Recent Shooting and Discussion

A.J. said:

Drugs kill people every day and while I don’t have statistics for you it’s more than guns. Car wrecks kill more people than guns. Blah blah blah you’ve heard all this before. I understand what you’re trying to say. I just don’t share you’re belief in the results. Still trying to blame the tool used which somehow lessens the blame of the individual/s for the act. They will find a different tool. They have already. Planes, cars, bombs, poison, the list goes on. Of course this has all been discussed at length but still here we go back to the “ assault rifle “ being the problem when it is a complex people/culture/political ideology problem. Again I wish somehow we had the answer but I don’t think we will for a long time.


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the problem with your argument is that the gun laws that we do have right now do-kinda-work and if we were to strengthen them we could get somewhere. In a perfect world we could prevent all shootings, but in our world we need to find methods to reduce the destruction of somebody’s decision to do something stupid.

if every citizen had access to military style weapons the outcomes of these mass killings would be worse. Imagine if the asshole at sandy hook had a full auto m16 with a grenade launcher attached or the Las Vegas shooter had a HMG or the tampabay shooter had .......

Sharkey said:

After almost 800 posts in this thread, I pretty sure that nobody has advocated the outright ban of firearms, or even AR style weapons. I happen to own an AR style .556, several different kinds of handguns, and a few shotguns.

The 2nd Amendment is no more absolute than any other amendment. Whether people want to admit it or not, that is a fact. I can only speak for myself but I believe the "take from my cold dead hands" attitude that some people have with respect to firearms will ultimately cause the death of lawful firearm ownership. If you are unwilling to find reasonable middle ground and take baby steps towards making firearm usage less prevalent in mass killings, you may find that your rights disappear faster than they would have on any "slippery slope".

The analogies to making drugs illegal and people still using them are actually pretty funny to me...I can't remember the last time I saw a news report about a kid storming a school and taking out 15 other kids by stuffing meth down their throats. If I accept your argument, then why not make all drug use LEGAL? After all, laws do nothing. (On that point, why do we even have laws making murder and rape illegal? After all, bad people will always do bad things and good people will never do bad things, right?)

Our society is built on the balance between liberties and laws restricting those liberties. As a civilized society, the balance point will always shift in response to what is actually happening in society. Unless and until people learn to start valuing life and giving a shit about each other again, I think it makes sense to examine whether more can be done to lessen the frequency of mass killings involving the use of firearms of any kind. If that "more" involves more effective legislation relating to the purchase, possession, and duty of care of custody of firearms, I say so be it.

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I agree with this. My only concern with the tighter restrictions on guns comes from history, and we all know history has a way of repeating itself. In Germany they had gun registration, on that registration you had to fill out all your personal data. Along came this leader (Hitler) used the gun registration to remove all weapons from certain ethnic groups. We all know where that led. I know that was a long time ago. More recently Venezuela, the government used weapon registration to disarm the people. Today the people are digging in garbage cans to eat and fighting armored vehicles with sticks and stones.

I feel a lot of the "take from my cold dead hands" are going to fight any form of gun control if there is not a guarantee that weapons won’t be confiscated by a tyrannical government.


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A.J. said:

Drugs kill people every day and while I don’t have statistics for you it’s more than guns.
Car wrecks kill more people than guns.

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Of course they do. Don't forget to add alcohol to the mix because it kills more kids than anything else...by a long shot. As a society, we have enacted a whole slew of laws intended to address these issues. Sometimes the laws work, sometimes they don't. Laws that don't work at all are a waste of paper and should be repealed. Laws that work sometimes but are not perfect may still have value. Laws that work most of the time but not all of the time have quite a bit of value. Laws that work all of the time are unicorns. The real questions are where do our current gun laws fit into that spectrum and can we do anything better than we are currently doing? You think we can't, or perhaps you think we shouldn't try because of the 2nd Amendment. I respect your opinion...but I also disagree with it.

A.J. said:

Still trying to blame the tool used which somehow lessens the blame of the individual/s for the act. They will find a different tool. They have already. Planes, cars, bombs, poison, the list goes on. Of course this has all been discussed at length but still here we go back to the “ assault rifle “ being the problem when it is a complex people/culture/political ideology problem.

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Kids are not out on the street intentionally killing each other with planes, cars, bombs, poison, or much of anything else; they are doing it with firearms.

Making it more difficult for crazies and kids to have access to the tool is not the same as blaming the tool. Requiring responsible owners to ensure that irresponsible owners cannot obtain their tool is not the same thing as blaming the tool.

Out of curiosity, do you have issues with the fact that explosives are heavily regulated in our society? (It isn't very easy to buy some C4 or dynamite). If you don't, why not? After all, they are just a tool and in fact one that is very necessary and effective when used properly (and I'm talking about construction and demolition, not wartime use). Is the same true for uranium? It's just a tool, right? As a society, we place limitations on the use and availability of all sorts of tools. Why is it that we are so afraid of having the same discussions with respect to reasonable limitations on the use and availability of firearms?

A.J. said:

Again I wish somehow we had the answer but I don’t think we will for a long time.

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I agree with you to some extent on that point. However, I will not shy away from looking for the answer(s) just because it is a complex question that involves many variables.

Brute said:

Thank God for a cogent and lucid reply...even if you are an attorney...

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The sun even shines on a dog's ass every once in a while. :beer:

Benito said:

the problem with your argument is that the gun laws that we do have right now do-kinda-work and if we were to strengthen them we could get somewhere. In a perfect world we could prevent all shootings, but in our world we need to find methods to reduce the destruction of somebody’s decision to do something stupid.

if every citizen had access to military style weapons the outcomes of these mass killings would be worse. Imagine if the asshole at sandy hook had a full auto m16 with a grenade launcher attached or the Las Vegas shooter had a HMG or the tampabay shooter had .......

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The circle continues. I respect your beliefs I just don’t agree. This is why the debate continues. It exhausting really. It’s like the energizer bunny of debates. It just keeps going and going and going.


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No discussion, no solution...

pop2tu said:

My only concern with the tighter restrictions on guns comes from history, and we all know history has a way of repeating itself.

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This is where I'm at. Even if you were to exclude the 2nd amendment completely, there are more than enough historical writings and quotes as to why our founding fathers were so animate about not infringing the rights of the United States people. I would be WAY more open to more gun restrictions and law changes if it was a solid fact that a government would NEVER become tyrannical and harm its own people.

A.J. said:

The circle continues. I respect your beliefs I just don’t agree. This is why the debate continues. It exhausting really. It’s like the energizer bunny of debates. It just keeps going and going and going.

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Serious question and I'm interested in an honest answer. Do you think the number of firearm-related murders in our country would go up or down if we completely repealed all existing gun laws of any kind? I'm talking everything...background checks, age restrictions, waiting periods, carry restrictions, types of weapons that can be owned, etc.

Sharkey said:

Serious question and I'm interested in an honest answer. Do you think the number of firearm-related murders in our country would go up or down if we completely repealed all existing gun laws of any kind? I'm talking everything...background checks, age restrictions, waiting periods, carry restrictions, types of weapons that can be owned, etc.

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Honestly I don’t know. It’s not a fair question. That question like many others creates an all or nothing extremist view which I do not have.


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WJCO said:

This is where I'm at. Even if you were to exclude the 2nd amendment completely, there are more than enough historical writings and quotes as to why our founding fathers were so animate about not infringing the rights of the United States people. I would be WAY more open to more gun restrictions and law changes if it was a solid fact that a government would NEVER become tyrannical and harm its own people.

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I understand and appreciate that concern and damn, I sure would prefer to have a shoulder-fired rocket launcher in my quiver, and a tank in my garage, when the gov't becomes tyrannical. We would all probably agree that it is a good thing I don't have that stuff though, which means there has to be some reasonable middle ground on the ownership of things that are primarily designed to kill stuff and blow stuff up.

At what point does the fear of, and preparation for, the remote possibility of something happening in the future become insane in the context of what is actually happening in the present? Do we ignore what IS happening because of what MIGHT happen?

A.J. said:

Honestly I don’t know. It’s not a fair question. That question like many others creates an all or nothing extremist view which I do not have.

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I appreciate the honesty. The only reason you don't find it to be a fair question is because you recognize the possibility that, at least potentially, some restrictions may have some benefit. You are unwilling to take an "all or none" approach to the situation. That just means you are a rational person, which is a good thing. So, all I am saying is that I think we could do a better job of trying to figure out what restrictions may have some benefit.

Sharkey said:

Serious question and I'm interested in an honest answer. Do you think the number of firearm-related murders in our country would go up or down if we completely repealed all existing gun laws of any kind? I'm talking everything...background checks, age restrictions, waiting periods, carry restrictions, types of weapons that can be owned, etc.

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A.J. said:

It’s not a fair question.

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I actually think that's a really good question. I'm really pondering this.

At first I think with a younger generation of 'tide pod eating,' 'grand theft auto playing,' 'no discretion of human life,' that firearm-related murders as a whole would go up. But then again, I think more 'good guys' would be carrying guns as well to deter firearm-related murders and the psychos would realize they might get shot pretty quick if they tried to pull that stupid shit. I also think if murders went up drastically, that as a culture, we would grow through it toward a more positive view of human life and over time murders would go down once the destruction and chaos was actually realized.

TrailHunter said:

I stand with the Shark. [emoji1417]

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That really works great in Chicago! Toughest gun control laws in the nation. And one of the highest murder rates in the nation also. Just more liberal bullshit that will never work.


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Sharkey said:

I appreciate the honesty. The only reason you don't find it to be a fair question is because you recognize the possibility that, at least potentially, some restrictions may have some benefit. You are unwilling to take an "all or none" approach to the situation. That just means you are a rational person, which is a good thing. So, all I am saying is that I think we could do a better job of trying to figure out what restrictions may have some benefit.

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I agree with that statement but with great reservation due to the fact that there are extremists with legal degrees and politicians that will use these decisions to undermine people’s rights for their own agendas. Precedence remember? Lol! Slip slide and away!!!!


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Cell phone use while driving kills more Americans each year then all drunk driving and AR style shootings combined. What are we going to ban next? Cell phones or cars. Add a couple million murders on the abortion table each year. The little .22 caliber handgun kills more then all other weapons combined. But you never hear about that!


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So it’s seems clear to most everyone participating in this thread that guns kill less people than drugs, alcohol and a whole lot of other thing each year but the only fix is to up firearm restrictions? Seems like we should focus on “fixing” what is responsible for the most deaths.

All of the rifles in my safe, except for a tiger 10/22 and a Daniels defense m4, are all either class 3 or custom built rifles. Both require an extremely long wait time so extended wait time don’t bother or offend me. But I’m still opposed to more gun laws because as with any “slippery slope” once you start slipping it’s damn near impossible to stop.


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The analogies to making drugs illegal and people still using them are actually pretty funny to me...I can't remember the last time I saw a news report about a kid storming a school and taking out 15 other kids by stuffing meth down their throats.



Sure they do, they call it an opioid crisis. And it’s far worse around here than gun related violence.

KSCRUDE said:

That really works great in Chicago! Toughest gun control laws in the nation. And one of the highest murder rates in the nation also. Just more liberal bullshit that will never work.


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First of off... I have guns... I like guns... I shoot guns... and I do my due diligence to protect my family. I am not a "liberal" and I voted for Trump if not only to protect our 2nd Amendment. I do not agree with the gun laws in Chicago or many here in California. However... I recognize a problem and we need a some Rational Solutions... Nothing wrong with examining both sides and not being so closed minded. We are a nation of Laws.... this is nothing new.

When you were a baby, your Parents let you eat with a Spoon.... not because there is anything wrong with Forks... but because babies are Fucking Stupid... So Parents make adjustments.

TrailHunter said:

... but because babies are Fucking Stupid...

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:cheesy: