I just finished my NRA Basic Pistol class this weekend so that I can get the NRA Handgun Instructor certification next weekend. Personally, aside from having loved guns (and all other arms and armor) since I was in kindergarten, I’ve been competing in hit factor and PCSL matches for a few years. My intent is to offer free one-on-one classes to people in underserved communities that wouldn’t be comfortable around the kind of people that are normally firearms instructors. (Like, the person I took the class from seemed pretty cool, until he was talking to the RSO, and hooooooooly shit, dude’s pretty far right; apparently I can camouflage as being far right just because I know a lot about guns and shoot pretty okay.
Thing is, the right to keep and bear arms is both a universal civil right for Americans and is an individual right. (The last part is pretty clear when you look at the historical context; not only were individuals allowed to own firearms, but able bodied men were obligated to own military-appropriate arms, and be ready to be called up if they were needed.) Yes, it is for self-defense–that’s inherited from English common law–but that’s not the primary intent.
It’s an incredibly privileged take to think that you can remove guns from the people, leave them in the hands of the gov’t, and thing that you’re gonna be just fine.
Don’t ya know, guns can just ✨ magically appear✨
Look! the MAGIC!
Zip guns exist.
The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a lathe is a good guy with a lathe.
Now I’m just imagining the Key and Peele hat skit but with guns.
You can even 3D print a weapon that’s able to fire multiple shots. With the right material even up to a few dozen (with reduced accuracy).
I wonder at what point the US will learn that guns aren’t candy that should be available to everyone, but also that high crime rates can’t be suppressed through power but have to be solved through social policies. The difficulty to obtain a weapon has to be high, with the incentives of doing so low.
As a non-US gun owner and 3d printing hobbyist who has done some metal working. 3d printing a gun is one of the harder ways of doing so. The issue is that guns are not hard to make in today’s world, it has been demonstrated that “hard” gun control does not work. The two best examples of “hard” gun control are Japan and the UK and both have examples of how unrealistic these are, In Japans case a homemade gun was used to kill Shinzo Abe and the UK (you would think I would use the troubles but no) is best summed up by a man named Philip Luty who was an anti gun control activist who published a book on how to make automatic firearms in a shed.
You hit the nail on the head with solving though social policies however. Even a simple gun licensing program and mandatory safety training can turn a nation of idiots with guns (the US) into a nation that has gun owners in it (like Italy or malaysia). I don’t think gun violence is going away, it is now a part of the human condition. What can be done is to not hand out firearms like candy and tie the idea of a nations “safety” or “freedom” to that of firearm ownership.
Canada is a good one to compare the US to as well. We have fun licencing, and frankly overly strict rules on what guns you can own. We have a gun violence problem fuelled by the same sort of social issues as the US, but almost all of the weapons used are illegally imported from the US-- legal owners who bother with the safety courses don’t murder people
Why the hell would a licensed gun owner use their own (likely registered) firearm they paid (on average) over $500 to say rob a liquor store?
If in those sorts of dire straights and in need of money you sell your firearm (I have bought some off of people in just such a low place). This once again goes back to social policy, if there is no safety net then desperate people do desperate things.
Canada I did not want to use as an example since no matter what law is passed (for whatever political reason) its all pointless when you have the us right there providing all the illegal firearms any criminal would want. Canada should build a wall, and make the us pay for it…
Trump literally said he was for banning guns to people who are mentally unstable. When they rewrite what mentally unstable means, it means if you’re trans, lgtbq, take antidepressants, antipsychotics, anxiety…
Also, us liberals are buying guns faster than MAGAts. We don’t fuck around.
I mean I wouldn’t trust myself with a gun and I’m not even on antidepressants… So uh yeah probably don’t give me one but that does also apply to transphobes and pretty much everybody else, who isn’t a hunter by trade or just uses them at shooting ranges and keeps them there.
Wait, are you suggesting that taking antidepressants, antipsychotics, or having anxiety aren’t forms of mental instability? That’s quite literally the definition. Seems super reasonable that we wouldn’t want someone in that position to own a firearm.
I’m trying to think of a way to phrase this that you might understand…
Let’s say your left arm is weaker than your right arm, because you only yank your hog with your right hand. Your left arm isn’t unstable, but it has some weakness compared to your normal nightly lover. But if you got that left hand a textured glove, then it would be just as good as righty. Maybe even better because you do like the variety.
That’s what antidepressants are. They’re a small kick in the serotonin to get people to feel normal.
Mentally unstable isn’t that. Unstable are the people with rage issues. You know the ones. You’ll hang out with them sometimes, but if they’re going too hard at the bar, you duck out early because they’re gonna do something stupid.
Maybe you don’t know what the fuck mental instability means? Someone could have some anxiety and not have to be put in a hospital because they may hurt themselves or others. I wonder if the J6 ers took anxiety meds or were trans? Id feel safer next to someone who takes antidepressants than a J6er.
if only we lived in a time where we had to worry more about kids shooting up Tesla dealerships rather than schools… where did we go wrong?
Oh hey, I actually agree with conservative… on that gun issue only. I don’t trust the government, and guns are a great tool to make fascist occupation much harder. It’s kinda ironic to see red areas having loose gun laws and the neoliberals be restricting guns, so fascist gun nuts can just murder anti-fascists, while anti-fascists have a tough time getting a gun. Just fucking ironic.
(Can dems stop banning guns? Its not a smart thing to do during the rise of fascism.)
The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition […] Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.
I never understood this American line of thinking. Guns work against other people with guns like those trigger-happy & blood thirst MAGAts. But the US military can cook you alive from a mile away if they wanted to. Against that opponent you’re gonna need a way different approach.
The same US military that is batting a fat zero in winning wars of insurgency? Remember all those videos of afghan people getting killed in thermal vision from “a mile away”? Those guys won.
Yeah, on foreign soil and across the world. Lol I want to figuratively see what they can do at home especially now that their ethics are out the window.
“different tactics” meant exactly what you’re saying and beyond. Those guys won when the military hadn’t faced such an opponent. You’re gonna need way more than guns and be forced to get creative.
It’s worse than what was faced overseas, here at home you have large number of War on Terror veterans. Trained, armed and experienced, many disillusioned with the tilting of the government, and the media, and the populace around them. There’s been a blue shift in both active duty and veteran communities.
The optimist in me hopes it’s enough.
Less?
?
Why would their “ethics” come into play in foreign soil? You don’t think Cletus might think twice when asked to fire hell fire missiles into Grand Papas house?
The us did not have a lack of boom overseas, its always had the logistics to put “warheads on foreheads” anywhere in the world.
In the “homeland”? I don’t think you even understand the sort of cluster fuck of a military operation you are proposing. Like do you think if a civil war broke out, all the “sides” would separate and fly a flag? At this point it would be like other modern civil wars with a just mess of sides and no clear front.
You don’t need to talk down to me and assume things that I didn’t say. Listen to what I’m saying because it’s different than you seem to pivot on.
Ethics used to guide the type of weapon employed, especially overseas with foreign watch. If none of that is necessary, including the logistics, then putting the “warheads on foreheads” is much easier. And if people aren’t necessarily watching, who cares if you use an extra bit of cruelty. It’s exactly what Russia does next door.
don’t think you even understand the sort of cluster fuck of a military operation you are proposing
I don’t think I was proposing any sort of military operation, clusterfuck or otherwise. Where’d you get that idea? Lol
all the “sides” would separate and fly a flag?
Huh? There is one side with a flag and a head of state in chare of the military. What are you on about? Just decided to make up interpretations of what I meant? It’s a bit off putting tbh.
The fascist occupation is already happening. Your theory has been proven incorrect through direct testing.
Wait what? You guys want to arm yourselves to protect yourselves, and conservatives want the same, and now you want to ban weapons?
Do you not see the cognitive dissonance in here
I’ll happily bludgeon Nazis. honestly I’m far more lethal with a bat than I am with a gun.
still got guns though.
it’s all up to the fascists to choose how they want to end their lives, but I’d rather they chose the bat.
Yeah but the time for “ban guns” talk is over. We’re pivoting to “buy guns” now.
The arms dealers love this one funny trick.
instead of buying a new gun… get a used one! better yet, simply wait to inherit one from a dead relative! even better, steal one from a conservative!
arms dealers hate this one trick!
The problem is we only have about two times the amount of guns compared to our population. We need to get up a ten to one ratio of guns to people to fix our problems.
Think of the shareholders! If we don’t keep buying new guns at a breakneck pace they won’t have infinite growth. We need to arm both sides in every conflict including our own. It is just what we do.
It’s not the number of guns that’s the problem, it’s the distribution; having twice as many guns as people is no use when the guns are all in the basement of some asshole who supports the fascists
The thing is, normally it’s not even a ban. It’s just a regulation or registration requirement.
Its much harder to get a gun in blue areas than red areas. So we get fascists having easy access to guns, while anti-fascists have trouble getting guns. What a shitty start to the civil war.
Democrats want gun permits to be “may issue” instead of “shall issue” which would allow cops to deny minorities of their constitutional right to own a gun. Seriously, democrats need to drop the gun issue.
It’s always weird to hear Americans argue against gun control because all these fears about and around regulation feel uniquely American.
You’re not taking into account the 250 years our country has had guns be fully legal & how bad our cops are
I know people with generations of functioning firearms that have been hoarded. I’ve seen people who own multiple functional M60s
Take into consideration as well that the very people who would enforce these bans (cops) are very supportive of these weapons stockpiles (frequently they ARE them) and they’re racist and want to keep their power as-is
Now: do you maybe see why even a leftie here might push back against gun laws? The people who’d enforce it would get to remove weapons from those they don’t want having them while ensuring they get to keep whatever they want
It’s literally what happens every time we pass laws restricting gun ownership. I know of a shit ton of cops here in California with very illegal weaponry that they occasionally brag they fucking stole from minorities when the laws were passed
I think that’s exactly what I mean. It all stems from a culture of gun ownership that feels uniquely American. It’s instilled in the mindset growing up but now I can see the US from the outside.
Registration = (eventual) confiscation
I’m not giving up my guns when Trump supporters are frothing at the bit to go house to house lining undesirables up against the wall, and you’re a fucking idiot if you think giving up what little protection you have when the fascists literally want you dead is the smart idea.
Yeah, good luck trying to take my guns away. Not leaving myself defenseless if all this craziness decides to step it up another level
Freedom!
Banning things? Ban it.
Disparaging the banning? Ooooh boy, that’s a banning.
Only only one of those produces profits for the corporate military industrial complex.
