Lord, have mercy.

[u/My_hilarious_name]

[u/Yoojine]

Thankfully the police here were not useless like they were at Uvalde

As always, "No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"

[u/SalmonidHunter → u/Yoojine]

It sounds more like an armed citizen stopped the shooter than the police though?

[u/Yoojine → u/SalmonidHunter]

You're right, I either misread or was following erroneous reporting

[u/Space-Explorer456 → u/SalmonidHunter]

“A good guy with a gun might stop a bad guy with a gun, therefore we should keep giving bad guys so that the good guys have a chance to have guns as well”

You don’t need a good guy with a gun if you don’t have bad guys with guns.

[u/According_War_85 → u/Space-Explorer456]

The problem is the bad guys dont care if we have a law that says "you can't have guns" and will smuggle them

[u/According_War_85 → u/According_War_85]

Some have even make their own makeshift guns 

[u/Space-Explorer456 → u/According_War_85]

Okay? Most gun killings are not committed by organized crime or by individuals who are going to be smuggling weapons. And crimes committed by dedicated organizations and actors like that are not the type that get stopped by a good guy with a gun.

Mass shooters aren’t using smuggled guns, they’re using guns they bought because the gun shop didn’t have a waiting period, or unsecured guns they got from family. Domestic gun homicides don’t use smuggled guns, they use guns that are already present in the home. Home invasions are more likely, but those guns are usually obtained from friends, thefts, or legally, not from a massive smuggled supply. And no smuggled supply could replace the supply of guns in the US today.

Better gun laws reduce gun deaths. They don’t eliminate it, sure, but they reduce gun deaths. This is demonstrably true. Look at Australia, look at Europe, look at states that have tried to implement gun laws. You don’t need a good guy with a gun, if you stop giving the bad guys guns. Sure the organized big bad guys might get a few guns, but that’s what law enforcement is for.

I don’t even think a ban is entirely necessary, but better regulations are. There is no legitimate reason to own an automatic weapon. Nobody should be able to just get a gun without a significant waiting period and a background check. People who have demonstrated a significant risk or propensity towards harming others should not have access to a gun. Parents should not be giving their children acres to guns. Common sense gun reform can save so many lives. And, not to offend, the oft repeated “oh but all the bad guys guns will just be replaced with smuggled guns” just doesn’t play out in reality.

[u/According_War_85 → u/Space-Explorer456]

Well it is in our right to have automatic weapons and to be fair I'm all for background checks as we want to make sure the right people have guns. As in overall, your greatest offense is your greatest defense as shown in statistics that defensive gun use happens 2.5 million times anually on average vs the miniscule 2 to 69k gun incidents that may not always involve death and can even just be someone who saw a gun and was threatened.

More deaths happen to preventable medical deaths each year than all gun deaths in total annually. Now,second of all I appreciate that you atleast support gun use but the reason automatic guns in the military is that(suprisingly) they are actually harder to aim then semi or non automatic guns and therefore are more unlikely to actually hit their target. They actually can be used to suppress an enemy (suppressive fire) to keep them at bay and wait for the emergency forces to arrive.now onto comparing gun deaths to other countries, around half the us gun deaths are suicide deaths rather than homicide which involves mental health(which is certainly a problem in western  countries),but then you also have the fact that america has problems with a little something called the mexican cartel which has a "coke line" dripping from latin america all the way to the us where things can get very violent and obviously then guns can be smuggled along with the coke and can involve numerous deaths which isn't something norway would have to deal with for example.and I'm happy to practice gun safety but gun control is just about where I draw line.

If there's any other reason why you think we should limit our own use of weaponry I'd be happy to discuss or if you want to point out specific topics in your last argument but it seems that I have covered them.

[u/Space-Explorer456 → u/According_War_85]

Your 2.5 million number is an extreme high-end estimate of questionable merit built entirely upon self-reported data. Other estimates put it in the mid 10 thousands. Thats quite a wide spread.

I’m not quite sure where you get your numbers for “gun incidents”, but the US sees around 20,000 homicides a year, 70-80% of which have a gun involved. A mere 8-15% involve knives or “personal weapons” (fists and feet). So your claims about the number of gun and non-gun deaths in the US are either false or misleading.

Military doctrine is irrelevant to the value of civilian weapons for civilian hunting or self defense. If you cannot effectively defuse a threat without automatic or near automatic fire, you should not be. The risk of collateral damage to innocent bystanders is far too high. If you lack the training to effectively use a smaller firearm for personal defense, you should not be using an automatic or semiautomatic rifle. And if the treat you are facing is significant enough to need that, then you should be getting out of that situation because you are not going to be able to defend yourself on your own.

And less guns being available means less gun suicides too. Many suicides are spontaneous things, preventing easy access to highly lethal weapons does reduce the likelihood of a suicide actually happening.

As for organized crime, why are civilians defending themselves from drug traffickers? Those are large scale organizations that don’t care about you unless you’re involved with them, they’re not breaking into random homes for no reason. They also aren’t things that you can take down with just you and your gun. That is a law enforcement issue that the current administration supposedly cares a lot about.

And yeah, you haven’t really addressed my points about more gun laws demonstrably reducing gun deaths, the majority of relevant crimes being committed with guns that would not simply be replaced by smuggled guns, the existence of a legitimate reason for civilian to own an automatic weapon, or rates and types of gun violence in the US.

And no, you don’t have a right to own an automatic weapon, you have a right to a “well-regulated militia”

[u/According_War_85 → u/Space-Explorer456]

It's very easy to hang oneself and there is already gun training which is important.and to the large cartels your argument holds some merit but cartels have been shown willing to kill someone if they even are on their block and aren't very trustworthy as it isn't set in stone and they can be erratic and spontaneuous.I was saying that we have a god given right more so, less government given but we should  model our government around that. Also that is false, now it's true a couple people with guns can't stop a cartel but rangers have gotten together one time with their own house-hold automatic weapons and engaged in a gang fight with other gangs that didn't kill but simply impaired them and not only got those specific people out of trouble but spread awareness to the police force about gang activity. This was in the 1980s gangs weren't even the size they are now. And automatic guns can be used as a better threat instead of just a killing tool if someone coming in your house only has a pistol for example. And ofc Gun laws obviously reduce gun deaths but what about overall deaths.you can even compare California to Texas and see that California has more violent crimes than Texas! That's wild.

[u/Space-Explorer456 → u/According_War_85]

Suicide substitution like that just isn’t borne out in the data. Suicide rates are lower for populations with less access to guns, and they drop when guns are taken away. Guns one of the easiest and most lethal methods of suicide, taking the away reduces impulsive suicides by enforcing a delay and reducing success rates. The data agrees.

Adding high power-weapons into the hands of civilians in situations involving armed street violence tends to increase danger and escalate them, not end them. All the more reason they should be dealt with by properly trained law enforcement, not Jim Bob.

There is no biblical basis for a god-given right to have a firearm. Actually, Jesus himself advocated for nonviolence, even in self defense, and not having weapons. The only time he instructs someone to purchase a weapon he does it explicitly to fulfill prophesy and opposes actual using them. Jesus taught it was better to suffer, even to the point of death, than inflict harm on others, even in self defense. “Turn the other cheek” and whatnot.

The Ash Street Shootout was a remarkably lucky isolated event. 600 rounds flying in a residential neighborhood is extremely likely to cause collateral damage and most folks arent a troop of army rangers. I think this can be pretty handily countered out by looking at the multiple mass shooting a year that could have been prevented by gun control.

Automatic weapons create a massively larger chance of collateral harm, like killing a family member, pet, or bystander, than they provide in protective value.

You keep coming up with new stuff without actually addressing the core issues: gun violence in rampant in the US and more gun control has shown to lead to less gun violence.

[u/According_War_85 → u/Space-Explorer456]

I'd disagree And I'd say I mentioned the claim . Now if you want to argue scriptures, in Luke 22:36 jesus states "If you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one" which pretty much sums it up but there are other verses such as 22:2 and 22:3.now before that you mentioned "Jimbob" now I am in all support of required training for example jim is required how to safely operate a automatic and a well-done background check but confiscating from the public or forcing him to put it completely under wraps is not ok.and no I disagree guns aren't going rampant there aren't ghosts holding our weapons it's the people which directly relates to gang activity,cartels and more. Guns are a tool for us to use wisely,not remove all together.

[u/PomegranateFancy2545]

Why are we so f@cked up in the U.S.?!?!?!

[u/Hazzman → u/PomegranateFancy2545]

I will say as someone who has one foot on either side of the pond... America is all about individualism and it permeates every aspect of its culture including its layout and design.

Nothing is designed around communal activities and for many or most people (especially those who don't go to church) there are no 3rd spaces outside work and school.

No walkable spaces, everything is designed around car travel, nothing for young people to do but bum around their cookie cutter suburb streets. This place is almost designed to send people loopy.

I remember my wife and I were having an ice cream at some frozen yogurt place and we were sitting outside of it on chairs under an umbrella just beside its car park which was full of cars and beside us was a major 4 lane road and our carpark was connected to a much larger one servicing a walmart. As a half-American half-European it is just about the ugliest scene you could imagine. I remember there were these teenagers in their truck hanging out listening to music eating ice cream as well in the yogurt place's car park and all I could do was pity them. What a miserable, ugly place this is. It truly is. The sprawl is a catastrophe and an utter assault against human sanity.

But most Americans are utterly clueless because it is all they've ever known. And when I bring this up they get defensive because all they can think about is the memory they had kissing Jenny behind the Walgreens when they were 16 and my point isn't that that memory was illegitimate, but that it could've been elevated by being somewhere far more picturesque and healthy for human sanity than behind the bushes of a drug store drive through.

Kids can't go anywhere without their parents driving them there. No parks within walking distance. Nothing within walking distance. It's all isolated, just like our society. All living our own isolated little lives.

It's depraved and maddening. It makes me so very happy I never had to endure growing up here.

[u/Huggermugger78]

So sad and scary. Prayers for the community and loved ones of the deceased.

[u/Due_Ad_3200]

In 1996, there was a mass shooting at a school in Scotland. This led to a ban on handguns in the UK. There has not been another mass shooting in a school in the UK since.

https://youtube.com/shorts/eE8h3XCpG3w

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9m8zmxe25o

[u/ZookeepergameFar2653 → u/Due_Ad_3200]

You all don’t have a second amendment that literally says no infringing by the govt.

[u/My_hilarious_name → u/Due_Ad_3200]

Absolutely. I was born and reared in Northern Ireland where every single police officer is armed- you’d be amazed at how few police shootings there are, even going back to the Troubles. It’s remarkable, especially when you compare it to per capita rates in the USA.

[u/philnotfil → u/Due_Ad_3200]

If Sandy Hook wasn't enough, there is no number of dead children that will be enough.

[u/ZookeepergameFar2653]

We need to work our way to repeal second amendment

[u/Minute_Marzipan_6844 → u/ZookeepergameFar2653]

I disagree with repealing it it needs to be better regulated. Kids should not have access to guns parents need to be held responsible

[u/ZookeepergameFar2653 → u/Minute_Marzipan_6844]

And yes, parents ABSOLUTELY need to be responsible if it’s the parents’ fault a kid got the gun. Sometimes parents or adults do the right things and a kid still gets a gun. But more often it’s their negligence

[u/ZookeepergameFar2653 → u/Minute_Marzipan_6844]

It needs to be repealed so that we can regulate it. As it’s written right now, it’s obsolete and completely outdated

[u/According_War_85 → u/ZookeepergameFar2653]

Completely disagree if we had more armed guards we can still preserve the 2nd ammendment . Sure just give the government all the power totally what we need right now.

[u/ZookeepergameFar2653 → u/According_War_85]

Repeal 2nd amendment bc not everyone should have a right to a gun, and we already give the govt certain authorities to dictate that. Which makes it obsolete and outdated as is. That right was written very long ago.
Owning a gun should be a privilege that someone should have to work to get, not a right. So for example, we already have background checks but I would say they should add register it after passing a safety check as well.