Prayers not enough: "If we want fewer gun victims, we need fewer guns"
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Which of our political leaders have the courage to lead the revolt against gun apathy? Some political figures, like presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, have sought to turn the discussion to foreign policy, and the need to combat ISIS. Fighting the terrorist group is a good idea in its own right, just as providing better mental health services — another common promise politicians make to evade questions about guns — would make sense anyway. But neither will cure America of the gun violence that reaches into churches, movie theaters, schools, offices, and now nightclubs. There is no shortcut: If we want fewer gun victims, we need fewer guns.
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| Trump's wife |
As Don Meredith once said, "Sex and violence, you can sell it."
Thanks to The Friendly Atheist
Labels: Islamic Fascism, Punks with Guns, Trump
posted by Rob Anderson @ 10:31 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
The large majority of shooting deaths have been at the hands of the mentally ill and often disenfranchised. Political correctness has blocked what is necessary: medical record checks (especially mental health) on those seeking gun purchases. Until that is done, these shootings will continue. There is already precedent for government access to medical information - its required to get a pilot's license.
"If we want fewer fun victims,we need fewer guns"
Ok sure so if we want fewer teen pregnancies, we need fewer Viginas". How about the Sfmta if we want fewer deahths on our streets, we need fewer auto lanes and parking spaces.
Bunch of bullshit. If someone wants to kill they're going to kill. If someone wants to smoke they'll smoke. Enough baby sitting the public
Consider that over 500,000 Americans have died from AIDS, and yet, where are the penis control laws demanding that everyone with HIV must have sex with barrier protection, or that people with HIV can't share hypodermic needles? People too die from HPV caused cancers and again no laws requiring barrier protection. So, before adding yet more ineffective gun laws, create some for other killers. 40,000+ new HIV infections/year is too many.
Okay, Mark, I get it. You're a gun guy. Your AIDS analogy is unconvincing. Obviously regulating sex lives that way is impossible, even if the government wanted to do it. Regulating guns, on the other hand, is successfully done by other nations. Today the NY Times even has a story comparing gun deaths in the US with other countries:
"In Poland and England, only about one out of every million people die in gun homicides each year---about as often as an American dies in an agricultural accident or falling from a ladder. In Japan, where gun homicides are even rarer, the likelihood of dying this way is about the same as an American’s chance of being killed by lightning---roughly one in 10 million."
No reason why we can't do it here. The National Lampoon said it more succinctly a couple of years ago: ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
I'm not a gun guy - never owned one in my life. I'm just trying to put 49 deaths in perspective for what the gay community has previously experienced in recent times, not even going to the Holocaust.
Gun laws didn't stop the Norway massacre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks
I wanted to make several points:
1. Gay men in their 20s have no idea what it was like in the 1980s and 1990s to have their friends, lovers, and community getting slaughtered. Only 49 deaths in a city would be a "good" year.
2. Not the first rodeo for the gay community. Its faced mass casualties for over a decade in every city, in every year from AIDS.
3. I got to use the term "dick-control" when everyone's fixated on gun-control, and point out how there are so many gun-control laws and none on dick-control and using barrier (condoms, dental dams, gloves) protection.
4. Preventing the spread of HIV is still an important way to save lives. New HIV cases are in the range of all US firearm deaths. AIDS may not kill so many people these days, but adds life-long health risks, drug side-effects, and complications, and societal medical costs.
Because the most sexually active have no experience of the AIDS epidemic and take for granted available drugs, they have been more dismissive of barrier protection, which is cheap and effective. Sure men rather just take a prophylactic pill so they can bareback, but those pills were originally intended for prostitutes to use, not the general population. Just another drug now taken for granted.
5. Its pride month. Know your history. In the bad days of AIDS, there weren't lots of women pushing baby carriages at pride, friends and lovers were pushing wheelchairs of emaciated men too weak to walk.
6. I don't mean to diminish the horrible act of what is looking to be a self-loathing, religiously/culturally conflicted, closeted, gay man. Its horrible that self-loathing like that still exists today. During the AIDS epidemic it resulted in self-harming behavior like unprotected sex and excessive drug use. Now its a mass shooting. It looked like the days of homosexuals hiding their identity was over and the shooting is a sad reminder its not, quite. The high HIV new infection rates for black and Latino men bear out continued closeting and denial.
Okay, not much I disagree with there. I just don't think using AIDS as somehow analogous to the gun control issue is helpful.
While not a gun guy, tragedy gets exploited every time by the gun control crowd. I'm just a little sick and disgusted by that. So, I try to put gun deaths in perspective, because it and especially mass shootings are small compared to what AIDS was in the US and with medical errors being the #3 killer in the US and nobody going to jail for it.
Guns are a public health issue---more than 33,000 deaths per year---just like AIDS and medical malpractice.
Medical errors are about an order of magnitude higher.
Now, think about that 33,000 number. Its about the number of traffic deaths, and many of the same people for gun control also want to take cars away! Public health officials have an anti-car program they call Vision Zero to blame every road death on drivers, no matter the circumstance. So, once you sign on to the Nanny State, you may not like everything in the package!
Aren't most gun deaths suicides from gun owners killing themselves?
Mark: Sensibly regulating guns in the US is about the Nanny State? Are all regulations the same? No one is talking about taking cars away from anyone in spite of the silly Vision Zero campaign. And no one is actually talking about taking guns away from anyone. Sensible gun control is about making them harder to get, especially those with mental health issues or potentially violent ideologies. That the Orlando shooter, investigated by the FBI as an Islamic extremist, could still buy an automatic rifle is ludicrous and defies common sense. If you're on a no-fly list, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun at all.
Anon: Yes, most suicides use guns. Your point is what? That's another argument for more control. Fewer guns means fewer fatalities by guns, whether suicides or homicides. And then there are the children in the US killed by firearms from accidents and homicides.
Other countries already do it, and the US will eventually get around to regulating guns sensibly.
I agree people on the no-fly list shouldn't just be able to buy guns, but there needs to be due process. After interviewing and vetting process, people should be able to get off a no-fly list, without having to be a US Senator.
I also think people with dangerous mental health issues shouldn't be able to just buy guns without further vetting. Liberals are against access to mental health records, blocking that.
Some people really want to take away almost all guns, and they want to make car ownership in cities (where liberals live) extremely unpleasant and expensive to discourage it. They consider cars death machines like guns and want the owner of either to be liable anytime somebody gets hurt with one.
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