For starters, I’m not a scientist or a doctor and I have no authority to call myself an expert on the topic, but I do know a bit about guns, their use, and their history. I’m also certain I’ve missed some things, so maybe @kasaron , @russdom , or anyone else would like to add on.
Alright, so this has been floating around and I’m afraid it’s time for it to be addressed. I’m probably going to miss some stuff but that’s kind of to be expected at this point.
Starting with Counterargument B:
This is fair. Almost. Except sorta kinda not at all. So the right to bear arms has always been intended for the entire populace, or at least all able-bodied men from the age of 17-65 as defined by the recently updated (at the time) definition of a militia, as the understanding that it did mean the populace became popular in the late 1600s. It became popular as such because this was during one of the many French revolutions where it was the people against the government, and the armed citizens were fighting back for their rights to exist and redistribute wealth from the greedy bougoise. While yes, Justice Scalia was a member of the supreme Court and his and their jobs are to interpret the Constitution, this understanding of what the word militia means and it’s relation to the second amendment is and has been grossly misinterpreted.
In addition to that, dangerous and unusual firearms, such as machine guns, excessively powerful firearms (20mm+), explosive devices and all sorts of assorted ‘launchers’ have already been banned or are otherwise heavily regulated, and they stopped there for a reason. Probably because semi-automatic firearms aren’t as big of a threat as you believe.
You’re right, it is an argument against laws, since the fundamental reason that we were allowed guns in the first place was to resist unfair laws. That aside, let’s do some basic math. Let’s say that there are 300 million firearms currently owned by law abiding citizens within the United States. Given that our government has had several quite public incidents about the “Fast and Furious” gun running program along our Southern Border we know that there are a massive amount of firearms that are in the hands of non-law abiding citizens. We’ll call them criminals for short. Let’s assume that there are 100,000,000 illegal firearms floating around the US. So if all goes exactly to plan and the 300,000,000 guns are melted down and turned into another murdercube, you still have a hundred million firearms floating around and being used on a totally defenseless populace. You know what that looks like? Do a quick Google search of Mexico’s Mass Graves or Brazil’s Gun Cache Discoveries. What to both of these countries have in common? Incredibly strict gun laws.
We face criminals on a daily basis, and on that daily basis, more of us and them are killed. Chicago, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles and St. Louis can tell you that it’s just another day to day thing. The thing is, the criminals are almost always armed, and the victims usually never are. But taking all of our (law abiding citizens) guns is going to make things better, right?
The difference between firearms and weaponized fertilizer is that firearms are already incredibly common and relatively easily available. It’s easy to ban something that no one has, since they never get it in the first place. It’s a lot harder to ban something that people can make in their garage.
Did you actually Google the mass stabbing and their numbers or are you just saying that because you didn’t care to do your research? Semigahara Japan, 19 killed, 26 injured. Kunming China, 29 dead. Akihabara Japan, 7 dead, 10 injured. Anne Anne Kindergarten in Hong Kong, 6 dead, 38 injured. Cairns Australia, 8 dead. Har Nof Jerusalem, 6 dead, 7 injured. London Bridge London, 8 dead, 48 injured. Ikeda Japan, 8 dead, 15 injured. Thane India, 14 dead, 1 injured.
Hmm. That’s a lot of people for a knife to kill, right? No wonder why GB is so scared of knives that they have knife turn in bins.
It’s a numbers game, not a trust game. If you hire a security contractor to secure your building, their job is to make sure the officers they are sending you have been properly vetted and screened according to US and State Government standards. If there is a discrepancy and the officers are not properly vetted, the blame falls in the hands of the company and/or the institution responsible for giving that person their certificate. Arming security guards better is about having a numerical and strategic overmatch should something happen. For example, if you have a team of five security guards, the odds are at least one of them will hear the gunshots used to dispatch the first. Knowing there is a threat is the first step to eliminating it.
“Mental Illness” is a very… General term. I think if you want to make a stronger point here, you should consult the mental health of the country. You know, the mental health of the country that has been through and continues to go through every form of -ism. Racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, heterophobia, the list goes on. Not to mention we, as a people, are daily lambasted with information about how the world hates us, how we hate each other, how our government is in disarray. We get news updates on the latest gossip in Hollywood like it’s a religion, and look up to actors who are paid their weight in gold to set poor role models for an impressionable populace. People are dazed, and confused, and afraid of everything. Mental Illness and mental health are very closely related, but you can’t talk about one without at least considering the other. Yes, ‘Mentally Ill’ people are generally less likely to commit a violent crime opposed to the average citizen, up until the average citizen realizes that they are not actually ok, and are afraid/angry/panicked/vengeful, pushing them across the line to “mentally unhealthy”. That can take days, or minutes. Seconds even. That’s why everyone is so caught off guard when someone finally snaps. We live in a scary world, and there’s a lot of pressure on us all right now.
Not gonna touch this, religion was separated from government for a reason.
Vietnam. Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen. How many of these places are we still fighting? How many of those enemies are/were underequipped and undersupplied? How many of them continue to fight anyway?
History Lesson! What happened in Germany in the years preceding the Big Number 2? Take a wild guess.
Considering how much worry there is about how our nation’s police forces are corrupt and racist and hateful, about how our government is tyrannical and oppresses thousands, and the current neonazi debacle, maybe you might want to rethink that one?
I know this defense of firearms is going to be seen as a blatant attack on the safety of the nation and the people within it, but I’d like to put a few things on the table.
I hate mass shootings, and mass shooters. They are terrible, horrible things that don’t have any place in this world. I agree that our country has a problem with mass shootings, and that we as a nation need to take steps towards helping this problem.
But as so many people have said before, if an arsonist burns your house down, do we blame the fire?
So then what, we blame the people who commit all these mass shootings? Well, yeah, duh, that’s how our laws are supposed to work.
Before that? There’s NO surefire way to tell who is going to snap at any given moment. People are way too complicated for that. And we can’t hope to do it for a populace this large.
Instead we should look towards our country and our society for the help that we need. We blame the mentally I’ll because they tell us to blame the people, but don’t realize that the whole reason why people snap like this is because they are being largely ignored.
When was the last time that anyone proposed better councilors in schools? Or a better mental health program for school institutions? People are mentally healthy until they aren’t anymore, and theres not going to be any way to tell when until we have a way of keeping a caring eye on the places and people this is most relevant.
We had two councilors in my high school. One was there for you to talk to, the other was there to get you into college.
The student health councilor was underfunded and given no real authority to speak to the students about their mental health, or outside matters that affected them. I didn’t go to a very large school, but that’s still a load of hundreds of students for one person to reach out to. I know there were days when I was emotionally or mentally distraught and I couldn’t go to see the councilor because they were either busy or out of office, handling more important matters. I was luckily able to work with my problems outside of school, but not everyone is so lucky.
Our country is sick, and getting rid of our immune system isn’t going to make us better. Taking the time to understand this mental and emotional sickness is going to go a lot further than just a rushed ban.
