But none of that matters. Because it's bound to happen again. And again. And again. And again. No matter what observations or deductions we make. Nobody is going to work together and change anything.
This event is actually really sad. I didn't know anybody who got hurt or killed, but a friend/acquaintaince of mine lost a friend in the shooting. It's just that-when things like this happen-we usually pity ourselves over it for a little while, but it doesn't quite hit us emotionally like a personal situation. This time has been quite different, knowing that a friend-of-a-friend was directly involved. And killed.
*squee* Erasure. Trump wants to talk about how Muslims are bad, and Hillary wants to talk about guns are bad, but lawmakers are refusing to pass laws to help LGBT people. I used to think I could at least rely on Hillary to at least bring up the fact that universal anti-discrimination laws are necessary, but I guess she's just going to throw us under the bus again like Bill.
If my memory serves me correctly, Hillary came out "in favor" of such rights around the same time that polls showed for the first time that a majority of people in the USA were in favor of equal rights for same-sex couples. I have always viewed this gesture of hers as insincere and opportunistic.
There is no way to change anything, except destroying society we are living in. Mass murder has become nothing but a TV show. And the next episode might be coming soon, but this time in Europe. There will be another massive hysteria for a couple of weeks: people waving flags, politicians shouting out of stands, dozens of attention *squee!*s bustling around on TV and radio for the poorest of them. And then every one will forget. The reason is that people don't really care about each other. People like to be exited and no matter how. Why public executions were so popular in the past? Because it was nothing but an entertainment. And once it was over, people would forget. It has been the same scenario through the ages.
This hits the nail on the head. While we will try to deny our lust for bloodshed, we internally know we enjoy see death. It's a pastime we will always enjoy till the end of time. I mean you see it in games, movies, TV show and more too. We lie to ourselves saying we don't wish death, and maybe in a part of our minds we don't. But in our deepest subconscious, we still seek it. Hell, There are two times I can think of in Skyrim you see beheadings and you can get away with that because... well it's been said. It's entertainment. In this case, entertainment in entertainment. We've certainly accepted it as the a normal thing and don't care in the least.
I think there is a big difference between the people the people that deserve it though, and innocent people being gunned down.
1. Dude pledged allegiance to the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS. All three of those groups hate each other. That's like saying you act in the name of KKK and the WBC even though the vehemently hate each other. 2. The dude was a frequent at the establishment. He often went there on the quieter nights and was a regular; people knew of him because he'd get drunk and have a good time pretty often. 3. His father vehemently hates gays. In Muslim culture, being disowned by your father is the absolute worst possible thing that can happen to you. The answer here is obvious. This was a gay man who couldn't come to terms with himself because of his family and his upbringing. He married a woman whom he beat, his friends all said that he didn't actively practice his faith (who would in his situation?) and that he wanted to join the NYPD. The fact of the matter is: this dude bought a Sig legally, incredibly easily, from a private owner, and used it to kill 49 people. It's way too *squee!*in' easy to get a gun in this country. There needs to be more done to prevent people like him from ever getting a weapon like that. I'm of the opinion that the american populace does not need rifles. Handguns, whatever. Those are so common that taking those away would never work. But repurposed military grade rifles that can be easily modified to become fully automatic? No. That's not right. I came out of the woodwork just to say that. It's whatever.
And this shows she cannot be trusted. Columbine happened during the ban on "assault weapons." The Virginia Tech shooter killed many with handguns. Additionally, stringent gun control legislation in France and Norway didn't prevent even more lethal shootings from happening there (Switzerland and the Czech Republic also don't have this happening in spite of civilians being able to get similar such rifles). Jo Cox was also shot in the UK, a place where it is extraordinarily difficult to obtain a firearm. Even if a future administration manages to successfully ban "assault weapons" and/or "high capacity magazine clips," these shootings are not going to stop in the US. It is utopian to think that these incidents can be stopped without uprooting poverty, unemployment, a lack of prospects for the youth, addressing access to healthcare, etc.
There is no easy answer to the gun issue and there is no one solution. However, doing nothing about it is still a choice and I believe it is the wrong choice. Banning guns is not the answer either, it will not happen. Stopping shootings will not happen. Making it harder for the wrong people to get guns and making it harder to commit such large mass murders is feasible. That is the goal, not making it impossible, but limiting it as much as we can. Enforce the laws and regulations already in place. Fund the ATF and FBI fully so they can follow up on leads when someone of questionable character tries to buy 1000 rounds of ammunition at once. Limit ammo capacity on weapons. 6 rounds seems about right. Revolvers would not need to change. A shooter would need to reload five times to fire as many rounds as one thirty shot magazine/clip. "But I'll have to reload so much more at the range when I go to shoot!" Too bad. You having to reload at the range more often is a tiny price to pay for the amount of lives that could be saved. When hunting, if you have to shoot more than 6 times before you reload, you need to go back to the range before you go hunting again. Fix your aim. I'm in favor of a psychiatric evaluation before you can buy a gun as well. Yes, it won't be perfect and people will try to lie on them, but if it stops just one person from committing another atrocity like in Orlando, and possibly gets them the help they need, isn't that worth it? Gun advocate pedantry needs to stop as well. When people talk about gun control and don't know clip vs. magazine or the difference between an assault rifle and an assault weapon and that is what you focus on, you are missing the point and only showing yourself to be stubborn. If someone doesn't understand the differences, teach them - don't belittle them - and don't use it as an excuse to try to change the subject to focus on terminology. This is about saving lives in the future, it's not about the government grabbing guns from people.
I think most poeople see this just like 'another incident'. Time will pass, and all with be forgotten save for those affected. You're right-we see so much bloodshed, war, and all those things we try to deny liking: but aren't we contradicting that when we partake in those games, movies, etc? The world is twisted-everything has a double side. Hitler never meant to hurt anyone-for goodness sakes his relative was Jewish! But that doesn't make what he did right, either.
1. Even the NRA (as much as I dislike their right-wing stances and inconsistency) has repeatedly stated that the existing laws should be enforced. 2. "High capacity" magazines are available to civilians outside of the USA, e.g. Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Neither of those two countries have the level of mass shootings (or gun homicides in general) as the United States. That in itself indicates that some other factor is the issue in the United States. Additionally, when it comes to banning "high capacity" magazines, one is going to be able to get around that with, say, a "New York Reload" (quickly discarding empty guns and pulling a loaded one) or "jungle clipping" low capacity magazines together. Reloading, especially when a shooter isn't dealing with people being able to shoot back, can also be done more quickly than some people imagine: *The relevant demonstration being from roughly 9:11 to 11:00. 3. Existing legislation already prohibits the mentally defective from legally obtaining firearms. Additionally, while I don't have a problem ensuring that someone being issued a firearm is of sound mind, where exactly is the line being drawn here? This isn't a matter of "gun advocate pedantry." The fact of the matter is that someone claiming to be a leading authority on anything, whether it be for granting greater access to something or restricting it, should familiarize himself/herself with the facts first. Anti-gun politicians and the media intentionally leave out such vital information to make their arguments seem more sound to those not familiar with firearms in the first place. An assault rifle is capable of selective fire, and ever since Reagan closed the NFA registry on assault rifles, machine guns, and submachine guns in 1986, it became virtually impossible for most people, myself included, to legally obtain one (you are literally talking about paying thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars per gun once the extensive federal background checks and processing clear); these guns are already effectively banned for most people. This is an entirely different matter than a semi-automatic rifle like an AR-15 (whose lower receiver cannot be easily modified to be capable of selective fire). The term "assault rifle" or "assault weapon" is an emotionally laden term, and leading anti-gun figures and the media are intentionally distorting the facts to get those not familiar with these firearms on board with their agenda. The civilian AR-15 and Kalashnikov variants don't sound as scary when truthfully referred to as "semi-automatic" rifles. A good deal of this "pedantry" has been directed against people like Diane Feinstein and the media, and it hasn't been for the sake of diverting things toward semantics (the latter may be the case for some unsophisticated gun advocates, but many of us aren't of that variant). It's understandable for someone not familiar with firearms to get the terminology wrong. It is an entirely different matter when it comes to a so-called expert in the media or on Capitol Hill that have been doing this for years. A media piece intentionally distorting the facts regarding firearms is just as bad as one intentionally distorting the facts regarding Muslims. To further highlight the lack of credibility of a leading gun control advocate like Diane Feinstein, I am going to let this simple picture do the work: We wouldn't consider someone to be an authority on automotive repair if this person couldn't demonstrate basic familiarity with the tools, engine components, etc. We wouldn't consider someone to be an authority on medicine if this person continually botched basic physiological terminology or facts and figures on the issue at hand. Why should I consider someone in politics or in the media an expert on firearms when he/she can't even get the basic facts right in spite of having access to the basic information for a number of years? I have long held that many people targeted by fatuous, anti-gun propaganda do not have their own opinions on firearms. "Saving lives" is a pretty bold term. Actually enforcing existing legislation is one thing, but going further from that with things like "high capacity" bans? It hasn't been definitively proven that the original ban on "assault weapons" in the USA (1994-2004) had such an effect. Additionally, "high capacity" magazines are being used by Swiss and Czech civilians with no major ill effects. I am pleased to see that more LGBT people have been choosing to obtain firearms for self-defense as of late.
So we agree on this. It's not about stopping it, as I said. It's about making it more difficult. For what you state, it requires work and practice. But your solution is because there is a more difficult workaround, let's just do nothing? Again, we agree. I don't know where the line is, I didn't say it would be easy. But it should not be ignored. Yes, the media is biased. Panic sells and gets ratings. Like people wanting guns, you won't change that. My focus of my statement is in forums like this. Too many times I see a discussion dissolve into pages of "Clip vs. Magazine" which when it gets down to it is completely asinine. You give Americans too much credit here. Many people think of Jenny McCarthy as an expert on vaccinations. In your first statement, you said ""High capacity" magazines are available to civilians outside of the USA, e.g. Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Neither of those two countries have the level of mass shootings (or gun homicides in general) as the United States. That in itself indicates that some other factor is the issue in the United States." Now you are using those two countries as an equal in this statement. Which is it? What does a ban on assault weapons have to do with high capacity magazines? Just because it hasn't been proven doesn't mean it won't work. We just haven't tried. That's counter productive - I'm not going to do X because X hasn't been proven. How do you prove X without ever testing or trying X? I do not believe that more guns is the answer. http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ http://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/total-number-of-incidents We're doing a good enough job shooting people already. We want to make these numbers go down, not up.
Anyone who has spent time at a gun range knows that even inexperienced shooters can reload a firearm in two seconds or less. We're not talking about some severe learning curve here. And the video clip I posted showed the difference can be as little as half a second. Your claim about it being "more difficult" doesn't seem to have anything serious reinforcing it. If I recall correctly, until the Orlando incident, Seung-Hui Cho was responsible for the worst mass shooting in US history. He was armed with handguns and magazines holding half or less than what was used in Orlando. He didn't seem to have any serious difficulty killing more than than other shooters using "assault weapons" in the past. The claim of "doing nothing" is a classic straw man fallacy. I have repeatedly called for addressing poverty, instating genuine universal healthcare in the United States, addressing income inequality, etc. I don't expect either of the two main parties to make any serious efforts to do such things. I do expect them to continue with finding scapegoats, though, whether these scapegoats be Hispanics, Muslims, or firearms. It shouldn't be ignored, but at the same time, I am not going to trust the current crop of "experts" in the media or on Capitol Hill to be reasonable regarding this. I haven't been reducing things to something like the difference between a clip and a magazine. Tarring and feathering an entire group of people isn't doing your argument any favors here. This wouldn't be fundamentally different from painting all Muslims with the "terrorist" brush. The original ban on "assault weapons" in the United States (1994-2004) also banned magazines with a capacity exceeding ten rounds; the calls for reinstating such a ban in fact go hand-in-hand with magazine capacity. And no matter how one tries to look at things, the evidence at hand is not showing any clear-cut relationship between "high capacity" magazines and mass shootings (most mass shootings are actually committed with handguns) You are also shifting the burden of proof here. Are we now dealing with an insinuation that guns themselves are somehow a problem? It doesn't seem to square with recent facts. Let us also take a look at this long-term decline - this decline continued after the proliferation of concealed carry and the expiration of the ban on "assault weapons."
I understand that you consider this to be reasonable, but you have to understand how much law-abiding gun owners have already given up in the name of public safety. This actually demonstrates what I mean better than I'd be able to word it.
