Gun Control

knapplc said:
I can think of many non-tyrants who have "taken weapons from the people," and not only have the people not been oppressed, gun violence has gone down and overall people are pretty happy with the situation. 

Removal of guns from society isn't solely the hallmark of tyrants.  Sometimes societies just collectively start acting like adults and make wise decisions.
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You know, most developed countries. 

 
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Ric Flair said:
Background checks can be designed so that only those you approve of can pass them.
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That's a reasonable concern, but we still have the power to vote out those who would create background checks like this and vote in those who would create more reasonable background checks.

 
knapplc said:
I can think of many non-tyrants who have "taken weapons from the people," and not only have the people not been oppressed, gun violence has gone down and overall people are pretty happy with the situation. 

Removal of guns from society isn't solely the hallmark of tyrants.  Sometimes societies just collectively start acting like adults and make wise decisions.
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In Anglo-American history, we have a well-grounded fear of tyranny. The Second Amendment was intended to provide a final check on any potential tyrant’s worst impulses. There is likely some common ground for gun limits. But going the way of a country like Australia simply isn’t going to happen. We have a very different culture here.

I read years ago that one of the reasons the Soviet Union considered an invasion unthinkable was because we have such an armed populace. They foresaw massive casualties from any attempt to conquer us. I always thought that was cool.

 
Ric Flair said:
In Anglo-American history, we have a well-grounded fear of tyranny.
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And yet, the people most vocal about their ideological opposition to tyranny voted in and actively cheer for the closest thing to a tyrant America has had in generations.  Bizarre juxtaposition.

Ric Flair said:
The Second Amendment was intended to provide a final check on any potential tyrant’s worst impulses.
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It was written a decade after we had thrown off the yoke of England, at a time when America had no standing army, and needed an armed citizenry to combat foreign invasion, when the most powerful battlefield weapons were the muzzle-loading cannon and flintlocks.  It is no more relevant to today's America than the 18th Amendment, and like the 18th, should be repealed and replaced.  The wording isn't even sound grammar:  A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.  It was written so poorly that it's been massaged and abused by lawyers and lobbyists to represent something that wasn't even thinkable by the Founding Fathers.

Even if we take your interpretation at face value (for argument's sake only), no American-grown tyrant could be overthrown by the citizens.  I get the impression the gun nutters feel like if the government starts enslaving us, they see their like-minded compatriots banding together to resist and ultimately defeat the "bad guys." 

Problem is, that's impossible. The bad guys would throw the Cliven Bundy's of that insurrection in jail. They would be demolished by radically superior firepower, and any of them who survived their encounter with Apaches & M1s & F21s would be rounded up and carted off to rot in jail as traitors.  Americans cannot, with light arms & a plucky attitude, overthrow the United States government.  Impossible.  Cannot be done.  It can only be done in the ballot box - which is the hallmark of a healthy democracy. 

Rather than fighting to keep & bear arms that are 1,000% irrelevant to the purpose quoted above, you should be fighting tooth & nail to keep Americans' right to vote sacrosanct. Sure, it may not bother you today that gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, poll taxes and such tactics are being wielded right now by local, state & federal governments, but that's because the party you claim is currently doing these things.  But if you grant Republicans the right to do this unchecked, and Democrats rise to power, what will you do to regain the rights you ceded by failing to stand up for your fellow voters?

Ric Flair said:
There is likely some common ground for gun limits.
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Agreed. But we will only find out through reasonable discourse, not through the kind of nonsense provided by our recent, departed friend. Inviting that kind of person to a board like this is the opposite of trying to find common ground. 

Ric Flair said:
But going the way of a country like Australia simply isn’t going to happen.
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Then go the way of France, Germany, England, Sweden, Japan, China, Denmark, Canada, or any other first-world nation that has far fewer guns and far fewer gun deaths than America.  Australia's method isn't the only method, and their answer may not be ours. But every other first-world nation has this figured out.  If we're the best nation in the world, surely our children should be able to attend school without worrying if today is the day a classmate - or a recently expelled classmate, in the case of Parkland - is going to shoot them. 

Something has to wake this country up. The question is, if it isn't Parkland, if it isn't Las Vegas, if it isn't Sandy Hook... what will it take to have a reasonable discussion?

Ric Flair said:
I read years ago that one of the reasons the Soviet Union considered an invasion unthinkable was because we have such an armed populace. They foresaw massive casualties from any attempt to conquer us. I always thought that was cool.
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America had similar fears about invading Japan in World War II.  It's why we crafted so many Purple Heart medals before the invasion that we were still passing them out 50 years later. 

Japan's populace didn't have firearm ownership at remotely the rate America has today, but still they could have  - and would have - resisted invasion.  What makes Americans so weak that we couldn't do the same with or without firearms?

 
Ric Flair said:
I read someplace that the vast majority of these shooters have one thing in common...the lack of a father in the home, their lives, etc. So a lack of morality, breakdown in the family, etc. may have a lot more to do with this than access to firearms.
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Again, we have to jettison this notion that we can't study our societal breakdown and access to firearms at the same time. 

I personally think the elevation of firearms to near religious status is part of the moral breakdown. 

 
Ric Flair said:
I read someplace that the vast majority of these shooters have one thing in common...the lack of a father in the home, their lives, etc. So a lack of morality, breakdown in the family, etc. may have a lot more to do with this than access to firearms.
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I actually kind of agree with you on this . My question when I hear that though is “what is the solution” ? We can’t really make any laws or do much about divorce , bad parenting , video games , morality , etc . We can on the other hand make some changes to gun laws hoping to keep them out of the wrong  hands . 

 
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