It's the guns...

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

Reposting this from Facebook:

"It’s the guns.

It’s not that “we’ve banished God from our schools” because I’m pretty sure that God was present in all those parochial schools where young boys were sexually molested for generations. And do we really need to have God in all our hair salons, movie theaters, and shopping malls or wherever else the next lunatic decides to appear? I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure that God isn’t made of Kevlar.

It’s the guns.

It’s not the lack of access to mental health services, although our lack of access to mental health services in this country is nothing short of shameful. But the point is that there are crazy people in all corners of the globe, but it seems that only in this particular corner of the globe are crazy people armed to the teeth. You know what you call a crazy person WITHOUT a gun? Randy Quaid.

It’s the guns.

It’s not the exposure to violent images on movies and in video games. Kids in Europe and Asia watch the same movies and play the same video games as American kids. You want sick violence? Watch some Japanese anime (Fair Notice: NSFW doesn’t cover the half of it). You want to be comparatively safe from a mass shooting? Go to Japan. Go figure.

It’s the guns.

You think other weapons are just as lethal, yet aren’t regulated? I’ll tell you what. Let’s get into a war, with your Army getting knives and baseball bats and whatever non-firearm you can lay your hands on, and my Army gets assault rifles. Want to place bets on who’s going to win? There’s a reason why every military on earth arms its soldiers with firearms and not hatchets.

It’s the guns.

I’m not suggesting a solution here. But until we can agree on the cause, it’s not likely that we’re ever going to find one. The NRA and Fox News are going to keep spewing out nonsense (all of the excuses above were inspired by a single episode of “Fox and Friends”) to protect firearms manufacturers from the inevitable regulation that’s coming. Now there’s good regulation and bad regulation, and if we’re going to do it right, we have to start with some reasonable first assumptions, like this one:

It’s the guns."

[The Magistrate]

1. Cold But Fair, Sir

[thucythucy]

2. Thank you

for posting this.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

3. I agree

[OregonBlue]

4. Right on and Amen!!!

[Little Star]

5. Yes it's the guns, especially....

guns with large ammunition capacity, imho. The more capacity the more carnage.

[Gregorian]

6. And when the guns are gone, it will be about the knives.

It's the hopeless, ill, unstable, unhappy people.

It's the economic inequality brought about by bad politics and greedy people who are also ill, unstable, unhappy.

It's not the guns.

However, guns make it easier. I'm for gun control. I wouldn't mind a planet with no guns. But they are not the problem, but the symptom.

[progressoid]

7. They are not the symptom.

They are the means. The method.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

8. No. When the guns are gone, ...

... it will be about the guns smuggled in to meet the demand.

How's that War on Drugs working?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

10. Ever tried to cook an AR-15 in a basement lab?

Or get through airport security with a Glock stuffed up your coochie?

Smuggling arms is a little tougher than smuggling drugs.

[hack89]

11. So while cartels can smuggle drugs in America by the pallet load guns are hard?

A handgun with a box of ammo is no bigger then a kilo package of cocaine. A lot smaller than a baleof marijuana.

But there is no need to smuggle arms into the country. We already have 300 million in circulation and completely invisible to the government. How many enterprising criminals will have the foresight to stockpile weapons and make some money? Criminals will always have guns.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

12. Possibly...

So we're supposed to let our schools, churches, and shopping malls get shot to pieces?

[hack89]

13. Formulating unconstitutional and/or ineffective laws will not protect them

I can understand the emotion but too many "solutions" here have no foundation in reality.

You still have to deal with existing constitutional reality. You still have to deal with existing political reality. You still have to deal with the tens of millions of gun owners that refuse to let themselves be demonized.

It is a complex problem - as the President said, it will take more than one law.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

15. Which laws? (nt)

[hack89]

16. I would start with strengthening background checks

there are many holes in the system, mainly because states are not putting required data into the system. Easy fix with enough money.

I would also encourage states to require background checks for private sales. This is hard in that it cannot be fixed with a single federal law.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

17. I agree, but there's a sticky problem.

Your mental health history is part of your health history, the confidentiality of which is guarded under federal law. You would have to carve out some kind of exemption in order for the clerk at Dick's Sporting Goods to be able to see if you're being treated for mental illness.

If you've been committed by the court, that's another (and public) issue.

[hack89]

18. Background checks and personal privacy are a legal morass.

I don't even pretend to understand the ins and outs of it.

But my point was that states are not presently following current law. There are people who cannot legally buy guns for a variety of reasons that are not in the system because the states are not dedicating the proper resources to the task.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. Think a gun-sniffing dog can find a pallet of guns in a container?

Guns don't smell like opium. They smell like steel and oil. They smell like washing machines, sewing machines, car parts.

You don't need a machine shop in your basement. The shops are in Russia, Romania, China, etc.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

20. Well, yes.

Firearms are test fired at the factory, and the gun powder scent lingers for up to a year. There are currently K-9 units trained to sniff out otherwise unused guns. The dogs are also trained to sniff out specific metals and oils used in the manufacture of firearms.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

9. No.

Guns are the thing that removes half of your skull from close range. All of the symptoms in the world (rage, insanity, despair, whatever) don't mean dick until you have a gun in your hands.

[sufrommich]

14. I love this. nt