There are ways to change the constitution. If there is really a majority of people who want the 2nd amendment changed, follow the rules. The problem as I see it, is that many people do not want gun control. As for the comment about criminals…felons cannot legally possess a gun (any type). When purchasing a gun at a gun store, a background check is done. But, anyone can sell or give another person a gun on the side. You could have 50 more laws and this would still happen because people who want to kill someone with a gun will find a way. I think it all goes back to where you grew up and how your parents viewed guns. My good friends in other parts of the country view guns with dismay and fear. They believe you should call the police when someone breaks into your home. My neighbors in my area think you should call the police while using your own gun to defend yourself.
And with that gun, you might kill a neighbor’s child who was attempting to sneak into his home after a party – but mistakenly chose the wrong home http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/23/17424964-teen-shot-dead-after-sneaking-into-wrong-home-following-party?lite .
Or you might kill your own stepchild, who came home from a party late. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/23/colorado-girl-mistaken-burglar-killed/4180329/
^^^No one is talking about “changing” the 2nd Amendment and no one is seriously talking about gun control that would interfere with defending your family from a home invader. Handguns. Shotguns. Hunting and sporting rifles are not going to go away.
But the 2nd amendment clearly doesn’t give Americans the right to own any and all weapons known to man to use for their own defense. Making assault rifles illegal to own does not violate the constitution — it’s been upheld before during the temporary ban 1994 to 2004.
We’ve now seem assault rifles as the weapon of choice used to mow down elementary kids in Newtown, movie goers in Aurora, concert goers in Paris and now people attending an employee holiday party. AR weapons are not helping the average Joe with protection, the purpose they serve to the law-abiding owner is not worth the danger they pose to the public when they are used by the mentally ill and the determined terrorist.
The restrictions on fully automatic weapons seem to work well. When have you heard of a crime or slaughter being committed with one?
Closing certain loopholes in gun sales, enhancing background checks, and banning the sale and possession of assault rifles are steps that should be taken for the sake of public safety and they don't interfere with the 2nd amendment rights of Americans to own guns for self defense.
@jazzymom what I have seen in discussions in the news are talks about how the 2nd Amendment should be changed, etc. I understand the concern about semi-automatic weapons. It has been crazy here after the comments by the president in that all the stores that sell guns have been booming because people fear that they will not be able to purchase one.
I also understand that guns can kill the wrong person. But, the mindset here is that you protect your family.
"I think it all goes back to where you grew up and how your parents viewed guns. My good friends in other parts of the country view guns with dismay and fear. They believe you should call the police when someone breaks into your home. My neighbors in my area think you should call the police while using your own gun to defend yourself. "
I agree that so much has to do with your upbringing. My husband grew up in a more rural area, his dad was an ATF agent, most of the neighbors had a gun and there were never any problems. In my family, nobody had a gun (though my father had grown up around them).
I am uncomfortable having them around, though I shot expert for many years in the military (back when I had good eyesight). My husband is comfortable with them. But his reasoning is actually fairly convincing to me. Not to have a gun at your bedside, so you might grab it when you hear a noise and are groggy, but far enough away that you have to walk a little bit to get it. And the time you reach for it, is when there are people outside your house, trying to get in. You’ve already called the police and gone to your hiding spot, but it’s the last line of defense if they break in and find you. It will keep you safer than a baseball bat. I am very leery about shooting someone’s kid, but I’d have no problem shooting an armed assailant.
What I haven’t decided is, do you turn on the exterior light so they know someone is aware they are there? Or do you not, to pretend like the house is empty? I’m not sure what would be safer. We have an alarm that activates, and I can get my vicious dogs barking pretty easily. :o3
Pretty far off topic, aren’t we?
Just a reminder - today marks the third anniversary of the Sandy Hook Shooting. Three years!
Wonder what catastrophe(s)/massacre(s) we’ll be arguing about in three more years.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-us-policy-blocks-agents-social-media-visa/story?id=35749325
If they had actually read her jihadi rantings on social media, and denied her a visa as a result, those people in San Bernardino might still be alive.
The threat is just not being taken seriously. Social media is public. But for PC reasons, social media of visa applicants wasn’t to be looked at? Really!
PC-ness is going to be the death of a lot of people, both in the US and Europe.
Never understood why people think the above is a logical argument that sways people.
Think of the logic of the above. First, each of those examples could have easily been an actual intruder, which occurs daily and who gets stopped successfully by a gun owner. Second, instead of taking the opportunity to teach kids that drinking and drugs leads to bad things happening or sneaking into your house that is known to have a gun in it is a dumb idea, the focus is not on those actions, but on disarming lawful gun owners. Third, this approach lacks logical consistency and smacks of an agenda given the fact that people who accidentally run over their own kids or their neighbors’ kids with their cars are not asked to give up their cars and stop driving.
Therefore, the logic of the above quote is because one can accidentally harm someone doing something stupid, you are better off being at the mercy of a real intruder in real assault. Really, people think that is a persuasive argument to disarm oneself?
Or not. Farook was the one who targeted them, obviously, and knew exactly where and when to find those people gathered together. And he was born here. All he needed to carry out the mission was getting ahold of a fast-firing weapon loaded with military grade ammunition… and as we know, that part was a breeze.
Would this have stopped San Bernardino or any mass shootings? No.
So knock yourself out with these so called loopholes. Even though, very few people in the know have a little clue what loopholes people are talking. Each legal gun sale is currently subject to background checks now. I have seen all sorts to things called loopholes that are not, and for which there are already laws against.
Knock yourself out again, but unless one runs checks for a “killer” mindset, it is important to note that the toughest background check in the country in CA would not have stopped San Bernardino or any of the mass shootings discussed on this thread and other threads. In addition, I recommend reading up on how many times the current background check failed.
So, people have deduced that even some tougher check, not sure how you get tougher than CA checks though, only affects the law-abiding, as criminals still get their guns.
Your biggest problem is, unlike you, people are not blaming the gun, they are blaming the criminals. And it is also not lost on people that the Vtech killer and others have killed more using a garden variety handgun than the CA terrorists or Holmes or Lanza.
People are not blind, and they have deduced the problem is not the gun, as any gun can kill; it is that none of the people in those situations could defend themselves against an armed criminal. Somehow, that little pesky detail of being utterly defenseless seems lost on gun control advocates, but it sure is not lost on others.
In short, a majority of people have figured out the above is nothing but symbolism over substance, does not stop any criminal from getting a gun that can kill a lot of people, and therefore, do not trust the motives.
“Or not. Farook was the one who targeted them, obviously, and knew exactly where and when to find those people gathered together. And he was born here. All he needed to carry out the mission was getting ahold of a fast-firing weapon loaded with military grade ammunition… and as we know, that part was a breeze.”
Farook had backed out of earlier plots in 2012. Whether she was the backbone of this plot or not, whether he might have done something heinous without her or not is immaterial to the issue of the lousy vetting process being done on visa applicants.
Those in charge of preventing potential jihadis from getting into this country are doing a piss poor job. Look, when Chuck Shumer agrees with me (see the ABC article) that covers the spectrum. Americans do not understand why the government officials are not doing EVERYTHING in this vetting process. No one has a right to a visa to come to the US. In this case it seems that DHS was more concerned with how they would be perceived by the liberal DC cocktail party set than in protecting ordinary people in ordinary American towns like San Bernardino.
I strongly suspect that in most (not all, but certainly most) cases, statements of “The second amendment should be changed!” are actually a shorthand for “The way we implement the second amendment as it exists today should be changed!”
And yes, I get the charge that many of the changes in implementation being asked for wouldn’t have prevented [insert specific case of gun violence here]. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have prevented any case of gun violence, though—and I still don’t get why an imperfect solution that does some good gets attacked for imperfection, when a perfect solution is arguably impossible as long as there is an interesting number (read: at least two, and possibly even one) of humans around to be imperfect.
Why we should ban rapid fire weapons:
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/14/10124474/sandy-hook-shooting-victims
Just curious, Tatin, how you feel about higher taxes? While it seems logical with 20/20 hindsight that we should be looking at social media, that’s going to cost money.
There are times that I remember that a friend posted something on FB that I want to look at again, and I’ll go to his wall and start scrolling through all their posts – sometimes dozens in one day. I usually give up. There are probably computer bots that can do some of the work, but sorting through someone’s years and years of postings on Twitter, FB, Instagram, snapchat, Tumblr, livejournal, etc., is going to take lots of time and personnel and therefore money. This country doesn’t like spending money. Considering the thousands – millions – of people coming to the US every year, the effort needed to sort through all of those social media postings is mindboggling.
Would this have happened if she hadn’t come to the US? We’ll never know for sure. But he was self-radicalized before she showed up, seemed interested in doing something like this before he even knew her, so there’s at least an even chance that it might have happened if she’d never been here.
The threat is being taken seriously. This country spends a gazillion dollars on national security. There have been plenty of attempts that were caught beforehand, prevented, because we take this very seriously. Expecting 100% perfection, though, is a really tough standard. It’s a tragedy when a mistake happens and people die. But it’s not like we’re dealing with jihadist terrorism attacks in the US on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis. These happen rarely because we DO take them seriously. I think it’s wrong to suggest that the government doesn’t care or is doing consistently sloppy work.
Actually, no, the logic of the above anecdotes is that a gun is an undesirable strategy for self-protection because it may end up killing someone you wouldn’t want to kill. The alternative to a gun isn’t “being at the mercy of a real intruder.” It’s figuring out a safer and better way to defend yourself. For example, you might invest in an alarm system for your home.
They catch some bad guys through social media.
See that LA schools are closed?