Mass Shooting 13 Dead Thousand Oaks California

Lets not also forget that people defend themselves with firearms far more times than criminals use firearms to commit crimes.

 

Shooting 600 people at a C&W concert is not self defense. Shooting 13 people in church is not self defense. Shooting 12 people at a country bar is not self defense. Shooting 27 kids in school is not self defense. Shooting 47 gay people in a Florida night club is not self defense. Shooting 15 people at the air port is not self defense. The same goes for people in traffic or at the shopping center. It is not self defense. That's why I want to see the government get tough on this issue. It's got out of hand and for too long.

 

You have more privately own firearms now than you did before the buy back program. Also, your crime and gun death rate were on the decline before the buy back program already.

 

Meth heads having easier access to guns isnt my definition of freedom

 

How often do people defend themselves with firearms, how often do criminals use firearms to commit crimes.

Would also seem the two sets are not mutually exclusive. Unless the criminals are polar bears and not people.

How often do criminals commiting a crime defend themselves with guns against polar bears using firearms against them?

 

That's why people who do such things are prosecuted for murder.

Is the government somehow lacking in its prosecution of mass murderers?

 

The right of free people to carry arms has been recognized for some 2600 years.

That said, people who commit serious crimes may be deprived of their freedom so long as due process is observed.

 

No help if said meth head sneaks up on you and shoots you dead

 

Mac

I think it's too easy to pretend there isn't a problem... That we have all the answers already and we don't need any policy. The truth is we do need new policy. Right now it's as if we just don't care enough. What will send the message that we do care?

I'd like to talk about magazine restrictions. In this shooting the killer used a .45 with an extended magazine. Why can't we take that away?

And here we are again. I already know what your response is: that people use extended magazines for self defense. Well, what I'd like to happen is for those to go away despite what you may or may not agree with.

You might then ask: "To what end? A person can still choose to kill people with a regular 10 round (right?) magazine." I believe we are only a little bit safer by taking away extended magazines. But it sets a precedent for adding other restrictions as needed. That's the way policy works, right?

 

You might have a valid point. And I don't want to take away everybody's right to protect themselves. But when is it going to end? When we live in a Utopian society because everyone has mental health safety nets provided by the government's new gun control = mental health agenda? You can't possibly expect me to take that seriously by the way...

 

In thousands of years of human history, no one has come up with a way to make people stop committing crimes against each other. The best we've ever been able to do is prosecute criminals after they commit a crime.

 

I think California already does so. I'm not sure if there is any way for them to provide stronger enforcement of this rule.

 

Banning guns would be a easy way for many to stop having the ability to commit violent crimes

 

The first thing we should do is to figure out why the US is so violent to begin with. I have been searching for credible theories but haven't found anything I trust. Even if you could guarantee that no lunatic ever had access to a gun we'd still have tons of crazy people causing trouble: bullying, stabbing, raping, raging behind the wheel and so on. I can find no reason for it.

 

I would hypothesize that it's the way we socialize boys. It isn't girls. I think that children's toys play a role for example. I thought about this just the other day at the doctor's office waiting to see the dietitian. They had cartoon network on in the lobby and the commercials for toys were coming on between things. The toys for boys punch, kick, flip, and of course shoot. There are examples of toys that aren't so obvious; board games for example. But about those toys that are questionable... I think they focus the boy's imagination on this sort of martial artsy thematically physical stuff. It's hard to get the right inflection typing this out without examples.

So does that mean we should take away the toys? I don't think that's a very good attitude actually, and it's not what I'm trying to say at all. But I think the commercial can be better. Maybe it doesn't have to punch and kick; I don't know because I'm not a toy designer.

This is just a hypothesis. But that's not the only way we go wrong with boys. Sports are violent and they embody a violent culture within them; especially football. This sets up an expectation for toughness and puts a boy in between a rock and a hard place psychologically. Wait... you want me to hit? Obviously, we know better. But there are variables that are difficult to control for in that same boy's/person's life. Suppose that person also listens to violent music; be it heavy metal, or rap, punk, whatever. Psychologically the person becomes immersed in this sort of hateful persona.

Does that mean we should take away music? No... again not what I'm saying.

What I'm trying to say is there are dozens of correctable things that are affecting the way males are socialized. But what can we do?

 

The same number of people would commit violent crimes. They would just use different weapons, and we would have given up our freedom for nothing.

Although, it wouldn't be worth giving up our freedom even if it made an actual difference. Freedom is everything.

 

It's our areas of poverty combined with our weak social safety net. There are places where people literally have no future other than in crime. It should be no surprise that they choose the only meaningful life that is available to them.

 

If ever there was a statent that required a source to back it up, it's this one.

 

Everybody’s Lying About the Link Between Gun Ownership and Homicide

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