If only there was something we could do...

[SumJongGuy]

Universal Healthcare/Medicare for All sold solve most of these psychological health documentation concerns. Just make anual psych evaluations a requirement for carry permits or to own semi auto weapons. No longer an "infringement"/barrier if it's free to all.

[jackstraw]

I said it was a dark thought.
I'm an addict in recovery and lean libertarian.

If I chose to continue drinking until I was shittng on your property, breaking into your car to fund my addiction, go ahead and put me out of my misery.

Many, if not most, homeless have underlying mental issues. Some just have a very low IQ and cannot function in life and have no family support. Drug or alcohol addiction may be a way of running from any number of those underlying issues or maybe that is the prominent issue. Either way their intention is not to be homeless. Nobody in their right mind chooses to be homeless. Therefore it's a societal problem that we tend to ignore because it's difficult.

[TBS]

Probably a good start would have been to simply put a fence around these people and escort them straight to the pokey:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/acride...57712757349667

Wonder what’s gonna happen once more POCs start forming into malitias for protection?

Their leader is doing seven years for pointing a firearm at an FBI agent.



https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit.../para/nfac.htm

[TBS]

Maybe just exclude everyone over 50. I mean, what kind aid half-assed militia would be recruiting geezers? (No offense to 90% of the people on here .)

You realize that 80% of US Army enlisted recruits fail the basic physical fitness test…

[californiagrown]

You realize that 80% of US Army enlisted recruits fail the basic physical fitness test…

Haha yeah. And they had to lower standards recently i believe to keep up numbers. Sad isnt it?


Aren't many 2A folks justifying the 2A because they want to be able to fight a tyrannical government? Why would they be OK being in worse physical shape than the folks they plan to fight? Especially as they will be at a severe logistical, technological, and big arms disadvantage requiring a guerilla style of warfare heavily reliant on moving quickly. Lets get these militias well regulated already! no more slack-jawed fatties playing tacticool gravy seal... if you want the guns, its not just dressup anymore. Dont just talk about it, be about it!

[J. Barron DeJong]

You realize that 80% of US Army enlisted recruits fail the basic physical fitness test…

Great! We’re really winnowing down the number of people who will be able to own anything other than a hunting rifle or shotgun.

[byates1]

Many, if not most, homeless have underlying mental issues. Some just have a very low IQ and cannot function in life and have no family support. Drug or alcohol addiction may be a way of running from any number of those underlying issues or maybe that is the prominent issue. Either way their intention is not to be homeless. Nobody in their right mind chooses to be homeless. Therefore it's a societal problem that we tend to ignore because it's difficult.

Mostly agreed. Another close to impossible problem to solve.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Mostly agreed. Another close to impossible problem to solve.

There is nothing impossible about solving the gun problem. Literally every other developed country has it solved (at least in comparison to the US problem.)

The problem is not what is possible, it’s what is desired.

[Cisco Kid]

In 1954 getting a descent job as a black man was impossible. In 1964, going to the moon was impossible. NOTHING is impossible.

Honorable mentions to Seward's Folly and Clintons Ditch.

[SumJongGuy]

Neither the 2nd Amendment nor the 4th Article of Confederation it was derived from had anything to do with American Central Government Tyranny against us citizens or the need to arm ourselves to fight the US Federal government if needed.. It was about DEFENDING AMERICA from FORIEGN TYRANNY.. AKA King George.. It was to allow state militias to remain combat ready and grant the union leadership (AKA our federal government) the authority to call them up in times of conflict.

This guy gets. it.. Ignore it of you are afraid of actual American history. SCOTUS totally ignored this when ruling on Hellier in 2009

I've shared this at least three times and nobody has commented a word about it.

[californiagrown]

Neither the 2nd Amendment nor the 4th Article of Confederation it was derived from had anything to do with American Central Government Tyranny against us citizens or the need to arm ourselves to fight the US Federal government if needed.. It was about DEFENDING AMERICA from FORIEGN TYRANNY.. AKA King George.. It was to allow state militias to remain combat ready and grant the union leadership (AKA our federal government) the authority to call them up in times of conflict.

This guy gets. it.. Ignore it of you are afraid of actual American history. SCOTUS totally ignored this when ruling on Hellier in 2009

I've shared this at least three times and nobody has commented a word about it.

So the 2A is about defending your fellow patriots against a foreign tryanical adversary. Why would 2A supporters be OK being in worse physical shape than the folks they plan to fight? Especially as they will be at a severe logistical, technological, and big arms disadvantage requiring a guerilla style of warfare heavily reliant on moving quickly. Lets get these militias well regulated already! no more slack-jawed fatties playing tacticool gravy seal... if you want the guns, its not just dressup anymore. Dont just talk about it, be about it!

[mcski]

From Historian Heather Cox Richardson:

“May 6, 2023 (Saturday)

For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution, on which modern-day arguments for widespread gun ownership rest, is one simple sentence: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” There’s not a lot to go on about what the Framers meant, although in their day, to “bear arms” meant to be part of an organized militia.

As the Tennessee Supreme Court wrote in 1840, “A man in the pursuit of deer, elk, and buffaloes might carry his rifle every day for forty years, and yet it would never be said of him that he had borne arms; much less could it be said that a private citizen bears arms because he has a dirk or pistol concealed under his clothes, or a spear in a cane.”

Today’s insistence that the Second Amendment gives individuals a broad right to own guns comes from two places.

One is the establishment of the National Rifle Association in New York in 1871, in part to improve the marksmanship skills of American citizens who might be called on to fight in another war, and in part to promote in America the British sport of elite shooting, complete with hefty cash prizes in newly organized tournaments. Just a decade after the Civil War, veterans jumped at the chance to hone their former skills. Rifle clubs sprang up across the nation.

By the 1920s, rifle shooting was a popular American sport. “Riflemen” competed in the Olympics, in colleges, and in local, state, and national tournaments organized by the NRA. Being a good marksman was a source of pride, mentioned in public biographies, like being a good golfer. In 1925, when the secretary of the NRA apparently took money from ammunition and arms manufacturers, the organization tossed him out and sued him.

NRA officers insisted on the right of citizens to own rifles and handguns but worked hard to distinguish between law-abiding citizens who should have access to guns for hunting and target shooting and protection, and criminals and mentally ill people, who should not. In 1931, amid fears of bootlegger gangs, the NRA backed federal legislation to limit concealed weapons; prevent possession by criminals, the mentally ill and children; to require all dealers to be licensed; and to require background checks before delivery. It backed the 1934 National Firearms Act, and parts of the 1968 Gun Control Act, designed to stop what seemed to be America’s hurtle toward violence in that turbulent decade.

But in the mid-1970s a faction in the NRA forced the organization away from sports and toward opposing “gun control.” It formed a political action committee (PAC) in 1975, and two years later it elected an organization president who abandoned sporting culture and focused instead on “gun rights.”

This was the second thing that led us to where we are today: leaders of the NRA embraced the politics of Movement Conservatism, the political movement that rose to combat the business regulations and social welfare programs that both Democrats and Republicans embraced after World War II.

Movement Conservatives embraced the myth of the American cowboy as a white man standing against the “socialism” of the federal government as it sought to level the economic playing field between Black Americans and their white neighbors.

Leaders like Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater personified the American cowboy, with his cowboy hat and opposition to government regulation, while television Westerns showed good guys putting down bad guys without the interference of the government.

In 1972 the Republican platform had called for gun control to restrict the sale of “cheap handguns,” but in 1975, as he geared up to challenge President Gerald R. Ford for the 1976 presidential nomination, Movement Conservative hero Ronald Reagan took a stand against gun control. In 1980, the Republican platform opposed the federal registration of firearms, and the NRA endorsed a presidential candidate—Reagan—for the first time.

When President Reagan took office, a new American era, dominated by Movement Conservatives, began. And the power of the NRA over American politics grew.

In 1981 a gunman trying to kill Reagan shot and paralyzed his press secretary, James Brady, and wounded Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and police officer Thomas Delahanty. After the shooting, then-representative Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced legislation that became known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, or the Brady Bill, to require background checks before gun purchases. Reagan, who was a member of the NRA, endorsed the bill, but the NRA spent millions of dollars to defeat it.

After the Brady Bill passed in 1993, the NRA paid for lawsuits in nine states to strike it down. Until 1959, every single legal article on the Second Amendment concluded that it was not intended to guarantee individuals the right to own a gun. But in the 1970s, legal scholars funded by the NRA had begun to argue that the Second Amendment did exactly that.

In 1997, when the Brady Bill cases came before the Supreme Court as Printz v. United States, the Supreme Court declared parts of the measure unconstitutional.

Now a player in national politics, the NRA was awash in money from gun and ammunition manufacturers. By 2000 it was one of the three most powerful lobbies in Washington. It spent more than $40 million on the 2008 election. In that year, the landmark Supreme Court decision of District of Columbia v. Heller struck down gun regulations and declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms.

Increasingly, NRA money backed Republican candidates. In 2012 the NRA spent $9 million in the presidential election, and in 2014 it spent $13 million. Then, in 2016, it spent over $50 million on Republican candidates, including more than $30 million on Trump’s effort to win the White House. This money was vital to Trump, since many other Republican super PACs refused to back him. The NRA spent more money on Trump than any other outside group, including the leading Trump super PAC, which spent $20.3 million.

The unfettered right to own and carry weapons has come to symbolize the Republican Party’s ideology of individual liberty. Lawmakers and activists have not been able to overcome Republican insistence on gun rights despite the mass shootings that have risen since their new emphasis on guns.

Tonight, I am, once again, posting yet another version of this article.”

[Ted Striker]

There is nothing impossible about solving the gun or homeless problems. It's that nobody wants to expend the political and/or actual capital.

[skaredshtles]

There is nothing impossible about solving the gun or homeless problems. It's that nobody wants to expend the political and/or actual capital.

This. It's fucking shameful.

[leroy jenkins]

Why not look at both?


Reducing access to particularly capable firearms seems like a REALLY low cost, quick and immediately impactful method to reduce gun violence. Why not take that first step, not as a prerequisite to, but while we figure out how to address and fix the much harder societal ills that lead to gun violence (mental health, poverty, education, generational trauma, etc.)


I mean, i would rather disarm the nutjob and then get him some therapy. But you seem to be arguing to keep the nutjob armed to the teeth while getting him therapy. Thats pretty dumb, IMO.

When have I argued people with mental health problems should be allowed to own firearms? theres already a question on the background test asking if you've been deemed mentally deficient or whatever language they use. They're already prohibited people.

But no one seems to want to talk about anything but just ban guns.

[leroy jenkins]

You don't listen.

This has all been discussed. Almost every poster here would support policies aimed at holistic ways to tackle this problem. Most of them probably vote for politicians and policies that are aimed at addressing many, many of the tangential issues.

People killed by guns have certainly had their rights violated.

Its been discussed in this thread? You got me. Where? Any reason the discussion doesn't continue?

[leroy jenkins]

Sung to the tune of "One Piece at a Time" by J Cash

We'll take'em one gun at a time
One gun at a time
it won't cost us a dime
to stop all the sadness in this fine land


Saying one single action won't stop murders is a stupid rebuttal.

But it looks good on you.

At the begining of this thread I was mocked and assured 'no one is coming for your guns' now you're actually in favor of widespread confiscation? Not arguing, just checking, social barometer and all that.

[leroy jenkins]

I wonder if one of the ultra-pro gun people would like to take a flyer on explicitly detailing who shouldn't be allowed guns?

This is usually expressed from control side exclusively - but I think seeing the pro-gun list would be enlightening.

The list is basically the same for both sides.

The pro gun side just errs on the side of not taking the rights of people who haven't yet committed crimes or been deemed mentally deficient or unstable, while accepting that eventually some will slide through the cracks, while the antis seem to err on the side of taking the rights of people who are never going to be a threat to anyone, just so long as it maybe stops some people who are a threat.

Its the same list though. People with diagnosed mental disorders, maybe not all of them, like the more mild ones, but the ones that make people dangerous. those with violent criminal records, or who are actively making threats of violence. Substance abuse disorders are a grey area and many would say it depends on the substance.

The trick is they have to have already demonstrated these things, and not be a slippery slope into some sort of pre crime.

[SumJongGuy]

From Historian Heather Cox Richardson:

“May 6, 2023 (Saturday)

For years now, after one massacre or another, I have written some version of the same article, explaining that the nation’s current gun free-for-all is not traditional but, rather, is a symptom of the takeover of our nation by a radical extremist minority. The idea that massacres are “the price of freedom,” as right-wing personality Bill O’Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution, on which modern-day arguments for widespread gun ownership rest, is one simple sentence: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” There’s not a lot to go on about what the Framers meant, although in their day, to “bear arms” meant to be part of an organized militia.

”

Plus.... "State" was capitalized... Plus in the original first draft as Article 4 in the Articles of Confederation it said "for the security of a free NATION". The slave states objected to giving FULL ownership of their militias that doubled as slave patrols to the proposed federal entity. They were afraid it could be used as a loophole to take their slaves under guise of a military emergency.

It's all in the discussion with that historian above.. It's complete BULLSHIT that the 2nd A was intended to guarantee INDIVIDUALS uninfringed PERSONAL arsenals. And most people at the highest levels $$$$$KNOW IT$$$$$$

[leroy jenkins]

There is nothing impossible about solving the gun or homeless problems. It's that nobody wants to expend the political and/or actual capital.

Its also just that many things are long term solutions. Just like with the homeless problem, you've got adults who were raised on the streets by homeless single mothers. That is such a fucking leap for those people to try and get jobs and be functional when its literally all they ever knew. So even if we enact really good policies, they might take a generation to take effect, while politicians are really only thinking about things until the next election and anything that isn't a short term solution is just viewed as not a real solution.

Same with gang violence. Many people feel like what, how in the world will more federal funding for education in poor inner city areas stop gang violence? Well, it will reduce it in the long run, but its not just the right that views this stuff as wasteful bleeding heartism.

Regardless of your ideologies, there are many problems our country is facing that just make it inefficient, and unstable in many ways that we should be fixing.

I don't think anyone is going to find those solutions for us, I think its up to the people to put aside the culture war and obviously divisive things, or at least put them on the back burner, and focus on what we actually can create unity and change about. There have to be some things both the left and right can agree on. Neither side really likes the prison industrial complex, the fact we imprison more of our people than any other developed or democratic nation, and do so for profit. It fuels the drug trade and gang violence it doesn't curb it. But we have to form unity and stop fighting each other if we want to exercise power over the people who make money off it and would prefer the situation to not change.

[J. Barron DeJong]

Need a better ignore function on this forum. For someone I’m trying to ignore, Leroy is really taking up a lot of screen real estate.

[SumJongGuy]

Every other problem red herring leroy lists are all REASONS WHY NOBODY SHOULD HAVE SUCH EASY ACCESS (personal, non military or LEO) TO SUCH DEVESTATING WEAPONS. We can do both... reduce access to weapons of mayhem AND treat our marginalized people better. BOTH!

[AK47bp]

It’s all good, just review this helpful training video.

https://youtu.be/TeOdxKozra0

[californiagrown]

When have I argued people with mental health problems should be allowed to own firearms? theres already a question on the background test asking if you've been deemed mentally deficient or whatever language they use. They're already prohibited people.

But no one seems to want to talk about anything but just ban guns.

A guy was deemed too mentally deficient/unstable to be utilized as an instrument of war by our military, but the current gun laws deemed him adequate to own military ready weapons as a civilian (8 total firearms legally). He also had large nazi tattoos. He then shot up a mall parking lot. Seems like something that should would have been caught by halfway sufficient screening/checks, no? Obviously, and you agree, the laws and checks implemented here are insufficient. So lets tighten that up, right here, right now before another nutjob asshole adds to their arsenal.

If another kid was wacking your kid in the head with a skateboard everyday at school, would you want the skateboards made more difficult to access during school hours first, or would you like the kid to have access to counseling first? Its a really simple triage question. Deal with the most serious, acute threat first and then go start addressing the longer term fix. If your boat springs a leak in the middle of the lake are you gonna plug the leak, or are you gonna hop on Craigslist and look for new boats while your boat slowly fills with water? Youre probably gonna plug the leak, get back to shore and then look on CG. Lets do that here. Lets tighten up gun control right now, and then make the necessary societal changes that will hopefully let us get back out on the water soon.

[Mazderati]

It’s all good, just review this helpful training video.

https://youtu.be/TeOdxKozra0

This is something that would be playing in the background as a movie-in-a-movie in something like Robocop.