That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world.

There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal?

That’s an extreme example of course: the US political system is closer to European-style proportional parliamentary systems than it is to North Korea, but it’s still very different from them, and in many meaningful ways is not actually a democracy.

Because other people don't have this problem. And when you get right down to it, they have megaphones and placards, while their opponents have guns. Amazingly, the gun owners have more political power.

My views on gun ownership are complex and don't fit neatly into existing pigeonholes - I'm very much in favor of the right to own weapons, but also in additional social responsibilities that ought to accompany that. I have a lot of sympathy with the gun control crowd even though I disagree with many of their arguments, but the fact is their tactics are simply not working. Unfortunately they don't want to change their approach because they're so locked into the moral dimension of their argument that they're unwilling to consider any other approach. Likewise the 2nd amendment absolutists are so intransigent that they keep retreating to a hardline position of 'shall not be infringed! shall not be infringed!' and then complaining about how unreasonable their opponents are.

Can you elaborate on this? Everyone I know has been citing the UK

Honestly, a lot of the UK stuff seems to almost have more in common with US gun owner culture than their anti-gun campaigners, though obviously organisations like the NRA would not be happy at all with UK levels of gun ownership restrictions. The fact that self-defence is not a valid reason to have a gun or any other weapon here would also be unacceptable to pretty much everyone in the US from what I can tell, not to mention unconstitutional. (This includes stuff like pepper spray.)

You're pretty close. Those rounds are measured in millimeters instead of caliber, so they should be 7.62mm (really 7.62x39mm or 7.62x51mm) and 5.56mm. The equivalent in calibers is .30 and .223. Notably, .223 is also an actual round and some rifles can fire either .223 or 5.56 (iirc, the cartridges are the same dimensions, but the pressure ratings are different).

AR-15's are typically chambered in 5.56mm. An AR style rifle chambered in 7.62x51mm would be an AR-10. Although you can get AR platform rifles chambered in pretty much whatever you want, going all the way up to .50 BMG. It's pretty uncommon to see anything like that, though.

Where does this strawman come from? Can you imagine the negative publicity if celebrity's bodyguard shot and killed someone? How often do you think celebrities are assaulted by attackers armed with guns?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...

That being said. America, 300M people. 19,000 firearm homicides last year. Australia, 20M people, 27.

And still has regular shootings in Sydney due to gang violence.

As an Australian, I certainly wouldn't want to swap for the shitshow that is US gun crime.

The US is obviously worse, but to claim Australia has control of gun violence is kind of silly. It's clearly out of police control.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/04/gangl...

From your link, 11 gang murders in two years seems pretty good to me.

Personally I'd consider that pretty under control.

I certainly don't live in fear of gun crime here.

It is entirely consistent. Law and order is something conservatives claim to support, so it is logical to want to remove instruments of crime and disorder. The fact that we can find it surprising now tells more about the intellectual trajectory of conservatives over the years. To the point that modern mainstream “conservatives” would have been seen as quasi-fascist rabid nationalists just 20 years ago.

If people haven’t gotten motivated enough after literally decades of this shit, I find it really hard to blame the law.

However, there are 50+ Senators, disproportionally representing low population, rural states, that are beholden to the NRA and its illegal funding and mis/dis-information campaigns.

There are Senators today suggesting that schools be turned into prison-like places (Cruz with his "one door in and out" nonsense), that others are suggesting arming teachers, while ignoring the fact that the school protection officer and local law enforcement engaged the murderer in this school shooting but failed to apprehend or stop him and the SWAT team took 40 minutes to engage the murderer and eliminate the threat.

People have been marching and protesting and demonstrating continuously and yet there is a specific party, the Republicans, and specific lobby groups, that have stopped any change.

Well, there's the political interpretation (NRA lobbying) and the factual interpretation as well: "low population rural states" i.e. where guns are used for hunting & self-defence (low population but also huge, so low density, so the nearest police/neighbours are so far away you can't always rely on their help)

THANK YOU! Say what you will about those supporters but the fact they went that far to support something they believed in (albeit dumb honestly) is admirable.

Meanwhile the people with actual good values are just sharing senators' edgy tweets thinking that makes a difference.

Most people exist in the expansive middle ground between regurgitating Tweets and insurrection.

People do care, and they do protest and march, and like most protests anywhere it does not change anything. Sorry but you seem to have a very naive view of the effectiveness of protests.

By the way, the pro-Trump protests didn’t achieve anything either (other than furthering the US’s slide into bitter ultra-partisan division and total erosion of trust in institutions). Notably, they did not successfully enable Trump to remain president. So what is your point?

In our modern day information, speech, and and privacy are the guns that ensure rights are not stomped on. It’s no longer the wild wild west.

To think that rules written hundreds of years ago never need to be changed is spitting in the face of our founders who realized that the process of amendments are necessary because things change. The irony is that people are defending the second amendment by claiming it cannot be amended.

What we need is an amendment guaranteeing our right to encryption and privacy, so that the KGB won’t even know which door to knock on.

Back then your arms were pretty well matched against the government. Today, not so much. Civilians and their small arms are no match for the KGB or modern US military. If we really wanted a way to check the physical power of the US military we’d need a bit more than some semi automatic rifles. They are literally in their current form just play things for the wealthy who don’t want to give up their gun hobby, and liabilities for the rest of civilian society due to the criminally insane.

Ubiquitous guns change the equation for all kinds of theoretical events. They may be a boon in the "armed populous saves country from corrupt gov't" case, and a curse in another case.

Were a more extreme version of Jan 6th to occur in the future, adding civilian firearms into the mix may not be a good thing.

The only person shot was an unarmed civilian.

Even so, guns have been involved in protests before without a problem.

I think it shows remarkable restraint by the security and protection officers that more people weren't shot on January 6th.

And it is untrue that "civilians" "chose" not to bring guns. There were numerous people that had preparations to be armed and were actively working to that end.

They are currently being tried for sedition.

Untrue, there was no warning. Crowd was let in (there is security footage of this), funneled to a location, and a killzone was setup without their knowledge. The antifa person filming the death was the only person hurling threats in that specific interaction. Both hands of the civilian shot were visible when climbing through the window. Officer could have arrested when she made it through. I guess we're for shooting on sight now.

> I think it shows remarkable restraint by the security and protection officers that more people weren't shot on January 6th.

Yes let's praise cops for not killing more unarmed civilians than they did, very high bar!

> there were numerous people that had preparations to be armed and were actively working to that end.

What a long way to say they didn't bring guns to the event. Any CCW holder has preparations to be armed.

> sedition

Point to a case, noone is being tried for sedition, only trespassing.

I'm saying it's also possible that a portion of an armed population could be manipulated by a dictator to seize power.

And there are lots of other ways this ubiquity of guns change things. Some positive, some negative. If we're talking about a theoretical rebellion then we should also talk about different types of rebellions.

There is a reference for the rebellion the 2A is intended for that we could use.

It's called the American Revolution and the events that led up to it.

The point I'm trying to get across is that there are many different theoretical scenarios for revolutions and rebellions, beyond the one scenario the parent comment theorized, or events similar in spirit to the American Revolution.

For example, the degraded ability for society to agree on what is true may be an avenue for a hostile state to cause civil unrest. That scenario may play out better for the targeted society if the population is not widely armed.

One good example, one bad. Both possible!

Nothing that said dictator would need support from the military (which has demonstrated it is not necessarily keen to go that route), how well will your "well armed" people fare against well trained soldiers with, um, "tanks" (using tanks here as a catchall for all their weapons.)?

A highly motivated and armed insurgency is almost impossible to control, even if you have superior fire-power.

The tank premise is almost as stupid as Biden's nukes / jets threat against the American people.

A country is not going to carpet bomb, send tanks in, or nuke its own people / land.

It takes a lot of brainwashing to get your soldiers to do that to their own people and direct force like that will lead to instant revolts.

What is much more likely is a KGB like secret police that goes around black bagging people, etc. You're much less likely to be able to do that when you know the civilian population has more guns than your secret police.

Great company while pretending to be "the leader of the free world."

I am the furthest thing from a US ultra-patriot who thinks we’re the greatest country in the world, so please don’t ascribe other people’s opinions to me.

Tangent: other than their moderately elevated murder rate, what’s wrong with Uruguay? Is that supposed to be an example of some kind of uniquely shitty country by global standards? (It’s a bad one, if so — Uruguay is a wealthy and highly developed liberal democracy.)

What specifically makes you assume that the US should be doing substantially better than Uruguay or be held to a higher standard?

Well, you don’t really need activists if you don’t really have a problem. So it is not really surprising that countries with saner gun control policies have fewer activists.

Also, the number of activists does not correlate with the opinion of the people overall. Even though the US is not perfectly democratic, the situation does seem to reflect how a majority of states and a large fraction of the people want to live. This is utterly terrifying to us watching from the other side of the pond, but that’s the way it is.

I believe fully automatic assault weapons and machine guns should be available for purchase, new, just like any other weapon. (Fully automatic weapons are legal to buy and own right now in the US, if you pay a $200 stamp tax and wait 9 months for the ATF to process the paperwork, but you can only buy "NFA" regulated machine guns that were registered in 1986 or before ... which means they're all collectors items now, and the cheapest machine guns are $15-20k and up).

Most people I know would like to see the existing laws enforced, and don't want anything new passed or put in place.

The missiles are separately regulated, and likely not legal for private ownership. Missiles and high explosives are licensed and legislated for separately.

Any weapon that’s part of a standard infantry soldiers load out should be available, new from the manufacturer. I don’t have a problem with the background checks that are required for a class 3 weapon, like an m16 or a Thompson sub machine gun (https://dealernfa.com/product-category/machine-guns/all-tran...), but as it stands only wealthy people can still afford to purchase them.

So we -can- put limits on the ownership of weaponry, then?

Interesting.

In my local community groups I see people demanding metal detectors be installed in our schools.

This is in response to: An attempted murderer being chased by police, going into a school he doesn’t belong in, barricading himself inside and murdering children.

It’s feel good security theater. If you’re in the middle of a killing spree you’re not going to stop because of a metal detector. If you’re dealing with kids bringing weapons to school, that’s different — but the responses to this event from people local to me are about 90% make-believe security.

"Regular" gun violence with handguns is another story.

To use a real world example: Columbine was a failed school bombing because their detonators didn’t work because the product they used for the detonator’s changed between their testing and when they purchased the final “real” devices.

The guns were intended to keep everyone terrified and in place until the bombs could kill everyone.

A fluke manufacturing change to the product (I think a clock) between their detonator tests and their actual attack is the only thing that stopped nearly everyone in the school from being killed that day. They even set a bomb outside of the school to kill the first responders when they arrived — again, it was a horrible tragedy, but what happened was so much less than what was intended.

Smoking is not.

That said, the 21yo requirement may be unconstitutional as well.

Clearly, you and I both support the second amendment. However, we should recognize when our support of certain associate claims aren't well founded. Bearing arms and being part of a well-regulated militia are American civil rights granted by the Bill of Rights. Purchasing those arms isn't a civil right.[0]

[0] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/second-a...

A ban on the purchasing of arms would definitely infringe on people's individual right to keep and bear them. Yes, an individual right, which is how 18th-19th century courts and political commentators viewed the 2nd before the 20th century "militia only" narrative.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United...

... then when it comes to guns... "Well, of course it includes _purchasing_ those arms, even if it doesn't explicitly and literally say so, because it'd be hard to bear them otherwise, so it somehow _must_ guarantee that, too!"

"Voting in elections is a civil right granted by the Bill of Rights. Access to a polling station isn't a civil right."

That's effectively what you're saying. Rights enshrine access. Things like poll taxes, voter ID, etc. have all been declared unconstitutional because they infringe upon your right. Banning purchasing arms falls in the exact same category.

The entire premise of individuals owning weapons is based on that "well-regulated militia", yet no such entities actually exist in 2022.

This is why DC vs Heller was decided in the way it was. The "well-regulated militia" before the comma meant something totally different than its current meaning.

As an aside, I think that most modern military weapons should be banned, but that is actually not what the 2nd amendment calls for. The right solution to the problem is to amend the constitution, not try to pass gun control laws and see what a court will approve.

If you ignore guns entirely, the US still stands out from other countries with an extraordinarily high rate of non-gun violence. It's more accurate to say that the US has a violence problem in general.

If you're truly interested in solving the violence problem, perhaps examine why the US is such a statistical outlier. And also, perhaps, why other countries like Switzerland have such different outcomes while still having extremely high rates of private gun ownership.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Switzer...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

Eg should you be allowed to use - pistols? - rifles? - machine guns? - explosive / armour piercing bullets? - grenades? - nuclear bombs? - chemical weapons? - biological weapons?

Basically I’m asking where is the line drawn.

Because I don’t think the constitution sets such limits, no distinction for weapons of mass destruction, etc yet the country has found ways to limit people holding chemical weapons and more serious ordinance.

Today's citizen-soldier would carry an AR-15 or variant. If there's one modern gun protected by the 2nd, that's the one.

What does a typical modern day infantryman carry as part of a standard kit?

Not Javelins and anti-personnel mines, those are application- and mission-specific. A soldier doesn't just show up at the armory and load up with whatever high explosives they want; they have a standard issued set of gear, and then mission specific gear divided up among the squad.

Armored infantry transport with mounted machine gun and or cannon turret? Anti-air counter measures? I have no idea how that fits in an individual soldier's kit. At a minimum, they're not bearable arms.

It doesn't mean all those other specific items aren't protected, but if you want an answer on an item-by-item basis, I don't know what to tell you.

Separated from philosophical side of things, they are legal to own Federally at least, at $200 a tax stamp. I don't know anything about the jurisprudence wrt to destructive devices.

edit: Another example might be DU ammunition, but I don't know if that's something carried by your typical soldier. I think it's more often in large caliber crew-served and vehicle mounted weapons, but have no actual basis for that.

My actual opinion on the matter is that we need a national conversation and some sort of constitutional convention to decide more definitively what the purpose(s) of gun rights should be.

Note that I said “what purpose” rather than “what rights”. I think a lot of people (not everyone, but most) skip this part and go straight to “I want to own select-fire rifles” or “large capacity magazines should be banned” before answering what the allowable purposes of private gun ownership should be.

I think if we enshrine in the constitution the right to own/bear arms for enumerated purposes, that the details will naturally just fall out from that choice.

Some examples of what we could choose from (mix and match to your liking):

1) There is no purpose for private gun ownership of any kind.

2) People should be allowed to own guns for private museums/galleries; historical/scientific/artistic collections.

3) People should be able to own guns for sport target shooting (Olympic shooting, IDPA, etc)

4) People should be able to own guns for hunting.

5) people should be able to own guns to defend their homes.

6) People should be able to own guns to defend themselves when they are out and about.

7) People should be able to own guns to bolster national armory against foreign invasion.

8) People should be able to own guns to attempt to overthrow their own government if they deem it necessary.

For example, if someone picked only something akin to #2, then likely guns would have to have firing pins and/or parts of the trigger mechanism removed.

If the people chose to allow guns for sport, perhaps the government would store your privately owned guns for you at sporting facilities.

If the purpose of private gun ownership is to empower citizens to overthrow a tyrannical government, then no registration process should be warranted for destructive devices like javelins or SAM batteries.

It sounds like your limitations match most closely with #7. In which case it seems like if that was the ONLY purpose for private gun ownership it would be reasonable for the government to store your guns in their own local armories and allow you to pick them up in they declare a national defense event.

If purpose of private gun ownership is to allow me to defend myself when I’m out and about, perhaps I should be allowed to carry a pistol when I’m at the bar. While I’ve never personally been in a situation where I’ve said “You know what would have made that go better? If I had a gun.” … I’ve only gotten in situations close to that when I’ve been out drinking late at night. Not allowing me to defend myself at my workplace, school, or bar kind of defeats most of any personal protection objectives.

If the goal is to only allow home defense, perhaps we only need to allow long guns (rifles, shotguns) and can still ban handguns. Perhaps every casing could be serialized and every transaction recorded and annual inspections done for storage conditions and safety adherence.

This is non-sequitur to me. You're describing having the ability to immediately and effectively go to war with the US military and the entirety of the federal government. That's an absolute extreme. In reality, there would be A LOT of steps before that.

I'm in the #8 camp, but rephrased more generally to something I'm sure you've heard- People should be able to own guns to fight back against tyranny. At the absolute extreme, yeah, I'll admit that that includes potentially overthrowing the government, but in reality the scale is much much smaller.

Meaning, people should be able to own guns to bolster their community's defense from both foreign AND domestic threats. The few times that the 2nd Amendment has successfully been put in practice (wrt to fighting the govt), it was against corrupt local governments completely disconnected from any kind of heavy military hardware or active personnel.

I think stepping back and thinking about what "community defense" looks like, structurally, is a good exercise. You'll find that spread out in towns throughout the country, we have caches of equipment and weapons in local armories. In a "defense" emergency, that becomes the local "military gear co-op". A person provides what they can in the form of equipment, supplies, and weapons, and fills in the gaps with the armory. Other community members who are uh... overstocked... on guns and ammo give to the armory for others to use. Again, not at all limited to weapons and ammo, but that's what I'm focusing on here for the sake of simplicity.

--

Back to the extreme end- what does overthrowing a tyrannical federal government look like in reality? It doesn't just start out of nowhere with large scale conflict with the US military. It starts with balkanization, communities isolating, picking sides, pooling resources.... over time increasing violent attacks turning into gun fights, spread throughout the country. By the time a direct open conflict starts with a state or federal government, there is no single State or US military, there is no rule of law, and heavy military hardware is spread out among factions.

So while the 2nd Amendment might not be interpreted to mean "Your right to a SAM battery is constitutionally protected", if the extreme purpose of it becomes reality... you'll get your private SAM battery.

One last edit:

A non-exhaustive list of Things I think the 2nd Amendment (or the philosophy behind it) specifically protects:

- An infantryman's personal weapon (infantryperson? community defense is everyone's responsibility) and all equipment/accessories needed to maintain and operate it.

- Typical survival gear: backpacks, boots, mess kit, knives (bayonets! not just for stabbing; they're often multi-function tools), tents, etc

- Typical protective gear: helmets, ear plugs, goggles, body armor/plate carrier

Taken from my nowhere-near-complete understanding of contemporary gear. In 200 years, replace "rifle" with "phased pulse blaster" and "body armor" with "personal energy shield" if we're still stupid enough to be going to war with each other then.

“The constitution”, as a written document, doesn’t put any limits on anything, because it’s irrelevant in practice, and constitutional law is pure kayfabe.

The real constitution, in practice, is the rulings of the Supreme Court, which has absolutely unlimited latitude for “interpreting” the written document however it wants.

Nothing in the constitution grants the supreme court this power.

Judicial review was a power seized by the courts in Marbury vs Madison.

Theoretically, congress could act to limit the purview of the supreme court at any time.

Doesn’t matter. They have this power, in actually existing reality.

> Theoretically, congress could act to limit the purview of the supreme court at any time.

Sure, they could try. And the Supreme Court would strike down the law they pass. Then we’re in full-blown Venezuela-level constitutional crisis territory where nobody agrees who legitimately holds power, and it’s impossible to predict what would happen.

Isn't the balance to this that congress and the executive branch can restructure the courts? Eg. add justices, set term limits, etc.

Prior to 2008, case law was pretty clear that all of these could be heavily restricted or regulated at the discretion of the state or the federal government, if they ever chose to. Prior decisions effectively gave states enough power to ban all guns if they chose to; DC's near-total gun ban was in effect from 1976-2008.

Yeah, this is the point of insanity; so long as people continue to believe this, there will be a school shooting in the US every few weeks. That's what people mean by "the US has chosen this".

We should just move the age of majority to 24 or so. Guns and voting would start there. Vices and contracts would be some sliding scale.

A 16 year old can be licenced to drive a car which is a potentially deadly killing machine.

A 17 year old can join the US Military today, use firearms, fight and die for their country and if needed; kill their own countrymen if politicians deem some citizens are a threat.

An 18 year old can vote and determine who should run the country then they go back to watching TickTok 24/7.

A 17 year old cannot have a beer.

There is something wrong with all of that, today driving a car, voting and entering the military should all be the age that is required to legally buy a beer.

I ask genuinely - when exactly and where? Voting age was lowered in 1971 to 18, it used to be higher.

24 is 6 extra years of maturing. That will save a lot of lives (not just mass shootings, but gang violence and suicides). And 24 better reflects reality in terms of adulthood.

Not only that, but it's palatable politically. As long as it goes with voting age and other rights, then gun owners are more likely to go along with it. Make some exceptions that work for young hunters, and people won't feel left out.

If anything, it's likely to see pushback from the left because they want lots of people voting from a young age. But I don't think the overall electoral decisions will be any worse by making people wait 6 more years. The left will just adapt and move on (e.g. more focus on struggling families and less on cultural/identity issues).

My view: If the US population really wants to do something school shootings in the near term, then the physical layout of schools should be changed so that someone can't just walk in and shoot children. Does this make school look and feel like a dystopian prison? Yes. But that's the price of freedom, which probably shouldn't be born by dead primary school children. This strikes me as the only politically feasible solution right now.

Gun regulation seems likely to help and is a fairly logical solution, but too many people seem allergic to it, and there are already so many unregistered firearms out there. While we are dreaming, reshaping society so everyone is kinder and less likely to shoot each other is also likely to help.

Even prisons need huge sally ports and clear zones to prevent stuff like ram raids and car bombs. Securing EVERY school this way would be nearly impossible. Especially since we can barely staff them in the first place.

The terrorist always has the advantage of picking the least fortified target. In addition they have the drop on the defenders. So unless we have teams of armed and armored QRF guards in ready rooms and a single entry gate at EVERY school we're still going to be vulnerable.

Then, even after we secure every school, the terrorist just waits at the first bus stop, walks on the opening doors, and then kills a busload of kids.

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/12/20/teen-school-bus-shooti...

If we couldn't stop it in Iraq and Afghanistan with trillions of dollars of military hardware and surveillance, I don't seeing domestic terrorism being much easier. Especially with the prevalence of firearms and explosives in the United States.

It's also true that the shooter could just go the mall or a cinema and get a similar result. Attacking the school does seem to have a particular significance however.

Yet they continue to absolutely dominate the world, culturally and economically. Can't rule out the possibility entirely that we are nuts and they are not.

The US is struggling to keep this lead and will probably have difficulty maintaining it for another 10-20 years. That is, unless Asia and Europe decide to have another stupid war for some awfully stupid reason. Even then, it is unlikely the US would remain unscathed in such a case.

The culture of the US is often touted as its primary reason for success, but there is a great deal of doubt about this.

OK but you realize that some in this case is a small percentage. Most people just want to defend their homes from intruders, defend their property from animals, hunt a few days a year, plink on the weekends, or just don't want to turn in the cherished firearm that was passed down in the family.

I guess it is possible that the reasons people actually want guns, and the reasons people say they must have guns may be different.

You don't live in a tyrannical government?

A cursory glance at incarceration rates, deficit in access to healthcare, education, etc. enforced by supposedly colorblind legislation, the whole defended by a police that has roots in labor repression and racial policing does not help your position.

If the USofA really are one of the least racist countries on earth, it is more a damning condemnation of the world than a glowing review of this country.

Are you truly telling us to care about it every time it happens when the Americans themselves clearly don’t?

I'm not asking you to care about anything. I don't actually care what you think or care about to be honest. But I would hope that jonp888 or you or anyone aren't told their tragedy doesn't matter or that it happens because they don't care themselves.

If America and Americans are not doing anything to fix the problem, they clearly can't think it's much of a problem.

My city has passed laws in direct response to local school shootings. The state of Idaho has enacted gun control laws that address specific shootings there. There are anti-gun demonstrations. The surviving Sandy Hook parents have made groundbreaking progress toward holding gunmakers liable for deaths caused by their products.

The examples are not hard to find.

This is a complex issue. We are trying. It is hard. Your dismissive comment isn't fair and it certainly isn't constructive or necessary.

> My city has passed laws in direct response to local school shootings.

School shootings, plural. In your city?

> The state of Idaho has enacted gun control laws that address specific shootings there.

Plural again.

> There are anti-gun demonstrations.

Plural. And apparently demonstrations are necessary to convince some people it’s a good idea.

> The surviving Sandy Hook parents have made groundbreaking progress toward holding gunmakers liable for deaths caused by their products.

You can’t hold gunmakers liable for deaths caused by their product, that’s literally what they’re made for.

I think it took only a single incident like this in any civilized country to have the entire national/federal government to go “you know what, lets ban/severely restrict this shit”. The US is the only country I know of that has literally hundreds of these incidents, and still hasn’t done anything significant.

Hell, maybe it won’t work, I’m open to that possibility, but doing anything is better than doing nothing. By doing nothing you implicitly indicate that this state of affairs is fine.

It’s just incredibly frustrating to see half of the responses to these kinds of threads always being “oh no, muh guns”, instead of “lets fix something”.

I do not speak for any other commenter and I stand by my own comments in this subthread.

> School shootings, plural. In your city?

In this case I think it was one incident specifically. The tax on ammo and gun sales to fund gun violence research was as I recall a direct response to the Seattle Pacific University shooting. I may be drawing more of a connection there than lawmakers would claim. But the timing was consistent and the event helped push it through.

> Plural again.

Yes, there have been multiple mass shootings in Moscow, Idaho alone. The state board of education passed specific gun control laws to attempt to limit harm within their jurisdiction.

> Plural. And apparently demonstrations are necessary to convince some people it’s a good idea.

Yes, that's typically how democracy works and one of the reasons we have free expression.

> You can’t hold gunmakers liable for deaths caused by their product, that’s literally what they’re made for.

Actually we can hold any manufacturer liable for the harm caused by their products, even if that harm is the stated purpose. Also, that's not the only purpose of these weapons. They do have viable uses for both hunting and recreation. Also, I'm not sure that Remington did claim that their guns are intended to kill people. In any case the manufacturers can be held liable.

> I think it took only a single incident like this in any civilized country to have the entire national/federal government to go “you know what, lets ban/severely restrict this shit”.

This is a very specific definition of civilized that suits your opinion. No true Scotsman, etc.

The US Federal Government does not have absolute authority to enact its will on Americans. This is very deliberate and fundamental to our society. This does not make us powerless. Quite the opposite. California is able to be more progressive in their gun laws than they could be in a system with absolute federal power.

> The US is the only country I know of that has literally hundreds of these incidents, and still hasn’t done anything significant.

As I mentioned previously there are examples of significant action that has been taken, even recently. While our gun laws are not the most strict in the world they do exist and they are strengthening.

> Hell, maybe it won’t work, I’m open to that possibility, but doing anything is better than doing nothing. By doing nothing you implicitly indicate that this state of affairs is fine.

Well as I have now said repeatedly, we are doing something. Many somethings in fact. So your assertion that Americans are fine with this state of affairs is clearly false. This gets to the heart of what I have said here. I would hope nobody is told they don't care about the tragedy they are facing.

> It’s just incredibly frustrating to see half of the responses to these kinds of threads always being “oh no, muh guns”, instead of “lets fix something”.

I don't see how this line is relevant to anything I have said here. Nor how it justifies your replies.

Well certainly. I have to use what I consider civilized. It’s quite possible that our opinions on what constitutes that differ.

> The US Federal Government does not have absolute authority to enact its will on Americans. This is very deliberate and fundamental to our society.

> As I mentioned previously there are examples of significant action that has been taken, even recently.

> Well as I have now said repeatedly, we are doing something.

I think what it comes down to, for me, is that I just fundamentally cannot consider anything that doesn’t happen on the federal level significant.

Strict regulations on guns in one state/city are pointless if you can just drive over to the next and fill up. It also makes things needlessly complicated for gun owners.

My point is that while americans in a specific location may care, I cannot consider Americans (capital) to be doing something unless the federal government acts.

If you consider the fact that they cannot as ‘deliberate and fundamental’ to your society, and you’d rather have these shootings than infringe on that, then by all means. But I will never be able to understand that.

In my opinion the whole reason for the federal government to exist is that they can act in situations like these.

Is it your assertion then that the United States is not a civilized country?

> I think what it comes down to, for me, is that I just fundamentally cannot consider anything that doesn’t happen on the federal level significant.

Please do not attribute your ignorance to indifference on the part of Americans.

> Strict regulations on guns in one state/city are pointless if you can just drive over to the next and fill up. It also makes things needlessly complicated for gun owners.

Perhaps. It’s still a barrier. This is how the laboratory of democracy makes progress.

> My point is that while americans in a specific location may care, I cannot consider Americans (capital) to be doing something unless the federal government acts.

Semantics, moving the goal posts.

> If you consider the fact that they cannot as ‘deliberate and fundamental’ to your society, and you’d rather have these shootings than infringe on that, then by all means. But I will never be able to understand that.

Please don’t put words in my mouth. This is such a gross mischaracterization of my words that I can only assume it is deliberate.

> In my opinion the whole reason for the federal government to exist is that they can act in situations like these.

The US Federal Government operates on the rule of law. Not on your opinion.

No. It isn't. It's a simple problem that every other developed country has solved and they did it basically overnight decades ago.

Stop making excuses and start fixing the problem.

If you read the rest of this thread you would know this isn't true.

You are posting disgusting, ignorant comments about a real problem that people (Americans included, we are people too) are working hard every day to solve. And those people are making real progress.

I'm confident and hopeful that in my lifetime I will see the Second Amendment repealed.

It's incredible you're making it about my comments. It has nothing to do with me.

Focus on the problem, and fixing it, not the people pointing out there is a problem.