School Gun Shootings: Access to Guns or Something Else?

@beckyromero There's an estimated one gun for every American, but only 1/3 of the population owns one, so it would seem we have some neighbors amassing weapons.

@Graylight Thanks. I've always wondered what percentage. One-third is still fairly sizable, especially if you factor out children. And, if so, is it one-third of all adults or one-third of all households?

@beckyromero From CNN (and those with CNN-phobia, these stats exists elsewhere as well): "High quality telephone polls from Gallup and the Pew Research Center in 2017 found that 42% of people in the US live in households with guns. According to the General Social Survey, which has a much higher response rate than telephone polls and interviews people in person, a relatively lower 32% of Americans said in 2016 that they lived in household with guns. The gap between telephone and GSS surveys has existed in some form for 20 years, so it isn't just a one-off difference."

There are no reliable statistics because too many states require to licensure or registration for gun ownership, so it's a best guess situation.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/politics/guns-dont-know-how-many-america/index.html

@QuixoticSoul don’t overexagerate what I say. I’m just saying, there’s no reason to push for harder gun laws or banning them altogether because it won’t help. I mean, you’re also talking to a person who believes all drugs should be legal so I might be a bit too extreme. The only reason to keep murder illegal is so we have an excuse to lock those people away. But pretty much the only laws I believe in is no murder or rape/molestation, and child labor.

@MorbidCynic Of course it helps. And believe it or not deterrence and prevention is a large reason why we have laws to begin with, not simply as an excuse to take collective vengeance.

Ultimately there is no perfect safety, and some people will never be deterred from crime. This doesn't render regulation or enforcement irrelevant. "No murder" is not a realistic goal and never will be - but "less murder" is.

@QuixoticSoul eh whatever. My opinion will remain unchanged as always 😂

@FelixLegion

I do not eat laundry soap and I believe that penises should be prohibited from being in women's bathrooms and locker rooms.

@eli1601 Oh, here comes the village idiot.

@Northwest [quote]1921 Sweden: wrong. https://bit.ly/2kfddWp women's right to vote was ratified in 1919[/quote]

to be practiced for the first time in 1921.

[quote]1931 Spain: Southern European country[/quote]

🤣 Last time I checked it was one of the [b]westernmost[/b]. Unless you count Iceland, but which was in personal union with Denmark at the time. Funny how you want to count countries in Northern Europe as being in Western Europe, but not western European countries because you want to position them in Southern Europe. I suppose you'll say Germany and Austria don't count either because they're in Central Europe.

[quote]1928 Ireland: wrong. https://bit.ly/2rZH4pT Irish women, over the age of 30, were granted the right to vote in 1918.[/quote]

over the age of 30; for the U.S. it was 21 by most state laws. In any case, we still beat them to the punch.

[quote]1944 France: Complicated. At various times, French women voted in local communities, but the national right to vote, was not ratified until 1944.[/quote]

"Complicated"? Things with France usually are. But we were still ahead of them. I assume you're putting France in Western Europe?

[quote]Italy: sort of. Women could vote in local elections since 1924.[/quote]

And what good did even that mean since Mussolini was in power?

[quote]1971 Switzerland: Switzerland is a special case. Due to the complicated Canton system, voting was tied to military service, which was for men only.[/quote]

How convenient. Not even the French made it that complicated.

[quote]1976 Portugal: Southern European country, run by a dictatorship, until 1974.[/quote]

Portugal's even further west than Spain.

🙄

@beckyromero Split some hairs, why don't you, so you can justify, in your mind, the fact that none of this has a thing to do with the topic of thread you started, and that most of the countries you listed are not Western countries. Here's a hint: when women got the right to vote, and when they actually voted, has nothing to do with gun violence. Do you get it now, or do you want to regurgitate more unrelated stuff?

@QuixoticSoul It certainly goes a long way in satisfying the misguided need to become infamous.

@badminton [quote]"A well-regulated militia...[/quote]

The Second Amendment [b]doesn't[/b] say: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

[b]It says[/b]:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, [b]the right of the people[/b] to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

They meant people's right to bear arms THROUGH their state militia. When the Constitution was being written, the framers had to offer a lot of concessions to the states guaranteeing they would have independence over important issues. One of those issues was the right to keep their independent state militia. That's what the 2nd amendment was about.

@badminton [quote]They meant people's right to bear arms THROUGH their state militia.[/quote]

Well, that's disputable at best. Hard to imagine the framers envisioning a Congress that would have banned the rights of people to own firearms. But especially given the tyranny the colonists lived under, why not enshrine it in the Bill of Rights?

@jackson55 "Traning" for teachers like the 4-hour class required to carry a concealed weapon? That's like trying to fly a plane after a day's training.

To be clear, I agree with you about gun bans. Not only does the SCOTUS consider it law of the land right now to have the freedom to own a firearm, but it makes sense for some who truly need one.

But there's a vast chasm between an outright ban and the complete freedom to amass guns with no registration, training or record-keeping. In that chasm, I think, lays an opportunity for sane regulation, much in the same way we regulate vegetables, furniture, cars and even warning labels on towels.

I love guns. I just don't think we should love them to our own destruction.

@Graylight I agree with you on that. Some don't know which is the business end. More training is needed, I agree. Background checks are a joke. All of the latest shootings are from people that should have never gotten their hands on a gun. This latest shooting in Texas should be put right at the feet of the kids parents. The kid should not have been able to get his hands on his dads guns. Background checks would not stop that.

@jackson55 You're the first person I've heard say background checks are insufficient. They are.

Somewhere there's an answer to this issue both sides can live with, but it starts with sane discussion and measured discourse. Maybe when we all try to stop winning the argument for the sake of the argument itself, movement can be made.

@badminton [quote]This is why we need a ban on rifles, shotguns and pistols with large capacity, and detachable magazines.[/quote]

What would [b]YOU[/b] define as "large capacity"?

@badminton Well, this latest one used a shotgun and a revolver. Casualties would have likely been worse had he access to better weapons, though.

@badminton I'm not against stricter background checks but they would have done no good in the Santa Fe shooting. Guns used were legally owned by the father.

@SW-User We need to change the liability laws to hold gun owners liable for reckless misuse such as leaving guns loaded and unsecured in homes or vehicles.

If the shooter's father had locked up his guns in a safe, maybe that lunatic would not have been able to get ahold of them and all those victims would still be alive. Also, way too many children are being shot by loaded guns left accessible and unlocked by irresponsible gun owners.

We need strong gun owner liability laws with big fines and jail time.

@badminton Well in Texas there are negligence storage laws that can push liability back onto parents for crimes their kids commit with a gun. But in Texas the law defines a child as 16 or under...shooter was 17.

@ajsk13 [quote] If parents were allowed to raise their children like they did 40-50 years ago this would not be happening..[/quote]We've seen the results, thanks. Children raised 40-50 years ago were not all that impressive, especially when it comes to metrics like crime and violence. Parents do a far better job today - even if the occasional basket case does more damage.

@MarineBob We own one but that is another sign of the times. When I was very young and in grade school my father just had a gun case with no lock. We all survived because we followed the rules of not touching any guns. Unless our father was there.

@SW-User Certainly not helpful to the situation. Shooters seek infamy, we give them infamy.

We have a Surgeon General. Do we have an official report (facts, not politics) about the Reasons WHY and WHAT is happening in our country ? @softspokenman