And sometimes it means everything. It’s how you prioritize. Does the deaths of school children bother you? Then this topic is to discuss it. And AR rifles seem to be a unique threat to these kids.
The gun fetishist’s tactic is to always slice and dice in a way to divert attention. Like, “a discussion of dead first graders? May I bring your attention to drug killings in Black communities?” No, you may not. We are talking about dead first graders and what are the most likely gun issues for them and how to solve it. Oh, and by the way, Black comunities have beeing trying to mitigate gun violence for a long time and are facing barriers from gun fetishists, so when we start a thread for that issue, you can learn all the things they’ve been trying to do for decades. But that is not the topic of school killings, which is the topic of this thread.
The problem is you are making a think-of-the-children type argument.
Yes. Indeed. If there is something that is afflicting children, we should look at it and see if we can mitigate it. Because children are vulnerable in many ways, and being all together in schools appears to be one of them.
Why would we NOT think about things that are adversely affecting lots of children?
??
They are almost always wrong, either excessive or ineffective or both.
Citation absolutely needed.
Thinking of the children seems to have been a stellar strategy with Polio.
In this case the fundamental problem is that "assault weapon" isn't actually distinct from other guns. It's simply a matter of degree.
No shit. Welcome to the discussion. (And note I did not use the term “assault weapon,” you brought it up as a straw man to distract from the post. Which is typical of the gun fetishists.)
But yes, fast-firing weapons that make insecure people feel powerful are a problem. Why NOT focus on the one that is used most often by people trying to force their feelings of power onto others?
In reality going after assault weapons is an attempt to chip away at guns very much like the eternal efforts from the right to undermine abortion.
Is there a problem with chipping away at the dangerous parts of gun culture?
Do you have some self-imposed rule that says any attempt to put a boundary around how bad guns can be is a risk to all guns? Why? Why are you not willing to find a reasonable middle ground where guns that are actually needed for something are regulated and those that are no good for anything but mass killings are prohibited or at least highly restricted?
What exactly IS WRONG with chipping away at gun culture? Are you making the fallacy of the slippery slope? That if one chip is successful then complete gun bans start the following morning?
Or are you one of those that says, “wait, if you make sure people can’t get their guns stolen and straw purchases are stopped, that means only the criminals will have guns” Which is non-sensical?
Sorry, I don’t have patience for gun fetishists.
Guns should be controlled such that:
- their sales are known and followed - no more illegal straw sales
- their ownership is known and controlled - no more stolen guns
- their use is controlled and misuse heavily penalized - no more people walking around with guns and the lack of ability to tell which are legal
Any time a gun fetishist replies with, “but gun control means you’ll take them all!1!!1!” I will reply, “if those are the only two choices you can envision, you deserve to have them all taken.”
I own guns and I have no patience at all for the stupid dangerous sky-is-falling arguments of fetishists.