brantly: There’s nothing particularly special about an AR-15, given it’s just a utilitarian version of the .223 semi-automatic rifle that’s been around a long time. A friends dad had an AR when I was in high school back… a long, long time ago. Semi-auto rifles and the .223 round predate even that.
What do they shoot at? At things that aren’t and never have been alive. My wife and I spend about $35 a week shooting clays with my oldest son, when they’re not both shooting pistols at targets. We’ve got the land for it, but there are shooting ranges for those that don’t. Ranges do a brisk business, in some parts of the country.
The suspect in attack on Chabad of Poway allegedly wrote a manifesto using quotations from the Bible and his interpretation of religion and belief in God to justify his alleged attack on others who believe in God somewhat differently.
Of course, many places have found that when differences in how one believes in God get injected into a conflict, the conflict becomes much more difficult to resolve. A historical example was the Thirty Years War which lasted thirty years.
What we lack in this country is shared experience. We don’t feel cohesive as a country. We’re not working for a common goal. That’s why I believe we should have a mandatory national service. Not necessarily military service, although military service could fulfill national service.
We should have a mandatory 18-24 month commitment for every 18-year-old. I really like the Israeli system and would want ours modeled on it. Each person is placed with a diverse group of people who are all doing the same job, working closely together for two years. The job could be writing for the military newspaper, tour guide for Washington, D.C. monuments or national parks around the country, band/orchestra that travels the country to play at official events, building roads, assisting in low-income communities with needed services, rebuilding infrastructure, etc. Sort of a type of CCC, WPA, and TVA combined. These are the types of things they do in Israel during their service. You get to know so many types of people from all over the country and work very closely with them for two years. This is how we can promote national cohesion while helping the country at the same time.
The Israeli system of “universal” military service is not exactly a good model of universality. https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-myth-of-compulsory-military-service-in-Israel-569779 notes that population groups making up about 30% of the population are exempt, and only about half of those who are supposed to enlist actually do. Note that the exempt groups include those who are commonly socially segregated from the rest of Israeli society, so the theoretical incidental benefit of social contact and integration between members of socially segregated groups does not occur as much as idealized.
Under a theoretical universal national service system in the US, most such service would have to be non-military, since the US military recruiting standards make over 70% of young Americans ineligible, and the US military does not need all of those eligible (and would really prefer that those who serve do so for longer than 18-24 months).
At the risk of offending someone, I think it was George Carlin who said in the history of the world, more people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. (At least that’s who I heard say it)
Having said that, I don’t believe religion or lack thereof is the reason behind the “gun culture” or the perceived increase in gun violence. To me it seems more like an entitlement mentality. A mentality that “Nobody is going to tell me what I can or cannot do.” “Nobody is going to disrespect me” “I’m tough and I’ll show you” or “everybody is mean to me so I’ll show them”.
I am not a gun owner. I’ve never fired one. But I do support gun rights, personal protection, hunters, etc. and until our constitution or Supreme Court says otherwise, I think guns are here to stay. And on the flip side we may be too far past that point because if gun rights are significantly limited now, only those who respect the law will comply. Those willing to illegally keep guns are more likely to be the same people who who commit crimes with them.
My father was a child in Europe during Hitler’s occupation of Holland. His father was part of the underground resistance and once they got word that he was found out the entire family had to scatter. My father remembers living with an old woman (who pretended to be his grandmother) in a house in the country along with two young Dutch men who were hiding out to avoid being forced into Hitler’s army. At night the British would do gun drops in the countryside and the young men would go retrieve these. These were used to arm the resistance as Hitler had confiscated all guns. I could tell you many more horror stories what my family saw, but once you go through the reality of losing your rights to arm yourself, you never take that right for granted again.
Our current neighborhood has no retired LEO or military; it’s on the water and lots without houses sell for right at seven figures. Most of our neighbors are business owners, doctors, entrepreneurs (and one ponzi schemer who is now serving time.) Within a few weeks of moving in, we were invited to a party in the private park. At that time, several of the neighbors discussed with us what their plan is regarding post-hurricane looting; how access to the entry road would be controlled, the best vantage point to set up a person with a rifle, etc. I smiled and nodded and as soon as we were home explained to my husband that if a major hurricane came, we needed to just get the heck out of Dodge and let the looters have the TV because this anti-looting plan didn’t sound good to me. To get back to the question, though - the crux of the plan involved this concept Dropbox described, that one or two people with a rifle can easily hold off 200/gangs of looters. I don’t think I’ve heard the specific number “200”, but the idea of one rifle holding off crowds is a common one.
Yes. An AR15 is just a semi automatic rifle, only slightly cosmetically different and no functionally different than the rifles most people think of when they describe the guns in racks of pickup trucks from their youth. In some cases, the difference might be that one was bolt action and the other has magazines, but if you’ve ever watched people who have been trained and who practice, the difference in speed if you’re concerned about the mass shooting situations is very small. Similar to the difference in speed between someone emptying a 10 round magazine and having to quick drop and reload vs. someone emptying a 20 round magazine - takes a trained rifleperson a blink to do that switch so not exactly a huge difference in how lethal the weapon can be. I’ve seen people (and many were not ex-military, several were doctors) qualify for multiple levels of the military marksman qualification - which involves both limited time and accuracy - that did so with a bolt action rifle, not a semi-automatic.
People compete in multiple types of shooting competitions with all sorts of rifles, including AR15 style guns. “Three gun” is a good example and one my husband regularly competes - and wins - in.
This is at the heart of the debate over gun rights in America. I believe that you could predict with at least 90% accuracy on which side of the issue a person stands by asking the single question - do you believe government is the answer or the problem?
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
We’re giving a lot of leeway in this thread, but let’s move on from God’s role. Aside from violating ToS on religious discussion. it only serves to spark debate (also a ToS violation) since nobody AFAIK, has a batphone to Her to know definitively what She thinks.
I don’t think that mental illness is the whole answer. Other countries don’t have fewer mentally ill or evil people, but they do have fewer gun deaths. Clearly, the ready availability of guns is the reason we have so many gun deaths, either by homicide or suicide.
What’s not clear is how to fix the problem, which everyone wants to do, whether they support gun laws or not. I think we can assume good intentions on most people’s part.
Part of the challenge is the way the Second Amendment is written. It’s ambiguous and written in the passive voice: A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
It’s hard to know whether the founders intended those who bear arms to be part of militias, or if they intended well-regulated militias to be a vital benefit of an arms-bearing populace. And obviously, they could not have foreseen the leaps in technology that have led to the high-powered weapons we have today. I think they may have written the amendment very differently if they had known.
What is clearer is how divided we are on this and many other fronts. I have friends who cannot imagine wanting to own a gun, and who would love to see the Second Amendment repealed. And I have others who carry their legal weapons to church, just in case. Like you, I know people who absolutely don’t want the government to have any say over their gun rights because they are codified in the Second Amendment, and others who think the Second Amendment doesn’t adequately cover the level of firepower we have to day. And these are all sincere people who care about the future of the country.
I can’t see a solution emerging from discussions between the various sides. We can’t even discuss politics, let alone something as basic as a personal right. If we ever solve the problem of gun violence, the solution will likely come from some disruptive force or trend that we can’t even foresee.
Limiting the number of gun suicides is the wrong way to frame the problem. The goal should be to reduce the number of suicides from all causes. The Netherlands not the US has the world’s highest suicide rate. There are many factors that can go into a country’s suicide rate from all causes, and firearm laws seem to be one of the least important.
It’s simple:
People who obey laws will follow gun laws. Criminals and mentally unstable people will not.
NEW LAWS WONT HELP.
The only way to ensure criminals don’t have access to firearms is to confiscate & destroy all firearms from every corner of the globe. Since criminals & mentally unstable people will not follow the law, and will always find a way to get their hands on a gun,
THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE.
If by some miracle the government WAS successful in finding and confiscating all firearms, criminals and mentally unstable people will find other ways to inflict harm.
GUNS ARE ONLY ONE OF MANY DEVICES CAPABLE OF CARRYING OUT MASS VIOLENCE.
This is not a gun issue; it’s a culture issue.
My own personal opinion is that the growth and influence of social media and the internet are more responsible for these incidents than the guns. Along with all the wonderful things the internet and social media are capable of adding to society, I believe it’s main influence has been addiction to phones & PCs. It’s giving people an escape from reality, which is great for those who can handle it, but many can’t and they get drawn in to a world of isolation and anti-social behavior because they aren’t forced to face the real world anymore.
Number of US kids killed accidentally by guns in a typical year: ~75
Number of US babies killed by leaving unattended in hot car: ~40
Number of US kids killed accidentally in a pool: ~400
I could go on…
Look, any kid getting killed is a tragedy, and there is no shortage of careless or overwhelmed parents. But numbers do matter. 75 killed killed accidentally by guns is 0.00016% of the US child population ages 0-12.
WaPo enjoys taking digs at flyover families, but perhaps they should at least mention the plank in their own eye. What’s the rate of intentional homicide in the District of Columbia?
Wikipedia says 505 people died in accidental shootings, so it would seem there is a disparity in data, as likely more than 75 would be children. I’ve found that for those supporting gun culture, no amount of deaths or even personal tragedy is sufficient to change their views, so the only option is to out-vote them at the polls.
It’s really not that hard. Justice Scalia does a good job going through, in layman’s terms, the language and history of the Second Amendment in Heller. Here is the most important point in my opinion:
It’s definitely worth reading the analysis, especially pp. 2-32.