The General Political Thread

[Toffee]

Well maybe that's why you need to look at yourselves. I don't know about you but I don't want to live In a society that doesn't give a shit when kids are gunned down at school or if somebody can't afford the bill for their cancer treatment.

[TheBoberton]

Not throwing your rights on the pyre isn't a sign that people don't care. It's simply not being stupid. We've done it before, and we're not keen to repeat the mistake.

The stigma against those with mental illness needs to end. People with mental illnesses need access to proper treatment. I think that's something we can all agree on.

[Furrnox]

If you look at the statistics here you can see that even though the US is the densest country on earth when it comes to guns it isn't even close to having the highest gun related homocides it's not just about the guns. Also the majority of deaths are suicides which is more of a mental care issue than a gun issue.

[Toffee]

Lmfao your rights my arse. The constitution was written in the 1700s in regards to militia. It doesn't give everyone the right to bear high powered rifles. It doesn't say anything about restrictions on magazines or on background checks. And as I mentioned before, how are you gonna help these people with mental health issues because the USA has one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world.

[Riddlez]

I am not against gun ownership per se personally, but what Ican't understand is why people are so imcredubly fucking spastic when it comes to just implementing a simple background check...

[TheBoberton]

"People" ≠ "Militia"
The former is used in the context of who is granted the right to bear arms, the latter is not.

As to helping those with health issues, we do our best to create the change.

I am not against gun ownership per se personally, but what Ican't understand is why people are so imcredubly fucking spastic when it comes to just implementing a simple background check...

Because the background checks already exist, and we have to explain that to everyone who argues on the topic because they're hilariously misinformed on the state of American firearm law.

[Theodin]

Of course it's a major problem that's why measures need to be taken against extremism and they will be. But you can't just sit back idly and wait for another mass shooting to occur. I'm done trying to convince you guys because clearly you don't care. You'll be the first to shout tragedy when another one happens and the first to do nothing about it.

And Theodin don't be an arse. You love to cry virtue signalling when you can't think of a proper argument. Clearly we need to prevent people from fucking dying. That's not virtue signalling that's just common fucking sense.

I'm not saying it's possible to get rid of all guns but clearly some restrictions have to be put in place. It's not virtue signalling if I'm talking about hiw the discussion started in the first place. I'm pretty sure the US constitution doesn't state that all weapons must be allowed so maybe a restriction on high capacity magazines, high calibre rifles or something along those lines to try to limit their usage (I don't know guns). In the period that the Iraq war happend. More women were killed with guns by their partners than the US dead in the war. It needs to become harder for potential risks for gun violence to gain access to these weapons. Switzerland has background checks and requires liscenses and this obviously leads to fewer deaths. There have been almost half a million gun deaths in the ISA between the late nineties and 2013. Surely steps must be taken to protect citizens.

Wait, I thought you finished trying here, Toffee!

You’re very intellectually dishonest. “You don’t want gun control therefore you don’t care about dead children” is a desipicable and frankly dangerous thing to incinuate. Of course we should avoid mass shootings if possible, but disagreeing about the means to solving a problem is not being pro-problem. But instead you throw around a lot of uncertainties and generalities. What guns should we ban, Toffee? You said you don’t know guns. Why don’t you come up with legislation for us to critique? Or you could just continue acting morally superior because you want to legislate guns.

I also forgot you were a constitutional scholar.

[Riddlez]

Yes they exist, sure. Not everywhere though.

I mean... I was in Salt Lake City this summer and went to the range.
I could, as a foreigner, buy any rifle or pistol I wanted. No background checks involved, I didn't even need to register myself.

Gun ownership is fine when fopr recreation, but don't give me the bullshit argument about protecting yourself from the government. Given that the U.S. government can't even pass proper healthcare laws or educate its people let alone overthrow the democracy and create a dictatorship. Not to even mention the fact that if a dictatorship ever comes to be in the U.S., it'll be self-inflicted and not forced.

The self defense argument is not that strong either. Sure home defense, I can get behind that to some degree, but having a 9mm glock protecting your house or a 7.62 FN SCAR will seriously not make a difference and I hope you can argue that having high powered rifles out and about isn't that ideala situation considering you can blow the tits off of someone with that thing from 800 metres away and there's only so much police weapons can do about that.

Open carry to protect against an active shooter situation? Hilarious. Even police officers, fuck me even regular army infantry personnel aren't equipped and/or trained enough to handle an active shooter event. That's why there are tactical response teams to begin with. And you're telling me 52-year-old uncle Bob from Tennessee,  the old cowboy indoor range tiger, is capable enough to stop a shooter at church on Sunday next week without killing a few more extra innocents? That's not sensible at all.
Besides that, there have already been instances when an active shooter event was happening where civilians were carrying weapons... That turned out to be a significant clusterfuck because as soon as there were multiple armed people out and about nobody knew anymore who the shooter was in the first place.

[Toffee]

I read that less than 1% of violent crimes in the US involve the victim protecting themselves with a gun.

Theodin I did offer examples so clearly you didn't read anything. Typical arse trying to get one up cos somebody is questioning your perceived freedoms. Kids are dying. I didn't say that you wanted it to happen. But you can argue for either gun control or better healthcare for mental health, it doesn't matter because the US is doing neither.

And the Us constitution specifically mentions the necessity of a well regulated militia in regards to the right to bear arms. It's actually pretty ambiguous to be honest. It doesn't say anything about restrictions I'm pretty sure in regards to high powered assault rifles and magazine capacity considering when it was created.

[TheBoberton]

Yes they exist, sure. Not everywhere though.

I mean... I was in Salt Lake City this summer and went to the range.
I could, as a foreigner, buy any rifle or pistol I wanted. No background checks involved, I didn't even need to register myself.

Bullshit. Federal regulations require all FFLs to run a background check on all firearms sold. Violation of this results in a visit from your friendly neighborhood ATF agents, and a long period of time in a very small room.

Gun ownership is fine when fopr recreation, but don't give me the bullshit argument about protecting yourself from the government. Given that the U.S. government can't even pass proper healthcare laws or educate its people let alone overthrow the democracy and create a dictatorship.

The US can't pass 'proper' healthcare laws because no one agrees on what that is. Education is in a similar situation.

Not to even mention the fact that if a dictatorship ever comes to be in the U.S., it'll be self-inflicted and not forced.

That won't stop people resisting.

The self defense argument is not that strong either. Sure home defense, I can get behind that to some degree, but having a 9mm glock protecting your house or a 7.62 FN SCAR will seriously not make a difference and I hope you can argue that having high powered rifles out and about isn't that ideala situation considering you can blow the tits off of someone with that thing from 800 metres away and there's only so much police weapons can do about that.

Surely as a soldier you recognize the value of an autoloading long arm in the defense. As for 'high powered rifles', hunting arms are more powerful and accurate at ranges exceeding 300 meters than any of the arms many propose banning the ownership of.

Open carry to protect against an active shooter situation? Hilarious. Even police officers, fuck me even regular army infantry personnel aren't equipped and/or trained enough to handle an active shooter event. That's why there are tactical response teams to begin with. And you're telling me 52-year-old uncle Bob from Tennessee,  the old cowboy indoor range tiger, is capable enough to stop a shooter at church on Sunday next week without killing a few more extra innocents? That's not sensible at all.
Besides that, there have already been instances when an active shooter event was happening where civilians were carrying weapons... That turned out to be a significant clusterfuck because as soon as there were multiple armed people out and about nobody knew anymore who the shooter was in the first place.

And yet there are numerous cases in which shootings have been stopped by "52-year-old- uncle Bob from Tennessee, the old cowboy indoor range tiger". Funnily enough, a handful of them have been at churches on Sunday.

And the Us constitution specifically mentions the necessity of a well regulated militia in regards to the right to bear arms. It's actually pretty ambiguous to be honest.

It's really not. Regardless of the preamble, it quite definitively states its purpose.

[Toffee]

Yes it states that people have the right to bear arms. It also precursors that by talking about a regulated militia. Evidently that is quite outdated at the minute so using it as a reason not to regulate high powered rifles/ magazines etc is a bad argument. Nobody is saying that it will be possible to rid the US of every gun. Just that it needs to be more heavily regulated to accommodate for what's going on at the minute. Mental health aid is a long term solution but we need to address the means in order to save lives.

[Riddlez]

The self defense argument is not that strong either. Sure home defense, I can get behind that to some degree, but having a 9mm glock protecting your house or a 7.62 FN SCAR will seriously not make a difference and I hope you can argue that having high powered rifles out and about isn't that ideala situation considering you can blow the tits off of someone with that thing from 800 metres away and there's only so much police weapons can do about that.

Surely as a soldier you recognize the value of an autoloading long arm in the defense.

Yes, at 300 metres, which I really do not see happening inside your home. There is a reason carbines are preferred in CQB and why the MP5 is an extremely popular weapon with SOF and SWAT in clearing houses. If the option is there, soldiers carring rifles would swtich to sidearm in clearing houses. Not only because of a rifle being cumbersome, but also because 9mm is less prone to go through walls, killing innocents.

Hunting rifles are awesome at htting at long range with minimal collateral damage (also depending on the rounds you would use, ofc) but they're quite shit at mowing down a crowd.

[TheBoberton]

9mm is actually more dangerous to people on the other side of a wall than 5.56, when they do penetrate.

[Toffee]

Not an expert but which penetrates more?

[TheBoberton]

9mm. Higher mass, inertia, all that. 5.56 will maintain its penetration abilities at a longer range, but closer to the muzzle the 9 shines in that regard. Which is weird, because you don't expect it to work like that, and obviously materials designed to catch rounds will work better on 9mm, but that's physics for you.