The Right to Carry a Gun

BigRedBuster said:
Whatever it would take to be at the level other countries are at with gun violence. 
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Man, I don't know.

I suppose we could do things like...having an unregistered (is that the term) gun = execution

Having your gun get into the hands of another person = 25 years in prison 

Committing any crime with a gun = execution

Selling a gun to a person that has committed a crime = 100 years in prison (I honestly have no clue who can or can't buy guns so again, just tossing out ideas here.  I don't know if people with records can buy guns)

I would imagine they would have to be really harsh.

 
teachercd said:
Man, I don't know.

I suppose we could do things like...having an unregistered (is that the term) gun = execution

Having your gun get into the hands of another person = 25 years in prison 

Committing any crime with a gun = execution

Selling a gun to a person that has committed a crime = 100 years in prison (I honestly have no clue who can or can't buy guns so again, just tossing out ideas here.  I don't know if people with records can buy guns)

I would imagine they would have to be really harsh.
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Question ....

Why focus on punishment for these crimes instead of curbing the availability for people to obtain the weapon in the first place?   Execution, jail, etc has not been a deterent thus far obviously.  I appreciate your opinion that something has to be done, but I'd add these laws to making guns unavailable to all comers now.

I just struggle with the punishment after the fact rather than doing something to stop abuse in advance.

 
NM11046 said:
Question ....

Why focus on punishment for these crimes instead of curbing the availability for people to obtain the weapon in the first place?   Execution, jail, etc has not been a deterent thus far obviously.  I appreciate your opinion that something has to be done, but I'd add these laws to making guns unavailable to all comers now.

I just struggle with the punishment after the fact rather than doing something to stop abuse in advance.
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I agree, let me start with this.

First, it is a deterrent to me and many others.  For instance, I speed right now when I drive, not crazy but I speed.  If the penalty was death or losing a hand or jail for 25 years...I would not speed.  But clearly deterrents do not work for everyone, we know that.  

As far as laws, I am fine with making it harder to get a gun, in reality, I think that since it it our "right" to have guns...we are looking at it the wrong way...the laws should be written around bullets.  Bullets should cost 1000% times what they do now.  Making your own bullets should be punishable by death, buying bullets should take 60 days with only things like "birdshot", available the same day (I think that is what it is called, I guess it isn't all that strong after like 100 yards).  I go with this route because I know lots of people (one is a great friend) that buy guns but just LOVE guns, they never even load them, they don't ever shoot them.  So let people have their guns and make bullets a scarce a$$ thing.  I bet a lot of our gun lovers on this board don't shoot over 100 bullets a year (I may be way off on that).  Or, for those that like target shooting, they can buy bullets at the range for cheap and have to use them on site.

Look, these are all stupid ideas that I have but I am just spitballing.  Stopping it ahead of time would be great. 

 
There's got to be a way to prevent people with a history of mental illness from possessing firearms. Will it work 100% of the time no but this guy at the texas church had been committed to a mental hospital before and been convicted of crimes involving the use of firearms.

I don't know exactly how you would do it but with the technology today there's a lot more the government needs to do. Make private firearm sales go through some sort of middle man like a person with an ffl. Make universal back ground checks mandatory and have them include medical records.

Im 100% for law abiding citizens that aren't crazy being able to own just about any gun they want but something has to be done to prevent criminals and the mentally disturbed from getting their hands on guns.

 
getting ready for church 

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knapplc said:
There are mentally ill people all over the world.

There aren't gun massacres all over the world.

It's not mental illness. Stop believing the propaganda.
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But it’s not as easy for mentally ill people to get guns in other countries.

Dont get me wrong (either side), I don’t have any answers. But there are a couple things I know and believe.

1- Anyone who commits these gun crimes has something wrong with them. Mental illness, lack of respect for human life, something.....and it’s not normal. Guns seem to be the weapon of choice and definitely can contribute to a higher toll but guns themselves are not the core problem.

2- Responsible law abiding citizens who have guns are not the problem. As soon as a person crosses that line and commits one of these mass shootings they cannot be counted in the responsible law abiding citizen category.

I think the problem could definitely be lessened by having fewer guns in circulation and I also think it should be tougher to acquire guns. Maybe it should be treated as a privilege more than a “right” and maybe potential gun owners should be required to prove proficiency, responsibility and a real need or purpose for the gun they want to acquire. But I firmly believe guns themselves are not the problem. They are an inanimate object that will only hurt others when in the wrong hands. I just don’t know how far we have to go or what exactly we need to do to keep them out of the wrong hands. The only thing I know is that we have to do more than we are because what we are doing is not working. I’d sure like to see more focus on the people problem rather than the object problem. I just wish the solution(s) were more obvious and that fewer people were opposed to doing anything because of some stupid crap written in a 240 year old document.

 
RedDenver said:
Do mentally ill people have telekinesis or something that allows them to endanger hundreds of lives?
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Are gun murders the only type of murders happening in this country?  Last I checked, they aren't.  It's possible to understand that gun laws need fixing AND understand that if we didn't breed nut job after nut job, gun control wouldn't be the problem it is today.

knapplc said:
There are mentally ill people all over the world.

There aren't gun massacres all over the world.

It's not mental illness. Stop believing the propaganda.
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Yes there are.

Not as many, no.  But they do happen, we just have the most.  Not solely because of the gun laws but also because of the insane population.

It's both, stop only pushing one narrative.

 
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JJ Husker said:
But it’s not as easy for mentally ill people to get guns in other countries.

Dont get me wrong (either side), I don’t have any answers. But there are a couple things I know and believe.

1- Anyone who commits these gun crimes has something wrong with them. Mental illness, lack of respect for human life, something.....and it’s not normal. Guns seem to be the weapon of choice and definitely can contribute to a higher toll but guns themselves are not the core problem.

2- Responsible law abiding citizens who have guns are not the problem. As soon as a person crosses that line and commits one of these mass shootings they cannot be counted in the responsible law abiding citizen category.

I think the problem could definitely be lessened by having fewer guns in circulation and I also think it should be tougher to acquire guns. Maybe it should be treated as a privilege more than a “right” and maybe potential gun owners should be required to prove proficiency, responsibility and a real need or purpose for the gun they want to acquire. But I firmly believe guns themselves are not the problem. They are an inanimate object that will only hurt others when in the wrong hands. I just don’t know how far we have to go or what exactly we need to do to keep them out of the wrong hands. The only thing I know is that we have to do more than we are because what we are doing is not working. I’d sure like to see more focus on the people problem rather than the object problem. I just wish the solution(s) were more obvious and that fewer people were opposed to doing anything because of some stupid crap written in a 240 year old document.
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America has a culture that hero-worships the gun-wielding strong man. From way back in the 30s with the advent of the Western movies, through John Wayne, Dirty Harry, Die Hard, the Terminator, Han Solo, The Matrix... It's a massive list. 

Mental illness is not the problem. It's the glorification of guns and the fact that they are so readily available. 

The claim that you have to be mentally ill to commit these crimes is wrong on its face and we all know it, because we've all experienced road rage. Sane, rational people get frustrated and act out. If there's a gun at hand, boom! You're a statistic.

 
knapplc said:
America has a culture that hero-worships the gun-wielding strong man. From way back in the 30s with the advent of the Western movies, through John Wayne, Dirty Harry, Die Hard, the Terminator, Han Solo, The Matrix... It's a massive list. 

Mental illness is not the problem. It's the glorification of guns and the fact that they are so readily available. 

The claim that you have to be mentally ill to commit these crimes is wrong on its face and we all know it, because we've all experienced road rage. Sane, rational people get frustrated and act out. If there's a gun at hand, boom! You're a statistic.
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Did you just equate road rage with someone who would prepare and load multiple guns, put on full body armor and walk into a theatre/school/mall and start shooting? Either you don't understand the problem or you're trying too hard to make it fit inside your narrative box.

Do you really believe these mass shooters don't have mental problems, that they just instantly snapped and had guns at the ready? I don't think you believe that because you're smarter than that.

Where we can agree is that it's entirely too easy to get guns and that virtually anyone can get one with little effort. But the core problem of mass shootings is not hero/gun worship. Certainly that plays into the aversion of adopting sensible gun laws but it has nothing to do with the person who commits the crime. I'm not saying mental illness is the only problem but it has to be near the top of a list that also contains hopelessness, irrational anger, bad parenting and failure to properly educate.

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Look at it this way. We’ve all experienced road rage, depression, frustration, anger, hopelessness, a pretty wide and full gamut of emotions and situations and we all have ready access to guns and we all live in this hero/gun worshipping society. But how many people have we killed? How many of us have shot even one person let alone multiples?

There is something happening in the minds of the people who react this way. And there is something we as a society are doing that is contributing to these people not being able to deal properly with their lives.

 
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My early life and work has carried me to areas of high crime, most of those crimes being gun violence.  I've known quite well many offenders.  I still visit two of them in state pens here in the midwest.   Trying to count all that I have known who have used guns illegally it looks to be about 78 or 79 over a period of the fifty some years of my 74 years being alive. 

I carry a gun everywhere I go that is legal to do so.  No.  Not because I fear those people.  The reasons I carry have a lot less to do with those people than with the ordinary people who drink and lose it, smoke and lose it, see a tailgater in their mirror and lose it, etc ad infinitum.  I'm a calm person by nature, and even more calm when I carry as I adhere to principles brought out in my MP military training and much more recently in my Concealed Carry Permit class here in Nebraska.  I, like almost all responsible gun carriers, react kindly to perceived slights or traffic potential hassles;  it would take a true life and death situation by another person for me to even think of my gun out there. 

"Mental illness" is a HUGE net that covers almost every human on Earth at some point in their lives, and some for most of their lives.  It's not a perfect indicator of who should have access to firearms (or sharp objects, or hammers, or eye drops).  Background checks help a bit with those who have already drawn attention to themselves by committing domestic violence or other violet crimes.  Those checks can fail, of course, due to overlload and time requirements on the FBI and other involved agencies. 

Is there any course of action that could stem gun violence in the U.S.?  In some countries it's about disallowing firearms to various degrees, some even not allowed at all.  And some countries with little to no restrictions have very low gun crime, such as some Scandinavian countries.  For us it has to be education.  I feel that the NRA has it right when it comes to that.  I part company with them, though, on their scorched Earth approach to fending off all gun laws, that's just crazy.  We obviously need gun laws.  But we have to be clever. 

I  think it's very much about culture and how the country was born.  Here in the U.S. it was about violent revolution, and several violent domestic wars over the past two and a half centuries (think it has been just the Revolutionary War and then the Civil War?   Nope:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_the_United_States).Guns are a big part of what shaped us and it has been often and it has been engrained in our being as Americans. 

I like the approach of permitted concealed carry, with classes, but I feel those classes should be longer and with more teaching on the responsibilities and mindset of a gun carrier.  I also think that those same classes should be required for the purchase of guns, not just for carry. 

 
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