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*WARNING: SWEARY.*
Maybe it's enhanced because I recently had my own child, but the shootings in Connecticut and the kibosh on gun control discussion imposed by the White House have made me so, so angry. Why does this keep happening? Because, as The Onion summarized neatly in its caption of a photo of a woman hugging a sobbing child, "Right To Own Handheld Device That Shoots Deadly Metal Pellets At High Speed Worth All Of This".
When are we going to sort this out, America? Civilians don't need to own handguns and assault rifles. They may want to, but they don't need them. If you need to hunt to survive (and very few people's survival depends on this any more), a shotgun and some decent target practice will suffice. You don't need an assault rifle.
Never have I been more pleased to have chosen to raise my child in a country where there is a ban on ownership of the types of weapons which are primarily used to kill other people rather than edible game. I'm not saying Britain doesn't have problems. Just that I'm glad my daughter will be able to go to fucking primary school largely without fearing she'll die in a massacre enabled because one of her teachers owns a goddamn assault rifle.
Kids in a primary school were massacred. Kids in a goddamn primary school were fucking massacred. This isn't bad enough for you, America? Really? REALLY? What the hell is, then?
This was written after the Aurora shooting. Which was in July of this year. The first bloody line of this piece is: "How many more tragedies need to happen before the United States joins the modern world in banning assault weapons?" How fucking short are our memories?
From the New Statesman. "In the US, the total of firearm homicides in 2011 was eleven thousand, one hundred and one, and this year is on track to be even higher. Look at it this way: if the Connecticut attack was the only shooting yesterday, then the day's death toll would actually be below the US average. More people die from firearm homicide every year than the total number of US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. More than twice as many people die from firearm homicide as in 11 September and Pearl Harbour combined. 31 people every day die on average from a firearm-related homicide. This doesn't count accidental deaths. Just murder." [emphasis mine]
The final word goes to The Onion.
Maybe it's enhanced because I recently had my own child, but the shootings in Connecticut and the kibosh on gun control discussion imposed by the White House have made me so, so angry. Why does this keep happening? Because, as The Onion summarized neatly in its caption of a photo of a woman hugging a sobbing child, "Right To Own Handheld Device That Shoots Deadly Metal Pellets At High Speed Worth All Of This".
When are we going to sort this out, America? Civilians don't need to own handguns and assault rifles. They may want to, but they don't need them. If you need to hunt to survive (and very few people's survival depends on this any more), a shotgun and some decent target practice will suffice. You don't need an assault rifle.
Never have I been more pleased to have chosen to raise my child in a country where there is a ban on ownership of the types of weapons which are primarily used to kill other people rather than edible game. I'm not saying Britain doesn't have problems. Just that I'm glad my daughter will be able to go to fucking primary school largely without fearing she'll die in a massacre enabled because one of her teachers owns a goddamn assault rifle.
Kids in a primary school were massacred. Kids in a goddamn primary school were fucking massacred. This isn't bad enough for you, America? Really? REALLY? What the hell is, then?
This was written after the Aurora shooting. Which was in July of this year. The first bloody line of this piece is: "How many more tragedies need to happen before the United States joins the modern world in banning assault weapons?" How fucking short are our memories?
From the New Statesman. "In the US, the total of firearm homicides in 2011 was eleven thousand, one hundred and one, and this year is on track to be even higher. Look at it this way: if the Connecticut attack was the only shooting yesterday, then the day's death toll would actually be below the US average. More people die from firearm homicide every year than the total number of US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. More than twice as many people die from firearm homicide as in 11 September and Pearl Harbour combined. 31 people every day die on average from a firearm-related homicide. This doesn't count accidental deaths. Just murder." [emphasis mine]
The final word goes to The Onion.
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It's not that I want people to not own certain types; I'm just confused why anyone would want a gun if they lived in town or a city, you know? Especially if they live in a calm place.
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a) enjoys black powder Fur Trade reenactment, although he doesn't do much of it these days (he is also an outlier in that area, being a young liberal rather than an old conservative NRA member)
b) enjoys collecting historical guns, for their historical value and aesthetics
c) finds target shooting to be a fun challenge (He also enjoys archery; so do I, and neither of us has any desire to shoot other people with arrows. And he fences, with swords that would be perfectly usable if sharpened; I have as well in the past, and done martial arts.)
d) is interested in hunting because he enjoys tromping around in the woods, challenge, and eating wild game (thus far he has successfully brought back two squirrels, which we plan to eat)
He does not list "home protection" among his reasons to have guns. He also feels very strongly about gun safety and responsibility. He also feels very strongly about trophy hunting (he doesn't like it).
I'm fairly ambivalent about guns myself and really would like huge changes to gun law in the US, but I'm not really cool with mistrusting the motives of EVERYONE who owns guns. I don't think everyone who enjoys archery or fencing or martial arts gets half the distrust the average gun owner gets, despite the fact that the average gun owner is not out committing homicide either. There are lots of legal, non-sociopathic reasons for people to own guns.
The question is whether the price to society of ready access to guns is worth it so some people can responsibly enjoy a hobby. I probably come down on a different side of that question from my partner, although I am also unsure whether it is remotely practical to take away the millions of guns in circulation from people who are going to be exceedingly reluctant to hand them over to the government nicely.
There is a weird effect, even among liberal gun owners who don't go around posturing about how everyone should carry concealed and if someone broke into their home they'd be sorry, where the words "gun" and "control" in the same sentence basically shut down all reasoning capabilities.
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True. And your point is taken!
I hate trophy hunting. It's such a waste of life and resources.
whether it is remotely practical to take away the millions of guns in circulation from people who are going to be exceedingly reluctant to hand them over to the government nicely
I doubt there would be anyway to do this that wouldn't involve ugliness.
The question is whether the price to society of ready access to guns is worth it so some people can responsibly enjoy a hobby.
Or eat. I have a shotgun and a rifle to hunt. It helps us make ends meet a little easier. I haven't needed to shoot anything off my veg, but theoretically, I could do that too. My parents keep the very brazen raccoons off theirs that way.
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Yes. Absolutely. Especially since we hear this same argument - "If only the one of the victims had guns" - every time one of these shootings happens. Well, in this case, one did. They were used on her and then used to carry out the shootings.
The worst thing about this is that a lot of small children are dead. The second-worst thing about it is that it's going to happen again. There is no "if". Only "when".
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I don't understand the whole 'we can't talk about it now, it's not appropriate' that happens immediately after something like this happens. When will be the time to talk about it???
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"Well people will just kill each other some other way if we ban guns!" is the most common one these drooling jackasses trot out. Or "It's not guns, it's ~evil~ that causes these things to happen!" And the ever-popular "Guns don't kill people! People kill people!"
Yes, cupcake, people kill people WITH GUNS.
Never mind that a man in China attempted to do the same thing with a knife at a school, on the same day, and while he managed to injure 22 children, NONE of those children actually died.
I'm SO sick of it, frankly. Ready to punch the next yapping NRA member who dares speak this bullshit in front of me.
*explodes*
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What I love about this country is that we totally ignored the fact that we do nothing to help the mentally ill until they commit a crime, but by god we zeroed in on gun rights. =/
And now the NRA is suggesting people go armed to schools. Like teachers don't have enough to do already, they're supposed to be rent-a-cops.