this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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The release says the exact opposite of what you imply in the tldr. If anything, this release outlines an attempted compromise.
We need to keep guns out of the hands of idiots. My neighbors should have been "red flagged" years ago. They have a long history of domestic violence and other drug and alcohol related charges. It probably would have prevented the husband from blowing his wife's brains out two days ago. In front of a kid, no less.
Red flag laws aren't about people who currently have convictions. If your neighbors were previously convicted then they probably can't legally have guns in the first place.
Red flag laws are about taking guns away from someone before they have a conviction/even do anything.
I don't want any more of this faux "compromise" bullshit handed out by gun grabbers. Our rights have been compromised enough with not a single damn thing to show in return. It isn't a compromise when they just do half of what they want and kick the other half down the road as a loophole they need to close.
So yes, you support red flag laws. No due process, nothing like that, right? Surely that would never back-fire, right? Nope, no ability for it to be abused.
I swear, you leftists just don't understand that whoever leads today might not be the leader tomorrow.
FWIW, I basically have a full armory in my basement. Just some context for you, bud.
Also, you are generalizing my political beliefs as "you lefties" or "leftist". That really makes you look stupid. Comparing my beliefs to your perception of an entire group is a great summary of your mindset.
Multiple convictions of domestic violence, public intoxication and child abuse should have been a red flag. That kid in my real life example should have been separated from that house years ago as well. Don't try and twist my words for your narrative.
You, as in you, seem to not understand that my rights end where yours begin. Also, there are more big words in the constitution and bill of rights other than "shall not be infringed". (You seemed like you wanted to say that, but that is speculation.)
When you said the fear mongering point of "how far will they take it", you fail to realize that there are right and left groups that are fighting for the right to bear arms. I'll be right there fighting for a persons rights if laws were illegally used.
If that's truly the case, the judge should've sent him to jail, and disarmed him. We shouldn't pass more laws because we aren't properly enforcing the ones on the books.
I’m curious to know what you would propose to address the ever increasing gun violence happening in the US. The solution can’t be ‘nothing’ because ‘nothing’ is not working.
Before you reply, understand that I am not the original poster which you replied to and my values, unexpressed as they are, are different from theirs.
I would propose that it's entirely pointless to focus on gun violence specifically because it's defined not by what makes it a problem (the violence) but rather by the arbitrary tool involved (guns). You could reduce gun violence to zero, and nothing would be better if the overall violence stayed the same. Which literally all available evidence demonstrates that it would, as you're not the first person to want authoritarian gun grabbing in place.
I would disagree that it’s pointless to focus on gun violence. While I do agree that in most circumstance focusing on the tool to create a solution is misguided, I do not agree that focusing on guns in this case is arbitrary. Nearly all other tools have multiple purposes to which they are designed where violence is not an intended use.
Guns on the other hand are created to do only one thing; kill. You can use them in other ways, but their purposes is singular; to end the life of another living thing. Even as a tool of self-defense or as the Second Amendment intended, the intent is the death or threat of death of the opposition.
While I do believe that removing guns would massively decrease violence, as proven by literally every other country that has done so, I am also not opposed to personal gun ownership. I just think it should be well regulated. I do think focusing gun violence is worthwhile, while also agreeing that it won’t completely address the issue of general violence in the country (there’s no silver bullet here, pun intended).
But we shouldn’t stop there and fly a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner. As you implied, there is a deeper rooted issue that’s responsible for the rise in violence; it’s American prosperity. We have 24/7 news feeds blasting hatred-addicting messages to distract from corpos and billionaires are sucking up every last cent from the American public. Prices across the board are going up while everyone’s pay is staying the same or going down. The prosperity is dying. People are justifiably angry. Anger leads to violence. Violent people who feel they have no path back to prosperity pick up guns.
While I disagree with the first half of your comment* your final paragraph really hits the nail on the head. The concentration of power by a select few due to policies designed to favor large businesses and the death of the middle class if not remedied will only lead to strife. When people are impoverished they become desperate, and when they are desperate they're willing to take more drastic means of resolution.
*IMO it's a suicide net style of solutions, one that attempted to solve an issue without resolving the underlying motivation. Actions occurs when motivation is met with means. Intentional acts do not occur without motivation even when supplied with the means. In this scenario the means are firearms (though in other cases they could be anything from clubs to words) and the motivation in most cases is tied to this polarization and disparity.
So then surely you should be able to provide hard data that shows reducing gun violence has a specific and measurable impact on violence as a whole, no?
Well first, I would focus on violence, not gun violence.
And we are in one of the most peaceful times in all of history. It started going up in 2020, which coincides with covid.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate
My personal thought is that there's other factors involved, namely the effects of covid, and the effects of the response to covid. A stressed person is much more likely to be violent than an unstressed person.
Of course without a proper study, its impossible to be certain.
That is misleading. While the violent crime rate basically flatlined between 2000-2017, it started going up shortly after the Trump presidency began in 2018-2019, prior to 2020 when it really started to skyrocket.
Also, trends are going to be different between states so looking at the US as a whole is not very good data to look at. Crime goes up in places and crime goes down in others. Understanding the details of where the changes are most drastic is absolutely important.