What will it take to make America want reasonable gun laws?

[Greenday]

Another day, another senseless shooting. For those who haven't heard, a church was shot up today during mass. 20-something people dead. 20-something other people injured.

Honestly, what will it take to make America have responsible gun laws in ALL 50 states? School children getting shot up in mass in class? Nope, don't take my guns. 500+ people shot up at a concert? Nope, don't take my guns. Movie theaters? Churches? Clubs? Nope, don't take my guns.

Fuck you and your guns. I want to own a rifle for target shooting. My wife wants to own a handgun for target shooting. When we do, we will store our guns and ammo in two separate safes in separate rooms. Mistakes will not happen because we were lazy pieces of crap who left a gun on a coffee table within reach of a small child or any idiot who shouldn't touch it. But you know what? The gun community has determined as a group they can't be responsible enough to continue to own them.

Why don't all 50 states require background checks for all gun sales?
Why aren't their mandatory wait periods for purchasing guns in all 50 states?
Why are there laws basically making it impossible to hold a seller responsible for what the buyer did with the gun letting them just claim ignorance every time they knowingly let someone perform a straw purchase?
Storing guns and ammo separately. Mandatory training for anyone who wants to own a gun. Etc.

Why the hell do people think their right to own any weapon they want is more important than human lives? It's sick.

On another note, fuck your "It's too soon to bring up laws" and "Don't politicize people's deaths." All you are doing is trying to get people to hold off long enough that they forget to do something about it.

America, we are too damn irresponsible. It makes me embarrassed to be an American and if your country valuing guns more than lives doesn't embarrass you, that scares me. And don't tell me to leave if I'm embarrassed to be an American. It just means I actually give a shit about my country enough to want it to be better than the piece of shit you are trying to let it become.


This is seriously America when it comes to actually doing something about these atrocities.

[Gravekeeper]

Nothing. Frankly. There is literally nothing that will change the mindset. The only thing that seems to change an America's mindset on guns is being a direct victim of gun violence themselves.

On another note, fuck your "It's too soon to bring up laws" and "Don't politicize people's deaths." All you are doing is trying to get people to hold off long enough that they forget to do something about it.

Unless the guy's brown.

If a white guy commits the largest mass shooting in US history this isn't the time to talk about fixing anything and how dare you politicize a tragedy.

If a brown guy runs some people over in NYC then politicize EVERYTHING. Shut down the Visa program. Change all the immigration laws. Overhaul the justice system. Personally blame individual opposing politicians. Lament that the only thing preventing you from having him immediately killed is the irritating hurdle of due process.

If it's a white guy, he's "very sick" and it's "sad". If its a brown guy, he is an "animal" and the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth will personally calls for his death on Twitter.

( Which, ironically, just has the effect of undo command influence / poisoning the jury pool just like he did with Bergdahl )

[Greenday]

If a brown guy runs some people over in NYC then politicize EVERYTHING. Shut down the Visa program. Change all the immigration laws. Overhaul the justice system. Personally blame individual opposing politicians. Lament that the only thing preventing you from having him immediately killed is the irritating hurdle of due process.

If it's a white guy, he's "very sick" and it's "sad". If its a brown guy, he is an "animal" and the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth will personally calls for his death on Twitter.

( Which, ironically, just has the effect of undo command influence / poisoning the jury pool just like he did with Bergdahl )

30 people killed and 54 wounded in multiple-victim shootings in America in November and it's been 5 days. Nobody bats an eye.

8 dead, 11 hurt by a brown guy and everyone loses their minds.

[Gravekeeper]

30 people killed and 54 wounded in multiple-victim shootings in America in November and it's been 5 days. Nobody bats an eye.

8 dead, 11 hurt by a brown guy and everyone loses their minds.

The Church shooting has been upgraded to a "very very very sad" "mental health problem not a gun problem" by Glorious Leader.

Shooter was a young white male, after all.

[Canarr]

Well, as someone from Germany rather than the US, I am more than comfortable living in a country where hardly anyone owns their own firearms. It's actually fairly safe most of the time, so I am very much in agreement with the idea that loads of guns for home defense isn't particularly necessary.

However, I do feel the need to point out that all of the measures you suggest

Why don't all 50 states require background checks for all gun sales?
Why aren't their mandatory wait periods for purchasing guns in all 50 states?
Why are there laws basically making it impossible to hold a seller responsible for what the buyer did with the gun letting them just claim ignorance every time they knowingly let someone perform a straw purchase?
Storing guns and ammo separately. Mandatory training for anyone who wants to own a gun. Etc.

wouldn't have done a damn thing to prevent the Las Vegas shooting. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, the shooter had no known issues with mental health, no criminal record, had owned the guns he used for years, had legally obtained them, rather than get them from a negligent relative or through a straw purchase.

Nothing you suggest would have prevented that. As long as people get to own guns, there will be those who use them in mass shootings. It doesn't matter whether they locked them safely away, or left them lying on a coffee table. As long as they're *there*, they can be used.

[Greenday]

wouldn't have done a damn thing to prevent the Las Vegas shooting. Unless I'm gravely mistaken, the shooter had no known issues with mental health, no criminal record, had owned the guns he used for years, had legally obtained them, rather than get them from a negligent relative or through a straw purchase.

Nothing you suggest would have prevented that. As long as people get to own guns, there will be those who use them in mass shootings. It doesn't matter whether they locked them safely away, or left them lying on a coffee table. As long as they're *there*, they can be used.

Nope but it would have prevent a lot of other shootings that happen every day.

[jackfaire]

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, the shooter had no known issues with mental health,

Usually because unless a person seeks help they won't have known issues. If a psych eval was part of the background check we could catch the issues though. Sure not every single time but a lot more than we do now.

[Tanasi]

The idea of having to get a "mental check" is all about making the purchase process so difficult that people won't purchase to avoid the hassle. Look at the purchase DC intentionally put on folks, only to most of it overturned.
What's next literacy tests to buy printed materials??? Mental health checks before you can view a controversial video on the internet??? A slippery slope is one thing but greasing it is another...

[Gravekeeper]

The idea of having to get a "mental check" is all about making the purchase process so difficult that people won't purchase to avoid the hassle. Look at the purchase DC intentionally put on folks, only to most of it overturned.
What's next literacy tests to buy printed materials??? Mental health checks before you can view a controversial video on the internet??? A slippery slope is one thing but greasing it is another...

Welp, there's our first completely absurd slippery slope argument.

Next up: Someone needs to chime in with how gun owners are the real victims in all this.

[Canarr]

Nope but it would have prevent a lot of other shootings that happen every day.

Such as?

Usually because unless a person seeks help they won't have known issues. If a psych eval was part of the background check we could catch the issues though. Sure not every single time but a lot more than we do now.

Admittedly, mental health isn't exactly a specialty of mine; but I find the idea of establishing some list of clear, objective criteria of mental health for the purpose of purchasing guns highly unrealistic.

I mean, people have been discussing ways of discovering potential juvenile school shooters at least since Columbine; and so far, it hasn't been effective because almost every teenager has a chance of profiling as a sociopath at least at some point of puberty.

Psychology doesn't strike me as a scientific discipline that can put together the kind of scaling system you would need to determine who is safe to own guns, and who isn't. "Well, your anger rate measures at 3.8 on the Homer Simpson scale, so you are cleared for small caliber handguns only."

[Canarr]

Addendum, just to make that clear: I am not arguing *against* gun laws. I live in a country with very strict gun laws, and I feel quite good about that. I just don't believe that any kind of half-assed measures will solve the US problems. If you want to solve that, then you need to stop the proliferation of guns, not simply tell people how they need to store them, or how long they have to wait for them.

[Greenday]

Why don't all 50 states require background checks for all gun sales?
Why aren't their mandatory wait periods for purchasing guns in all 50 states?
Why are there laws basically making it impossible to hold a seller responsible for what the buyer did with the gun letting them just claim ignorance every time they knowingly let someone perform a straw purchase?
Storing guns and ammo separately. Mandatory training for anyone who wants to own a gun. Etc.

Such as?

How do you think criminals and gang members get guns? In the majority of states, you can buy a gun from a private seller, hand them cash, and walk away with a gun. No background investigation to prevent felons from buying. This and straw purchases are the result of most violent crimes.

Suicides. Crime of passion. Another 72 hours of waiting may be the time necessary for people to get help.

Holding a seller responsible for repeatedly selling to people used to commit crimes would mean they'd actually stop straw purchases.

Storing guns and ammo separately is a no brainer. Countless children have been killed because some dumbass kept the ammo with the gun and the kid decided to "play" with it. Also, a lot of guns get stolen because of improper storage.

Mandatory training = less accidental deaths.

These are all super basic laws that'd 100% be guaranteed to reduce deaths from guns.

[Gravekeeper]

The incident report, first obtained by local NBC affiliate KPRC, shows that two police officers apprehended Kelley, who was then 21 years old, at a bus terminal in downtown El Paso after being dispatched there for a missing person report.

A witness on the scene told the officers that Kelley "suffered from mental disorders" and had planned to flee the hospital and take a bus out of state. The witness added that Kelley "was a danger to himself and others" and had already been caught sneaking firearms onto the Holloman Airforce base, and had made death threats against his military superiors, according to the report.

But hey, Trump said that "extreme vetting" for gun ownership wouldn't do anything. "Extreme vetting" is only for brown people.

[Greenday]

Just got told on another forum that someone with a gun stopping him in the church should count for something.

My counterpoint: Because people were allowed to have guns, 26 innocent people died in the first place.

[Talon]

I understand almost half of the shooting victims were children or teens.

Yeah I got nothing. If the USA goes more than a month without a mass-shooting, better buy a lottery ticket.