Gun Control

[J T]

Also...

[Jrecee]

And how do you all suggest we do this "people control"?

My specialty is in suicide prevention and the first thing you want to do in helping a suicidal persons is to remove their means of harming themselves. You can then work on all the other stuff to help them develop a life worth living, but a suicidally depressed person who keeps a firearm in the house is pretty much like having an alcoholic who keeps beer in the fridge.

People are bringing up that there are lots of ways to kill a person (whether that be yourself or someone else), which is true, but there are few ways of killing that are as widely understood and as easy to do as pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger. It's just easier than other methods and more likely to come to mind. While it's true that the truly determined and creatively minded individual can come up with a variety of ways to end life, many homicides and suicides are done more "in the heat of the moment" in a more impulsive manner. A lot of people ruminate about suicide or homicide, but they only have brief moments when they feel the urge to act on those thoughts and if they don't have easy access to a firearm in those moments, then the urge will subside and noone will be killed.

I'm not necessarily advocating for banning firearms. I just want to make sure that we are honest about the dangers of firearm ownership and how deadly incidents with them often play out (the recent Batman movie shooting is a bit unusual because these things are not often so planned out and random at the same time). That being said, I do think gun control is necessary at a minimum.

I agree, but. . .

Well it's just a but. Because there's no right answer here. The shooter's weapons were all legally attained. If weapons were banned, he would have had a harder time getting them. Could he still have? Yes. Is it as likely that the shooting would have occured? No, of course not. The beer analogy is correct. If an alcoholic has easy access to beer, theres a better chance he'll use it. Strict gun control COULD have stopped the tragedy, if you don't accept that you're lying. In the end, this is the price we pay for the freedoms we have.

[Luke]

And how do you all suggest we do this "people control"?

Psychological shock collars or an army of "Naughty Zoots".

[Menegrothx]

By the way, are there any other laws in the United States that are in conflict with the constitution that are not related to guns? Freedom of speech and religion, all that stuff. I personally think it's a good idea that people cant carry guns with them before they've been trained to do so and background checked (in 2012 urban America, not in 1800s rural America) nor do I think it's terribly Orwellian if the government knows who owns guns. Some minor details like that (2 day waiting perioids?! prepostreous!!!) aren't really a threat to freedom in my eyes and it could make an actual impact in the level of gun violence and shooting incidents, but I can see why some Americans would oppose even regulations like that given how the constitution goes.
But is it hypocritical cherry picking on their part? Are there a myriad of other laws that disregard the constitution, or are gun laws really the only laws directly violating the constitution? I mean the government already controls so many aspects of our life in the name of common safety - even in USA. Like what kind of chemicals you can dump into nature and water, a blind person cant fly a plane or get a driver's lisence, you cant build a house that is hazardous to people living around you and so on. The goverment controls that stuff so morons and assholes wouldn't kill themselves, and more importantly, innocent people around them. While many of those regulations would've been prepostreous back in 1787, they make sense in modern world.

Basing on all the weird news I've read about the United States, it really does not seem to be the land of ultimate freedom. I doubt that SOPA, draft (when attacking other countries rather than fighting a defensive war), all the stupid intrusive religious zealotry and putting people in jail for smoking cannabis is what the forefathers had in their minds when envisioning the constitution and how the country would end up being. I'll admit that I've never read the constitution, but it just seems logical to me that gun laws would not be the only law violating the constitution.

The forefathers of USA were really intelligent men and had incredible foresight. It's a shame if people only care about what the said about owning guns.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

-Thomas Jefferson

[MrPopo]

By the way, are there any other laws in the United States that are in conflict with the constitution that are not related to guns? Freedom of speech and religion, all that stuff.

Not sure about any laws, but the general decision of the Supreme Court that obscene material is not covered under the First Amendment seems like a pretty big one. Fortunately the definition of obscene is entirely nebulous.

Also, that Thomas Jefferson quote, I'm not sure why you brought it up. He's not talking about banks like we have that were involved in a financial meltdown a couple years ago. He specifically called out banks issuing currency. Last I checked private banks still can't issue currency.

[J T]

This comic captures a lot of the problems with the argument that we should control the people rather than the access to firearms.



Sidenote: I would really like to change this about the mental healthcare system personally. It is prohibitively expensive and time consuming. I actually have some ideas about how to design low-level therapy with interactive therapy "videogames" for those that can't afford the full level therapy package, or at least serve as a kind of "demo" for what real therapy could be. That's kind of my big dream for how I'd like to add to the psychology field. Well, that's the realistic big dream anyway. The REAL big dream is to offer something as good or better than traditional therapy, but that can be delivered via a duplicatable electronic software package. I'm not yet sure if that's possible though.

[MrPopo]

The REAL big dream is to offer something as good or better than traditional therapy, but that can be delivered via a duplicatable electronic software package. I'm not yet sure if that's possible though.

Can't you just take those chat bots that pretend to be real people and have them occasionally say things like "Tell me about your mother"?

[Forlorn Drifter]

The forefathers of USA were really intelligent men and had incredible foresight. It's a shame if people only care about what the said about owning guns.

I get what you're saying about how the government does unconstitutional things all the time. They do. But, there are many things of that sort which I do believe need to be done, while others seem a little pushy to me.

And as smart as our forefathers were, they had their problems. Look at Andrew Jackson. By how many people view the US in this day and age, Andrew Jackson would have fit in quite well with the 'drunk redneck' stereotype.

Just to note, I think people get more touchy about gun control because they view it as the last line of defense. A lot of totalitarian governments take away guns. In many peoples eyes, its harder to stop someone with guns when you yourself don't have guns.

[dreamcups]

This is why guns need to be abolished.

Unfortunately that won't help. Even if somehow that could be done (which it can't), psychopaths would just use home-made pipe bombs, knives, bows and arrows, sledgehammers, golf clubs, or (...)

Ok, but by now, the biggest massacres have been made with fire guns, so, i guess we have considerable reasons to take care of the guns. At least, i think it will be better than not doing nothing at all.

[ZeroAX]

So your constitution hasn't been rewritten in 200 years? :S