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comment by tacocat
tacocat  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How would you stop mass shootings?

I'd outlaw guns. Society moves at the pace of its slowest citizens and these fucks have ruined it for the responsible gun owners. That's the simple wildly implausible answer.

Say only outlaws will have guns? Yeah, outlaws with $34,000 lying around to buy what's now a $1,000 Bushmaster. Well, those people are mentally ill. That's the worst sidestep argument. Every country has mentally ill people and in every country it's hard to treat them. I'm mentally ill and it's hard to treat me. I know the system. So is it a coincidence that the country with the most liberal gun laws has the worst gun violence? It's a simple question with a seemingly simple answer but every time this happens the gun people look at every possible answer but guns to try to downplay the involvement of a "tool." It's not a tool, it's a weapon designed to kill things and suggesting otherwise is NRA semantic wordplay.

I'm sorry for people who like guns and can own them responsibly, but in my fantasy land, getting a gun would be like getting a medical cadaver, possible but not easy. Am I taking an extreme point, yes, but when the NRA doesn't even want the kind of rigor that goes into licensing a motor vehicle, pretty much every reform you throw out is well intended fantasy.





elizabeth  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Agreed.

I really like Jim Jeffries's bit where he compares guns to drugs. After all, irresponsible drug users have ruined it for all the responsible cocaine addicts out there! And why would I want drugs legal? Because I like using them, it's as simple as that. I find it's the only valid argument for weapons too.

I would be fine with restricting gun use to shooting ranges and hunting spaces where you would either keep your personnal gun at all times or rent one out.

I'm canadian tho so our gun laws are already more restrictive than in America. Hopefully we won't go further in the direction of liberalising gun ownership like we have been for the last couple years :( Damn conservatives...

WanderingEng  ·  3096 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    it's a weapon designed to kill things

Not only that, but also designed to kill, kill easily, from a distance and with little effort or skill to do so.

gee  ·  3091 days ago  ·  link  ·  

https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/3o7z84/fbis_national_instant_background_check_system/

A lot of the top comments on this thread are pretty good... Please read and consider that outlawing is probably not the right answer in the real world.