed-us/ Inconvenient Truth : Violent Crime Rate In The Gun-Free UK Is 800% Of The Heavily Armed US Posted on February 3, 2013 by stevengoddard According to the FBI, there were 1.2 million violent crimes committed in the US last year. FBI Violent Crime According to the UK government, there were 1.94 million violent crimes in the UK last year. www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_296191.pdf There are almost exactly five times as many people in the US as in the UK 314 million vs. 63 million. The violent crime rate in the UK is 3,100 per 100,000, and in the US it is 380 per 100,000 population. Why didnt Piers Morgan mention this inconvenient fact? Americans are much safer than Brits. In the UK, criminals know that their victims are unarmed and defenseless just as Adam Lanza did.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php/index.php?Article_ID=17847 AUSTRALIA: MORE VIOLENT CRIME DESPITE GUN BAN April 13, 2009 It is a common fantasy that gun bans make society safer. In 2002 -- five years after enacting its gun ban -- the Australian Bureau of Criminology acknowledged there is no correlation between gun control and the use of firearms in violent crime. In fact, the percent of murders committed with a firearm was the highest it had ever been in 2006 (16.3 percent), says the D.C. Examiner. Even Australia's Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research acknowledges that the gun ban had no significant impact on the amount of gun-involved crime: In 2006, assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent. Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent. Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent. Moreover, Australia and the United States -- where no gun-ban exists -- both experienced similar decreases in murder rates: Between 1995 and 2007, Australia saw a 31.9 percent decrease; without a gun ban, America's rate dropped 31.7 percent. During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent. Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent. Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent. At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent. Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women. While this doesn't prove that more guns would impact crime rates, it does prove that gun control is a flawed policy. Furthermore, this highlights the most important point: gun banners promote failed policy regardless of the consequences to the people who must live with them, says the Examiner. Source: Howard Nemerov, "Australia experiencing more violent crime despite gun ban," Free Republic, April 9, 2009. For text: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2225517/posts
The 2A is not up for debate. No matter who is killed or how tragic the circumstance. My rights trump all.
A MUCH better idea is to have gun safety classes taught in ALL public schools, parental op out is they so choose. Heck when I has in High School we had Jr ROTC with real rifle practice.
Check it out. Prohibition still doesn`t work. Who`d a thunk it. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s3990130.htm
I did and I posted it...but that doesn't stop the Kool-Aid drinkers from regurgitating the anti-gun talking points. Good post and good link
