Jon Stewart and the Gun Debate

[ericadawn16]

I think this seems to show both sides of the issue. Most importantly, that screaming guy scares me. He scares my mom. When you want a reason why people want to ban guns other than the children dying every day, THAT GUY IS WHY! He's like the weirdos that made everyone hate the Tea Party before there were any other logical reasons.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-8-2013/scapegoat-hunter---gun-control

No, I don't want to take away your guns. As long as you are a responsible gun owner who took the training, learned how to care for them and keep them locked in a gun safe whenever they're not in use, I see no reason why you can't keep your handgun or rifle.

However, there is a term called "friendly fire". It's when the best trained people in the world with some of the best equipment in the world...still fuck up and shoot the wrong person. Now, if that's what we get from the best trained people in the world...I don't believe that civilians should have the same access to the same equipment. I don't even see the necessity of civilian Humvees aka Hummers.

I think if you need a semi-automatic assault rifle with a high capacity magazine, THEN YOU SUCK AS A HUNTER! If you honestly think it makes things more fun, take up archery. You can still maim and kill animals with a bow and arrow but you don't hear too many stories about people killing people with them.

December 14, 2012
United States Elementary School Attacked 26 Dead
China Elementary School Attacked 23 injured, None Dead

What was the difference? He couldn't get a gun. People will always make stupid decisions, do we really need to make the fatal outcomes easier in those circumstances?

Yes, we need better background checks for EVERY gun sale; no more loopholes. Yes, by better background checks, I mean they all need to go through the FBI as opposed to Florida admitting that it only did in-state background checks. I also think that people who buys guns for felons and those using them in a crime should be prosecuted at least as bad as if you bought a minor alcohol.

Yes, we should make mental healthcare easier and cheaper to receive. We shouldn't stigmatize or make fun of people for needing help...

BUT I don't agree with a "national database of crazy people". How are we going to define who is too mentally imbalanced? Are they on the list for life or taken off after a period of years of successful therapy and medication? More importantly, WHO HAS ACCESS TO THE LIST?

I know, those selling the guns have access to the list BUT wouldn't corporations buy their way into having access, too? Then, the list would simply be another tool to use for NOT hiring people!

When people are unemployed, they have no consistent healthcare coverage, no mental healthcare and are more likely to do destructive life decisions like suicide or these large scale massacres.

A lot of people don't understand this but then...they'd never failed Walmart's Psych test.

The main thing is that we can't just do nothing or else the next time something happens...people will be out for blood and your guns.

Comments

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

I don't think you understand the purpose of the Second Amendment. The purpose of it is to protect citizens from the government -- up to and including creating a militia to protect the citizens from said government.

Am I saying I want a revolution? Do I want people to take up arms against the government? No, of course not. Violent response to the government is a last resort -- but the Founders understood that a government that disarms the people is too dangerous.

Let's just play pretend for a moment, and say that at the end of a President's term, he decides to crown himself king, or extend his term to an 'indefinite' length. Let's say that over the years he has hand-picked military advisers, and has the military support he needs to make this happen.

Let's go one step farther: Let's say that there is a coup -- Al Queda stages some breath-taking attacks to weaken military, police, our government, and they manage to take things over. Would you be willing to stay under such a regime?

Both ideas are far-fetched...but not impossible. What would you use to defend yourself with? How would you fight back? Especially if the enemy is the one with all the guns, and you are not.

Or, let's go back to something more simple, something more realistic:

You're a 12-year-old girl, home alone, terrified because someone is breaking into your home. You call your mom, who tells you where the gun is, and tells you to hide. So you do. And the man breaks into your home. He doesn't rob the place. He comes looking for you, and finally finds the place where you're hidden. So you shoot him, and he runs.

If you think that's far-fetched, it really happened.

Yes, mistakes happen. But there are only maybe, maybe 9k deaths attributed to guns. Most of them are indeed murders, but there are a few accidents. There are over 40k people killed by motor vehicles every year, most of them through human stupidity. There are thousands more injured, and motor vehicles cost us nearly 36 billion dollars a year.

Why do gun deaths upset you more than vehicle deaths? Because they're preventable? So are most causes of death. Because it's evil? Some of the most evil things I have ever heard of have never involved guns, so that can't be your argument. So what is it about guns that bugs you so much?

The Second Ammendment is clear: The people have the right to bear arms. There are no limitations given in it.

One other interesting fact: There are nearly 350 million guns in America. Even if you add up the number of victims of gun violence, both those that are fatal and non-fatal, the percentage of the population affected by gun violence is less than one percent.

Guns are dangerous, but the odds are better that you'll get hit by a car or bitten by a dog than to get shot by a gun.

[geminia905.livejournal.com]

The 2nd amendment clearly states it is to ensure a "well regulated militia" such as the National Guard. It doesn't say anything about every man and his dog being allowed their own personal arsenal.

Maybe everyone should also be allowed to own their own tanks/air craft carriers/bombers, etc.?

Our family owns rifles. They are for hunting. I have no problem with people owning something like that.

I do have a MAJOR issue with every crackpot on the street or out in the paranoid backhills being able to buy an automated assault rifle without even having to have a proper background check or psych eval.

Heck, the chances of a plane being hijacked is relatively remote. How about we do away with all the security at airports, too?

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

But the second amendment also doesn't say that we can't have our own personal arsenal. It doesn't limit the number or type of guns we are allowed to have.

As for the militia, idea is to allow states to form their own, in the event of government abuse or breakdown at a national level. It also empowers the people to create a militia in case there is a complete failure on the government to protect the people.

And just because there are militias out there, it doesn't mean they are illegal. Creepy, yes. Illegal, no.

Also, militias aren't just used for war time; they can be used to restore order, to guard things, and even to be called upon to help with natural disasters (like we use the National Guard for).

The idea that people should be able to protect themselves from the government wasn't a whimsy or a paranoia for the Founders. They had felt first-hand the bite of government, and they wanted to protect their people from the United States government...because no system is perfect.

Maybe everyone should also be allowed to own their own tanks/air craft carriers/bombers, etc.?

Well, maybe...but it'd be expensive. :p I'm not sure an air craft carrier counts as 'arms'.

I don't have an issue with people having weapons. I'm sorry. It's a promise given to us by the government. I certainly support back ground checks, but that's it.

Maybe we should. -shrug- People certainly complain enough about it.

Edited to add: I don't mind background checks, but I'd want to be careful with how restrictive we are with guns. People have a right to arm themselves.

Although your family owns weapons, I get the sense you don't care for it (otherwise you wouldn't have engaged me in this discussion). So why don't you like guns?

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

The people have the right to bear arms. There are no limitations given in it.
Amendment II 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.
Actually the terms "Well regulated" would suggest that the Founding fathers did intend some limitations, and as at the time there were limitations as to what group of so called natural born Americans were considered citizens, I would say, there were plenty of limitations and exceptions.
Also remember that one of the complaints against the British was Conscription into military service. Adams understood when helping to draft the second amendment that a voluntary service was needed—and was at the time trying to muster a “volunteer army” ready to defend the homes of American citizens.
The government’s duty to define regulations for the safety and well-being of the people regarding our right to bear arms has always been a part of the Second Amendment.
John Adams and other of our founding fathers were quite clear about needing a well Regulated militia to protect "American" citizens not only from the British government, but from "marauding Indians and escaped slaves"--threats which does not exist today.
We have the USA Army, Marines, National Guard, Air Force, as well as the police forces of each state to protect us. Have they turned against us? Well I was in Michigan when Governor George Romney declared Martial law Detroit during the riots and recall the NRA sponsored laws attempting to restrict gun ownership in urban areas, targeted at People of Color-- and of course the confusion about the incident at Ruby Ridge. But in the last decade, even with mass murders in several cities, the government has not called in the Nation Guard to disarm citizens. And this is not a threat nor a recommendation of those asking for gun control laws defined to fit the 21st century society.
The comparison of guns to vehicles seems almost cynical. Although not unheard of, how many persons involved in vehicular homicide acted with willful intent? That is in comparison to the number of people who have willfully taken a gun with the sole intent of murdering their spouse, co-workers, child, parent, fellow students, neighbors, strangers, how many people involved in vehicle death, willfully took the wheel with the intent to kill?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I also find it moderately bizarre that there is this way of thinking that if the United States suddenly becomes a tyrannical dictatorship and the President puts the army on the streets to maintain control, that an armed militia will somehow overthrow them.

I don't know much about the men and women of the US armed forces, but I'm pretty certain they wouldn't happily march out onto the streets and enforce a military dictatorship and murder their own citizens, I think those guys and gals are pretty committed to the concepts of freedom and liberty.

(Arguably far more so than their political masters, but that's ever the way.)

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

I said it was far-fetched. Doesn't mean that it couldn't happen. Maybe not today. Maybe not in four years. But he truth is, it could happen. It has happened in history. Not here, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen, with the right mix of people in charge.

Who would have thought an entire population of people could be convinced to exterminate their fellow humans? If you had asked the Germans that before Hitler rose to power, they probably would have stared at you in shock.

But it DID happen.

Also, I never said that it would be easy or that the militia would win if something weird happened to the government. But at least we'd have a starting chance to fight, as opposed to no chance at all.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

I know my history quite well, thanks. I am aware of what the Founders wanted -- and some of the more unpleasant reasons behind what they wanted.

(Although since you know so much about the Constitution, you understand why PoC were only counted as 3/5 human, right?)

There was a lot of concern that a peace-time government run military could abuse the citizens. It's one of the many reasons to have the back-up of another militia, one that was unconnected to at least the Federal government.

The militias are to protect us against outside threats. I would say now that there are still plenty of threats that exist, where we may need militias at some point.

Really? You think maybe eight thousand dead people due to malicious action is somehow worse than five times that number due to carelessness? Really? You need to check yourself, and think about how stupid that sounds.

Some of the worst crimes are committed without a gun. Some of the most evil things I've ever heard of have never involved a gun.

You can't legislate evil. You never know who's going to go crazy one day and decide to kill. You can't. You can, however, make certain that people have a fighting chance to survive when the monsters among us show their faces.

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

Although since you know so much about the Constitution, you understand why PoC were only counted as 3/5 human, right?)
As a descedant of POC who were freemen/women before the Revolution and were invited and expected to take up arms to defend the newly formed Union, other than greed, a grrab for political power by Southern slave owners and general prejudice, not really. Are you suggesting this was virtuous behavior?

You think maybe eight thousand dead people due to malicious action is somehow worse than five times that number due to carelessness? Really? You need to check yourself, and think about how stupid that sounds.

You are suggesting that because there are more deaths due to car accidents, that the government should do Nothing to attempt to prevent death due to gun crime, including making certain evil or disturbed people have less as easy access to weapons as they have, and you are questioning My reasoning? Let us agree to disagree.

The truth is the number of car deaths due to drunken driving have dreduce in the last two decades because of regulations and penalties.

Is it perfect? No. But any reduction should be welcome.

This attitude that car accidents are a 'worst' danger than gun crime, therefore there is no reason for Law enforcement or the Government to address reasonably regulated gun ownership sounds very like the reasoning of the men who defend rape by saying the violtion couldn't be rape because the woman got knocked up.

I worked for over twenty years with mentally ill people and I know there ARE ways to anticipate, allieviate, and in some cases prevent crisis. Of course we work in a controlled setting, but some of the same preventions should work in the homes. For example drug and alchohol addition, especially when there has been violitile or dangerous behavior should be added to MI in secruity checks.

You can, however, make certain that people have a fighting chance to survive when the monsters among us show their faces. Again . from my POV, you're tilting at windmills, fighting a politically generated enemy that has no more substance in reality tha a computor generated monster. Regulations is not an attempt to disarm people. The only people who seem to profit by this element in the debate are gun manufactors. After all there are few to no gun commercials on radio or television, but gun manufactors have plenty of product they want to move, and nothing moves people to purchaase weapons more than fear. They even have celebrity endorsement.

[shadowkeeper.livejournal.com]

Well, looking at the contentious debating in your comments, the debate is never going to really just go away.

But I think it was really telling when the CNN coverage of Joe Biden's announcement about his gun control recommendations was interrupted by an emergency announcement that there was yet another school shooting.

The gun control debate isn't taking all guns away from everybody. Americans love their guns too much to be like the UK where they had a school shooting and Parliment turned around and banned all handguns. There is some benefit to not having a nailed down constitution- fast action.

Second, it's not like all the constitutional rights/amendments live and die by their exact wording. There are still restriction on free speech. People still debate what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. If you work in certain fields like the military, your 4th and 5th amendments could be virtually taken away. People can't just say "2ND AMENDMENT! Give us all the military-grade weaponry we can hold" and expect the argument to end there,

And there are always issues with constitution. One is that it can be outdated. It was written at a time where things we have to deal with now couldn't have been fathomed by the framers. Hell, how the country looks now politically would probably horrify the framers. There's also the issue that the constitution can be changed. It has been done before. Reconstruction amendments were a little extreme and probably wouldn't happen again, but the amendments starting and ending prohibition were obviously a case of 'whoops, guess that didn't work', Obviously it's not a perfect document.
And if the original intent of the framers was to allow for every citizen to join a militia if the government became tyrannical, well, that's kind of pointless to argue now considering bombs and drone warfare. People can clutch their automatics and try marching on the government. In the weird dystopian alternate universe where the US government decides to take over and aren't roundly questioned by every other semi competent world power out there, they can bomb and drone anyone who stands up to them. Nice gun you're holding.

[shadowkeeper.livejournal.com]

And whoops. What was supposed to be a general reply?

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

What the heck did you read in MY response to someone's comments mau suggest I think that gun control is means that some one is going to take our guns?

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

You're preaching to the choir. I believe in both the second Amendment but gun control. Not certain what you read in my response to another person's post that made you think I oppose gun control.

[dacian-goddess.livejournal.com]

Wow, no. Far-fetched would be positing that the Syrian ruler wins a Nobel Peace Prize; far-fetched would be saying Angela Merkel moonlights as Batman. Those hypotheticals above are ...but impossible.

Sorry, look, I know they're the world's boogieman, but Al-Qaeda is actually likelier to be made up of, of... Pope-worshipping alcoholics than to be capable of taking over a country with any semblance of functioning government. Unless you lot somehow invade yourselves and thoroughly decimate, dismantle and otherwise raze the full sum of your own country's infrastructure and bureaucracy, country-wide as well as state-by-state, the Al-Qaeda thing is Never Gonna Happen land.

But ok; theatre-of-war hysteria-inducing fabulation has somehow occurred. So, if 'the enemy' is actually capable of completely neutralising your military/police/all agencies/government... so completely even that the country is taken over... it's civilians that'll somehow 'fight back' simply because they own guns?

Elsewhere, I would not put, in the hands of a terrified 12-year old functioning on a cocktail of panic and adrenalin, a loaded firearm with which she's every bit as likely to injure herself. Self-defence is not bullets or bust. Personally, in an invasion scenario I would rather use a taser gun or a pepper gun to protect myself from a distance than risk taking a life.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

Hey I said in the unlikely scenario. It was late at night. I realize we're more likely to be over-run by Canada than by al-queda (heee!) but still. The point is, we have the option of a militia.

Until people like you destroy that concept. :p

As for the little girl...Do you think I want a little girl to have to defend herself? No. Do I think that if she has to, she should be able to? Yes.

And it's a good thing too. As I said: THAT IS A REAL STORY. It happened. 12-year-old girl shoots home intruder

I'd rather that a terrified child shot an intruder than for that child to have been kidnapped, only to have their abused body found a few weeks later.

Pepper spray doesn't always work, and you could end up spraying yourself or harming yourself with it. And it doesn't always stop an attack. You have to be within body reach to use most tasers.

I don't like violence, but having been the victim of several crimes, I'm not afraid any longer with the idea of using force to take some asshole down who wants to do me, or someone I love harm.

[tptigger.livejournal.com]

Walmart has a psych test? Just another reason to hate them.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

A psych test?

Seriously, Wal-Mart DX

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Ye gods, a national mental health register, I can't even begin on the number of ways that would get abused. And can you imagine once your name is on it...

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

I could never get behind that. And wouldn't that be some major invasion of privacy or something? I just can't even begin to list the ways that is a horrible, horrible idea.

Edited to add: Didn't we have something similar though, with the "Three generations law"?

Although that might have just been New York...-goes off to research-

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It seems a very short hop from having a national mental health register to deciding that people on it aren't allowed to work with children, aren't allowed to fly on planes, aren't allowed to breed...

We have something vaguely similar here with the sex offenders register, and once your name winds up on that, you're screwed. Which, is all well and good, except you wind up with situations where recently a 17 year old boy had his name placed on the sex offenders register because he had topless pictures of his 15 year old girlfriend on his phone.

And that... really doesn't make him a sex offender in my eyes. He shouldn't be lumped in with rapists and pedophiles.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

As someone who survived child sexual abuse, I can say that I am torn about the idea of a sex offender registry. On the one hand, it's important for people to protect their children. On the other hand, it can lead to all sorts of problems, and it feels like an invasion of privacy.

I agree, they need to narrow down what crimes are necessary to be listed.

But I have an even better idea -- how about if you are convicted of molesting, raping, or harming a child, you just don't get out of prison?

"Three generations of imbeciles are enough" was nation-wide, and the history of this law, which was a not-so-subtle attempt to make eugenics a normal and good thing to be used.

It shouldn't surprise you that the law was enforced erratically, and that people were sterilized for any and all reasons.

Sometimes we do things really well here in America, and other times we really fuck up.

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

a national mental health register Scares me. I am not comforted at all that the discussion of mental health has become entangled in crime prevention, as, especially in this country people are ignorant of the many types of mental illness and seem to react in extremes, and easily form prejudices. There is no emphasis on care and treatment that is proactive, and here I agree, reform in mental health care inspired by the country's fear of mass violence will possibly end with true human rights violations and abuse of the metally ill. Look how many people have forgotten that original Roe vs Wade decision statement addresses how the States’s criminal abortion law violates right to privacy and freedom to consult competent unprejudiced health care—without fear of persecution for treatment solicited and rendered that a Doctor has deemed medically necessary.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZS.html

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

There was an attempt made many years ago, I believe, by progressives to force sterilization of people who were deemed mentally unfit to procreate.

I'd like to avoid going down that road again, and I'm afraid that a mental health registry would be the gateway for that kind of nonsense.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Can you imagine as soon as employers get ahold of such a register? Somebody with a registered mental health problem could very quickly find themselves facing all sorts of hurdles.

Plus the general public need a scapegoat to try and understand these horrible events, and 'Don't bother trying to understand this, it's all just crazy people!' is just about simple enough for journalists to understand and feed out.

Although I would be in favour of there being some sort of national register of mental health issues if it meant it could be consulted before somebody was allowed to buy a gun. But I'd much rather they come at that from the other direction, and if somebody wants to own a gun, then they have to go and get a mental health test done to prove they are capable and balanced enough. And if that means it costs them a few hundred dollars to get tested, fair enough. We don't let people drive a car without passing a test.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Oy, an old friend of mine who I'm FB-friends with these days takes that Alex Jones guy seriously. He's like the worst of the Tea Party crowd, with tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory stuff added in for good measure. I just can't take him as anything but what he is, an entertainer. He's just catering to the most paranoid right-wing audience he can manage to attract.

[viomisehunt.livejournal.com]

It is difficult not to take him seriously,because he has an audience who do seem to think he represents them. And trust me it gets plenty awkward when you're addressing the behavior on a pundit who says ourrageous or cthings like "If gun control laws pass I'm going to murder people" . Most people would --okay--he's talking crazy, and friends and realatives who truly feel threatened by an unfamiliar government and are confused by the media rush of fear think you mean them. I don't consider my relatives and friends fears stupid or crazy--but then we get an Alex Jones climing he's representing them and it's messy.