School Gun Shootings: Access to Guns or Something Else?

@Northwest Of course, how many other countries can say they have had free elections without interruption for over 230 years?

@beckyromero And this has what to do with the US gun violence?

@Northwest Many of the conservatives are not blaming, but questioning. What is wrong with a society that mostly young people are committing such evil acts? Where did the idea that life is precious go? Why is criminal behavior acceptable? When did fame and infamy become the same?

Why when we ask these and other questions are the liberals/progressives only screaming "do something" and then want to ban some or all guns and usually refuse to discuss other options?

Few other countries acknowledge that people have unalienable rights, but the USA does in our founding documents. Threaten to strip away those rights, and many citizens will push back, and it doesn't matter which one.

@Northwest Throughout history, the United States has shown a greater thirst for personal freedom than most other countries and has even inspired it in others.

Over time that thirst for "freedom" helped lead about abolitionism and the end of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights. The right of women to control our bodies, the right of people to marry someone they love regardless of their race or sex, even the right to die peacefully.

@sunrisehawk Blaming vs questioning? They're making definitive statements. Did you read Oliver North's speech? BTW, this is the same guy who was part of the scheme to push crack cocaine in inner cities, so he can arm right wing militias in South America.

None of these factors are any different in the rest of the world. In fact, it's even more prevalent, perverted and violent, in Asia. All things considered, the only difference is that we have a culture of real gun fetishism in the USA.

Spare me the constitutional speech. Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. offer more individual rights than we do.

@sunrisehawk I think before "do something" is decided, it needs to be understood what is causing the problem, what has changed.

@beckyromero

[quote]Throughout history, the United States has shown a greater thirst for personal freedom than most other countries and has even inspired it in others.[/quote]

Personal freedoms are still lacking in most countries. What we should be comparing to, is the Western World. As the statistics you posted show, this is really about post WWII, and we don't have an exclusivity on individual rights.

[quote]Over time that thirst for "freedom" helped lead about abolitionism and the end of slavery, women's suffrage, civil rights. [/quote]

We are (I'm pretty sure), the last Western country, to allow women to vote.

We were the last Western country, and one of the few countries on the face of the planet, to abolish slavery.

We have a wonderful document called the Constitution, but we forgot to apply it to everyone.

Civil rights? You mean the Selma? MLK? Jim Crowe? We led in these areas, I don't think so.

[quote]The right of women to control our bodies, the right of people to marry someone they love regardless of their race or sex, even the right to die peacefully.[/quote]

Abortion was legalized in Sweden in 1938, in the UK, in 1967, in Denmark in 1973, in Norway in 1964.

Same sex marriage/unions were legalized in Scandinavia, long before the US. It is now legal in all of Western Europe, however, in the US, it is under attack. The Trump administration pulled funding from any institution that performs abortions, refers women to abortion clinics, or provides education. We're not leading, we're struggling.

The right to die? We're catching up. The right to die, is illegal in all but 6 states, when it's legal in several other countries.

As to racial discrimination, are you kidding me?

@Northwest My name isn't Oliver North and yet because I'm a conservative, you stick his words in my mouth... My experience on this and other sites is that there is little debate and discussion. We have those who believe that without the second amendment the Constitution is merely words on paper that are subject to the whims of whomever is in power. We also have those who have utter faith in government and/or fear gun ownership by citizens.

I know that finding a middle ground is going to be difficult, but over the last 80 years we have went from virtually no restrictions on guns to extensive regulations, including near total bans of guns owned by the average citizens in places like DC and Chicago. Yet violence in those highly restricted jurisdictions are often as bad or worse than a school shooting weekly.

The issue is to both protect our children in schools and to address the problems in society that are significant factors in turning a few of our young people into evil killers. If you want to blame inanimate objects for this, we're not going to find solutions because most people do not believe that guns, knives, or other weapons force people to use them. If you want to look for what causes people to commit these horrible acts, then I and most conservatives will stand with you.

@Northwest [quote]We are (I'm pretty sure), the last Western country, to allow women to vote.[/quote]

🤣

And you base that on what?

Women were granted the right to vote in the United States in 1920, after the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

When did other countries grant women the right to vote?

1893 New Zealand
1902 Australia1
1906 Finland
1913 Norway
1915 Denmark
1917 Canada2
1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia
1919 Netherlands
[b]1920 United States[/b]
1921 Sweden
1928 Britain, Ireland
1930 South Africa3
1931 Spain
1934 Turkey
1944 France
1945 Italy
1947 Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan
1949 China
1950 India
1954 Colombia
1957 Malaysia, Zimbabwe
1962 Algeria
1963 Iran, Morocco
1964 Libya
1967 Ecuador
1971 Switzerland
1972 Bangladesh
1974 Jordan
1976 Portugal
1989 Namibia
1990 Western Samoa
1993 Kazakhstan, Moldova
2005 Kuwait
2006 United Arab Emirates
2011 Saudi Arabia4

NOTE: One country does not allow their people, male or female, to vote: Brunei.
1. Australian women, with the exception of aboriginal women, won the vote in 1902. Aborigines, male and female, did not have the right to vote until 1962.
2. Canadian women, with the exception of Canadian Indian women, won the vote in 1917. Canadian Indians, male and female, did not win the vote until 1960. Source: The New York Times, May 22, 2005.
3. South African women won equal voting rights in 1930; however, the voting was restricted to just white people until limited suffrage was offered to other non-black racial groups in the 1950s. Black citizens would not have full voting rights until the end of Apartheid in the 1990s.
4. King Abdullah issued a decree in 2011 ordering that women be allowed to stand as candidates and vote in municipal elections, but their first opportunity did not come until Dec. 2015, almost a year after the king's death in January.
https://www.infoplease.com/us/gender-sexuality/womens-suffrage

And that doesn't include the times a number of those above countries have suspended elections, etc.

So excuse me for not responding to the rest of your comment at this time given how faulty your knowledge is on just one part of it.

🤣

@sunrisehawk [quote]My name isn't Oliver North and yet because I'm a conservative, you stick his words in my mouth... My experience on this and other sites is that there is little debate and discussion. We have those who believe that without the second amendment the Constitution is merely words on paper that are subject to the whims of whomever is in power. We also have those who have utter faith in government and/or fear gun ownership by citizens. [/quote]

When you say "questioning, not blaming", I tend to believe that you're repeating what Oliver North is saying. I am happy to debate anyone who will acknowledge reality, rather than open up with an exercise in hair splitting.

I posted this recently, but I will re-post it here:

We have a group of Americans, who believe that they need a weapon for self-defense or hunting. This group is not out purchasing assault weapons, high capacity magazines, or even joining the NRA. While I believe that their weapon is not going to help, in the face of determined criminals, this group of people is not really part of the problem.

We have another group of Americans, who get off on weapons, and use the 2nd amendment, as an excuse to buy war weapons, collect them, fantasize about them, etc. This group does not give a rat's ass about the 2nd amendment, but wants it as a fig leaf.

We have a group of politicians, who like to use one or both of these groups, to reach office.

[quote]I know that finding a middle ground is going to be difficult, but over the last 80 years we have went from virtually no restrictions on guns to extensive regulations, including near total bans of guns owned by the average citizens in places like DC and Chicago. Yet violence in those highly restricted jurisdictions are often as bad or worse than a school shooting weekly.[/quote]

I am not sure how we developed collective amnesia. Did we forget about the wild west? the early 20th century Chicago and New York? the selective enforcement of gun laws in the Jim Crow era, to use weapons to intimidate/lynch, etc.?

[quote]The issue is to both protect our children in schools and to address the problems in society that are significant factors in turning a few of our young people into evil killers. If you want to blame inanimate objects for this, we're not going to find solutions because most people do not believe that guns, knives, or other weapons force people to use them. If you want to look for what causes people to commit these horrible acts, then I and most conservatives will stand with you.[/quote]

The NRA narrative: a gun cannot kill a person, a person must use it to kill a person. Duh!

The other narrative: A mentally unstable person, hell bent on mass murder, without weapons, is not going to cause much damage. The same person, with an AR-15, or two, and a bump stock, and 100 round magazines, is going to cause a lot of damage.

Note the emphasis on the type of weapons/magazines, etc.

Of course there's a need to deal with mental health issues. Unfortunately, the conservatives, do not prioritize this. We don't even have a national healthcare plan in place. The conservative solution (and it may not be yours specifically), is to blame it on bad parenting. You don't believe me? Listen to what Ollie is saying. Are you an NRA member?

While we need to deal with all these issues, the type of guns available, magazines, etc. is an orthogonal issue, that must be dealt with as well, and I would love to have this discussion, whenever conservatives are willing to set aside the silly and obvious narrative of "guns don't kill people, people kill people".

@beckyromero

What I said:

[quote]We are (I'm pretty sure), the last Western country, to allow women to vote.[/quote]

What you responded with, is a list of a whole bunch of countries around the world. Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, are Western countries? Portugal is part of the "Western" world? Spain is part of the "Western" world?

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

1928 Britain: wrong. https://bit.ly/2dXUyMi British women voted in their first national election in 1918

Women have been voting in the UK, since the mid 1830s in local elections. There were restrictions on men and women. In 1914, politics were suspended in the UK, due to WWI, but in 1918, women over the age of 30 voted in the national elections.

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

1931 Spain: Southern European country

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

1945 Italy: sort of. Women could vote in local elections since 1924.

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

1976 Portugal: Southern European country, run by a dictatorship, until 1974.

[quote]So excuse me for not responding to the rest of your comment at this time given how faulty your knowledge is on just one part of it.[/quote] @beckyromero

🤣

What you manged to do here, is obfuscate and distract from your own post. Still don't know what this has to do with the question of gun violence, but that's the excuse people give, to avoid addressing the real issue.

@Northwest obsess much

@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?