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I Have to be the Bad Guy: On Shootings and Gun Control

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Right when a shooting happens, it's natural that posts will be made asking not for arguments or to push agendas but to simply pay respects to the victims. I agree with this. But there's a problem, because when these shootings happen, a government decides to push the gun control agenda. Immediately.

People ask pro-gun rights activists like me why we can't just "shut up" when these horrible acts with firearms are committed. The answer is that we can't really. Because often, if not all the time, when a shooting happens, politicians won't shut up. And it gets worse. They act before a discussion can even be made. Bills are put to a vote before the victims are even done grieving. But when activists like us try to say something about it to head it off at the pass, we're demonized.

And that's why every time a shooting happens, I groan deeply inside not just because a horrible act has been committed but because I KNOW that politicians and the major news networks will latch onto it like flies on meat as justification to take away our right to protect ourselves, not just from criminals but from the government when it becomes too corrupt. Try to bring that up in any popular social media site and you'll get torn to shreds. Labelled as insensitive. Maybe even... *gasp* a Trump supporter.

Let me tell you all something. I dislike Trump. I dislike the NRA. But I also dislike Obama. I dislike Nancy Pelosi. I dislike most if not all politicians from both the Democrat and the Republican party. I'm just a 27-year-old living in Portland, OR. Not some hillbilly in Florida. Perhaps it may be diffficult for you, but I can support gun rights without being a Republican or a Trump supporter.

So next time there's a shooting (and there will be a next time), maybe go easy on the people who are trying to protect their rights. At least try to have a civil conversation with them before you downvote them into Oblivion and the Shivering Isles.
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
As long as a corrupt leader has the support of the military and police force, you won't get anywhere with your peashooters.

Want to overthrow a government? Get the military on your side.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
As long as a corrupt leader has the support of the military and police force, you won't get anywhere with your peashooters.

Want to overthrow a government? Get the military on your side.
Vietnam would like a word. Also all of the terrorist cells in the middle east. US Revolutionary War.
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
Vietnam would like a word. Also all of the terrorist cells in the middle east. US Revolutionary War.
You wouldn't have the resolve to do what those people do, neither would the majority of people that tout their love of guns in modern western countries.
 

Signa

Libertarian Contrarian
Sanctuary legend
Messages
764
Considering how fast NZ passed shit in reaction to what happened, being the bad guy is certainly necessary. Some compassion and consideration should be made while making your arguments, but you can put your thoughts out there without being too insulting.

I think the KF email to the NZ police force is a great example of how to go too far. It was a great read, because it was comical as hell, but it should have stopped after a point, and then the second half should have been saved for when their police force pressured further. Other people read that and saw KF acting very immaturely and the good points they made about NZ's authoritarianism was lost. A balance could have been struck and instead they just turned up the heat to 11.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Considering how fast NZ passed shit in reaction to what happened, being the bad guy is certainly necessary. Some compassion and consideration should be made while making your arguments, but you can put your thoughts out there without being too insulting.

I think the KF email to the NZ police force is a great example of how to go too far. It was a great read, because it was comical as hell, but it should have stopped after a point, and then the second half should have been saved for when their police force pressured further. Other people read that and saw KF acting very immaturely and the good points they made about NZ's authoritarianism was lost. A balance could have been struck and instead they just turned up the heat to 11.
If there's one thing KF knows how to do, it's going too far.
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
You think too little of yourself.
Fuck no, I'm not going to hide out in some mountain caves or underground tunnels, pestering military forces and then running away.

And neither will 99% of the gun touting people. Even if some people group up and try and attack a military position, the moment casualties fall will be the moment most of them will scatter and never return.
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
Fuck no, I'm not going to hide out in some mountain caves or underground tunnels, pestering military forces and then running away.

And neither will 99% of the gun touting people. Even if some people group up and try and attack a military position, the moment casualties fall will be the moment most of them will scatter and never return.
"All the evidence of these successful past revolutions and people's revolts mean nothing. Any rebellion will now always fail."

Let me tell you something. Even if only 5% of the US people are actually active in rebellion, that's still a fuckload of resistance that can literally come from anywhere. The internet makes things easier than ever to monitor, yes, but assuming the rebellion isn't staffed by a bunch of idiots, any trackable activity will be tricky to find, to say the least.

And finally, even IF such a rebellion could never be successful, sometimes some things need to be stood up for, even if it means that you will lose. Maybe stop being so defeatist. Yeah, I would agree that current circumstances aren't calling for active violent rebellion right now, but on the other hand, don't let governments stomp on your face. Speak up about your rights, because contrary to what they want you to believe, you actually have rights.
 

Vendor-Lazarus

Arch Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
936
I can see both the good and the bad about allowing guns to be owned by citizens.
The bad is really bad, but I still think the good could outweigh it.

I, too, am in agreement with Arnox.
 

bluegate

Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
292
I can see both the good and the bad about allowing guns to be owned by citizens.
The bad is really bad, but I still think the good could outweigh it.

I, too, am in agreement with Arnox.
Too bad that the bad is usually way more prevalent than the hypothetical good, eh?
 

Vendor-Lazarus

Arch Disciple
Sanctuary legend
Messages
936
Too bad that the bad is usually way more prevalent than the hypothetical good, eh?
I would say that's down to a reporting bias from the media in general.
Bad news is worth more than good news. No/neutral news isn't even on the map.

Bad news: "Gunman shoots down two in the street!".
Good news: "Firearm owner acts in self-defense (or that of others) from perpetrators".
No news: "Conceal/open carry may have influenced the slight downturn in crime-rates".
 

Paco Smithereens

Outlander
Messages
17
Occupation
Mechanic
The same taint in the brain of an evil human being is the same taint in a cop, is the...

I mean the killer in me is the killer in you...

Wait, no, dammit, sorry. Sorry. Shit.

The one constant of the call for gun control in the United States anyway, is the same people who make the argument that alcohol prohibition didn't work, and led to organized crime syndicates controlling the alcohol trade, is the same basic reason why drug prohibition doesn't work, which has had the same results, and if you make abortion is illegal, people will just have "back-alley abortions anyway"

but gun control will totally work.

I think what genuinely sucks about this issue is the conversation always drifts away from how to stop this from occurring and into whether uninvolved people should have their guns regulated in some sense. People who support this believe the only solution is gun control (or prohibition), and so spend little time advocating for other solutions or doing some brainstorming to come with them.

The other thing is you always have these people at the forefront of gun control starting their sentences with, "I support the Second Amendment, but" hunters sportsmen common sense gun safety legislation, and a bunch of other pre-cooked McWords.

Then some quiet guy from the back says, "AND ALSO BAN ALL SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS!" and the "reasonable" people in the front say nothing in response to this, making pro-gun people believe, I think reasonably, that gutting the Second Amendment entirely is what they have in mind when they insist on those "common sense gun safety regulations." (that verbiage very coordinated since "gun control" stopped working for them.)

Pro-gun people are pushed into defending their ground and their rights such that similarly there is little left other than "keep criminals locked up" platitudes, when they need to be proposing national strategies to reduce gun violence, separate from their Second Amendment concerns. And there just isn't much enthusiasm or energy for that.

There is a constant seed of psychosis in human psychology which people think can be somehow tamped-down by authority figures - themselves human beings with this flaw too (the same people outraged about George Floyd haven't understood this connection); this same psychosis exists in the head of authority, now empowered and armed in a way the lone psychotic isn't. The same cops they hate, are the same cops they imagine "doing the right thing" and seizing guns from people they shoot next to at the local range. They really don't understand how this unpacks.

We can't authority our way out of this nightmare - and it is a nightmare - at least not in this culture which mainlines anti-authoritarianism as part of its daily regimen. I don't think people get this about Americans or when they do say, "You should just change!" Like okay I'll get on the "Listen up, Americans" mailing list and tell everyone to simmer down and throw out 275 years of being us.

I support some gun control regulations. But there is absolutely no movement for people who want limited changes. I don't hate guns or gun owners. But I also can't stomach living in a country where these shootings are so common. And I am willing to experiment, even if it disrupts the purity of total unregulated freedom. No one else is. I am not willing to seize weapons, or go apeshit on whole categories of firearms, or put people on lists.

Which I shouldn't be upset about it because it really liberates my time doing more important things, like masturbating.
 

Arnox

Master
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Founder
Messages
5,285
I support some gun control regulations. But there is absolutely no movement for people who want limited changes.
You'll need to be specific with this. What changes?

But I also can't stomach living in a country where these shootings are so common.
On the surface, this statement sounds innocent enough, but it's too often followed up with, "And that's why we need more gun control." Implying that guns are causing the shootings. Yeah, say you could magically make all the guns in the U.S. vanish. Congratulations! All the shootings have stopped! Now you have stabbings, beatings, burnings, vehicular homicide, and other fun things to take their place. Mission accomplished... ?

You want to stop the violence but you're looking at the symptoms instead of the root cause which is the degradation of ethics and the family in this country. More and more people every year are born into broken, or maybe even non-existent families, and face neglect and abuse along with a TERRIBLE education system that completely drains both students and teachers alike. Some do rise to the occasion and are able to pull themselves out of the muck, but many don't, and they become what they saw as a child, perpetuating the cycle.

This goes beyond shootings. Theft, illogical beliefs, mental illness, immaturity... It all stems from these problems at the home. But nobody wants to admit this because this would take a huge-ass effort to fix from everyone involved. Far easier instead to just point at guns and gun owners and say, "There! That's the bad guy! That's the problem! There's too many freedoms!"

As I said in a former thread,

There are certain lines that the government just doesn't cross. This is why we have the Bill of Rights, so there would be ZERO doubt as to what the government could and couldn't do...

"It's for your SAFETY. We need to protect you."

I swear to fuck, it's always the same excuse, and it's always equally invalid. Rights are rights. End of story. Line does not get crossed for any reason. Yes, even if there's an Ebola pandemic.

For those who don't think so, there's plenty of other countries besides the US to live in.
 

Paco Smithereens

Outlander
Messages
17
Occupation
Mechanic
You'll need to be specific with this. What changes?
Universal background checks so that when someone does a personal sale, they can check the background of who they are selling it to. Ordinarily, advocacy for UBCs involves eliminating private sales entirely. That's not what I am advocating.

If I want to sell my pistol to you.

* You go online and authorize a free background check on yourself and you specifically name me, as running the check, with NICS. NICS provides you a key - a hash of sorts.

* You give the hash to me. I go online, authenticate, then provide the key you gave me. NICS reports back the same status a gun store running a normal check would get.

* The seller must preserve the record for some period of time (10 years makes sense).

* The details of the check is purged in the NICS system according to current practices, but the record that a check was done, remains, for perhaps 10 years.

* It would be illegal to sell a pistol without a NICS check; people would do it, of course, but that would now involve legal liability.

This eliminates the so-called "gun show loophole" while protecting privacy in the sense that you need to authorize checks on yourself. Since NICS only provides statuses without details (NEW, PROCEED, DENY, DELAY, CANCEL, OPEN, PENDING, RESEARCHING, QUEUED), it does not report on criminal records or anything of this nature.

The second form of gun control I support are Red Flag laws, which my state org opposes, on account of pre-crime and prior restraint and all of that. A country in which someone is fantasizing about a mass shooting and broadcasting that, in which firearms cannot be seized, leads to a sense that our gun laws are insane among people who are not Second Amendment absolutists. These laws can be written with ample recourse to due process to get them back, along with penalties for people who attempt to abuse this system to harass gun owners. There have been several shootings which could have been prevented (The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords - Jared Loughner comes to mind, in which his local college complained repeatedly that he was demented and threatening to other students and no action was taken, and then this little shit Ethan Crumbley from a few weeks ago). The idea that we have to put up with preventable mass shootings because you need to have some nut adjudicated as mentally defective strikes me as asinine.

These two things, are things I support completely. I was a Second Amendment absolutist most of my life, and am a life member of three pro-gun organizations (NRA/SAF/my state org), but I part ways with them on these. I mention this only to skip forward in the conversation because I have heard and rejected most arguments about gun control myself.

As for the background checks, I am well aware that most guns used in crime are stolen. What I seek to do with this is to put a bright line between responsible gun owners and the criminal underworld: responsible gun owners having done their due diligence of the NICS check, the blame would always lie elsewhere -- bad NICS data, or a person completing the deal, and then deciding to commit a crime. It would close up a "loophole of blame" for responsible gun owners, while also enabling people like myself who would use a background check even if it were optional as a matter of conscience. I should not have to pay an FFL-holder to do a transfer.

It also protects a gun owner if the gun they sold is used in a crime later, because they can produce proof of the check.

Implying that guns are causing the shootings. Yeah, say you could magically make all the guns in the U.S. vanish.
Guns enable mayhem on a scale that a knife does not which is why everyone who plays any RPG tends to want to have a missile weapon at their disposal. The very reason we assert the individual right to bear arms is because they have muscle. We have seen cars used for assault (Charlottesville) and mayhem as well, but I cannot in good faith pretend guns aren't special in the sense that they can completely isolate the perpetrator from the mayhem, as it did in that Las Vegas mass shooting with the bump-stock.

Because the state owns them, we assert the right to own them, and we do so as a matter of attempting to achieve parity between the sovereignty of the state, and the individuals from which the sovereignty/power is derived. Guns are at the center of this issue because of what they can do and how they can be employed. They are not equivalent to clubs or blackjacks or cars or chainsaws.

"I'm all for fixing the problems which lead people to engage in mass shootings." Everyone on the pro-gun side says that. A lot of the same people oppose social policies which would alleviate the worst extremes of poverty and provide mental health care to those who need it, because they would raise taxes. (Libertarian-types see taxation as an infringement on their liberties to control their own money, "taxation is theft!" and all that.) They'd rather just say, "Everyone needs to get their house in order." That problem is a lot harder to fix than experimenting with a few regulations -- regulations you can put a sunset provision on (like the AWB), or regulations you can tie to results, invalidating the law if it doesn't make a difference.

But what I propose are also for the defense of the Second Amendment in that they eliminate two major arguments anti-gun people make: the "gun show loophole" argument, and the "any nut can have a firearm" claim. People don't remember this too well but the Stockton Schoolyard Shooting is why the so-called Assault Weapons Ban was put into place: public hysteria.

...root cause which is the degradation of ethics and the family in this country. More and more people every year are born into broken, or maybe even non-existent families, and face neglect and abuse along with a TERRIBLE education system that completely drains both students and teachers alike.
No argument except the political right, which is where most of the Second Amendment mojo sits ("but I'm a pro-gun LIBERAL! I exist!"), is where most of the architecture of the drug war had its genesis. Sure, democrats signed on when it became politically unviable to take a stance against it, but it's Nixon and Reagan, mainly (the same crowd which is really upset about big government but wanted to pass a Constitutional Amendment banning flag burning). The drug war ripped families apart by, well, jailing Dad. My state is ranked very low in terms of educational quality - near the bottom, and it is not gun-controllin' liberal democrats who are starving these districts -- and our districts are starving. Even if you make the point that "throwing money at the problem" won't by itself fix it, money is definitely part of the equation, even if it is just about hiring adequate security.

It'd be great to fix these social problems but they're not going to be fixed so long as letting the bottom to which people can fall get lower and lower in the pursuit of "making America great again," and I'm not willing to wait for the country to wake up to the basic fact that yes, you can save money by never changing the oil on your car, but eventually there will be consequences for that.

This goes beyond shootings. Theft, illogical beliefs, mental illness, immaturity... It all stems from these problems at the home. But nobody wants to admit this because this would take a huge-ass effort to fix from everyone involved. Far easier instead to just point at guns and gun owners and say, "There! That's the bad guy! That's the problem! There's too many freedoms!"
I don't disagree but I don't think that change is coming any time soon.

The overall per capita murder rate -- that is murders with guns, yes, but everything else, too, puts the USA at #14 in the world, with a higher murder rate than Uganda:


Waiting around and letting the meatgrinder continue to grind and destroy human lives is not something I am willing to do, and in particular the low-hanging fruit here is preventing criminals from making firearm purchases from law-abiding citizens, and taking the guns from people who are essentially broadcasting, "I am about to commit mass-murder."


It is hard to compare apples-to-apples, but the notoriously gun-unfriendly United Kingdom is at #71, even with the knives, and cars, and poisons, and anything else you can think of. You may well point out, "Because the United Kingdom has a stronger safety net," and you'd be right. I just don't see the US understanding this any time soon. The sheer number of liberties it would be easier to defend if you could lessen the violence (and paranoia) in this society, is incalculable.

Should my proposals not work, they represent due diligence -- minor inconveniences, at worst -- in the plan to fix this spiraling-the-drain consumerist shithole of a culture.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
, as it did in that Las Vegas mass shooting with the bump-stock.
This is off-topic, but you said you collect, or used to collect, manifestos. Did you ever get his, if he had one?
I think it's strange how little we know about the perpetrator and his motivations.

On-topic, where I live, you can just buy a pistol with no background check, no waiting period, and stuff it in your pocket. No concealed-carry permit needed.
 

gaijinkaiju

Lord Inquisitor
Sanctuary legend
Sanctuary contributor
Messages
612
I don't think he left one.
This is off-topic, but you said you collect, or used to collect, manifestos. Did you ever get his, if he had one?
I think it's strange how little we know about the perpetrator and his motivations.
I'm pretty certain he left one, It's just never been released publicly for whatever reason.
It would pretty unusual for a shooter to not leave some sort of manifesto behind.

On-topic, where I live, you can just buy a pistol with no background check, no waiting period, and stuff it in your pocket. No concealed-carry permit needed.
The thought of just being able to casually by a gun like that is wild. The amount of hoops you need to jump through here just to get a rifle is ridiculous, let alone getting a pistol
 

Arnox

Master
Staff member
Founder
Messages
5,285
This eliminates the so-called "gun show loophole" while protecting privacy in the sense that you need to authorize checks on yourself. Since NICS only provides statuses without details (NEW, PROCEED, DENY, DELAY, CANCEL, OPEN, PENDING, RESEARCHING, QUEUED), it does not report on criminal records or anything of this nature.
Ok, so you want to get rid of all gun sales tracking and instead replace it with a universal basically OK-or-not-OK system where all sales are checked simply to make sure the buyer is not a criminal or in some other legal matter?

A country in which someone is fantasizing about a mass shooting and broadcasting that, in which firearms cannot be seized, leads to a sense that our gun laws are insane among people who are not Second Amendment absolutists.
Two things. One, just because there are penalties for someone for misreporting potential mass shootings does not necessarily mean they're not going to misreport. Especially if the punishment is light, or especially if the report can be made anonymously. "Well, they can't be anonymous then." you say. Alright. What if someone breaks into the system and gets a list of everyone who reported a mass shooter? Or what if someone gives a false identity in the report? A little outside the scope of the common criminal, yes, as getting a new SSN is practically impossible without connections in the SSA. But organized crime? I could see them pull it off and with regularity too. What a great way to get the government to disarm your target before you go after them. Also, what are you going to take as evidence? Photos can easily be doctored. Maybe a video? But stuff can be planted. Maybe a jealous ex decides to take away your right to defend yourself from them.

The second thing is, say someone IS a real potential mass shooter. And alright, you take his guns away. So what are they gonna do? Well, gee-wizzers. Guess the mass murder plan is a no-go. Nope. They know they don't need to carry a gun. They just need to murder in a very public manner. So in essence, you've stopped nothing. And the only way to do so would be to just arrest him there. But then, that's going right into pre-crime, and I'm sure we've all seen Minority Report.

Because the state owns them, we assert the right to own them, and we do so as a matter of attempting to achieve parity between the sovereignty of the state, and the individuals from which the sovereignty/power is derived. Guns are at the center of this issue because of what they can do and how they can be employed. They are not equivalent to clubs or blackjacks or cars or chainsaws.
The technical definition of the word, "arms" in the constitutional and historical sense both means "anything that a man wears for his defense, or takes in his hands as a weapon." So they weren't just talking about firearms, although I'm sure those were very much on their mind as well when they wrote that amendment. Regardless though, firearms ARE powerful, and they do grant individual power (as opposed to, say, a nuke which is an extremely indiscriminate weapon that only has legitimate uses beyond terrorism on the global stage), so I'm not going to argue that they aren't effective. They are. But now, here's a question for you. Would a shooter be nearly as ballsy if they knew they were walking into a meatgrinder where everyone in the location he chose was packing? They can only cause this much damage because the little shits know they will most likely have helpless targets that can't defend themselves. Rather ironic in a country that has the right to defend oneself codified directly into the constitution. It's almost like... We're supposed to use those arms to... Defend ourselves too.



And we're not even talking about all the shooters that have been stopped directly by absolute chad gun owners who were conceal-carrying. But those don't get reported...

A lot of the same people oppose social policies which would alleviate the worst extremes of poverty and provide mental health care to those who need it, because they would raise taxes.
The only thing I would say here is that, often, social policies are proposed, and it turns out, they were actually half-assed and/or designed to pay off a bunch of corporations instead of actually helping people.

People don't remember this too well but the Stockton Schoolyard Shooting is why the so-called Assault Weapons Ban was put into place: public hysteria.
There will always be some public hysteria. The media has gotten real good at stirring things up. I will say though, with the advent of Kyle Rittenhouse, it looks like people are finally beginning to get super pissed at this now.

It'd be great to fix these social problems but they're not going to be fixed so long as letting the bottom to which people can fall get lower and lower in the pursuit of "making America great again," and I'm not willing to wait for the country to wake up to the basic fact that yes, you can save money by never changing the oil on your car, but eventually there will be consequences for that.
I understand this, but I must reiterate... Rights are not taken away for ANY reason. There MUST be a line. There has to be, or else it's a free-for-all. As Tony Stark put it, we're in a system that has become comfortable with zero accountability. There is no doubt. But I would also say that these half-measures aren't really the answer. If we're really gonna fix things, we need to start over. There are so many problems now that are piled on to other problems that are piled on to other problems, and it's now a system where even if you fix one thing, another problem next to it tends to corrupt it. For example, the background check system. Maybe fine on paper. And yet in execution, it fails. Or how about giving schools more funding? Fine on paper, but instead, all the funding goes to the building or to "administrative fees".

I guess at this point, I'm just waiting for the whole thing to collapse so we can start over and living my life to the fullest before that happens.

I think it's strange how little we know about the perpetrator and his motivations.
They're all the same anyway really. They're always some variant of:

"Society no good. TIME TO KILL KIDS!"

"The lizard aliens are watching us, man!"

or

"I AM A GOLDEN GOD!"

Maybe a mixture of the three. In the end though, mass shooters are terrorists born out of both terrible life decisions and (very likely) terrible parenting. And yes, I feel very comfortable making that blanket statement.
 

Houseman

Zealot
Sanctuary legend
Messages
1,068
In the end though, mass shooters are terrorists born out of both terrible life decisions and (very likely) terrible parenting. And yes, I feel very comfortable making that blanket statement.
Sometimes they're just hired by the CIA
 

Cyberat

Outlander
Messages
6
That's because "shootings" have been organized by the FBI/LEO/EMS/FD as "drills" so they can push their propaganda since 1990.
Crisiscast.com - a pool of actors that sometimes show up twice or more in repeated events and films.
Palantir.com - an FBI collection of private information to be used in these films as "victims" or to morph using PC tech. into people that don't exist, for the same purpose. Thanks for using your real name & photo on Gulag, FCBK, Twatter, etc...
Don't believe anything you see on TV (ex-CIA directors William Colby & William Casey). TODAY we have, thanks to nVidia, a supercomputer that can film in Virtual Reality, editing in a nanosecond, by instant command or by programming, there are No More Analog Cameras.
 

Paco Smithereens

Outlander
Messages
17
Occupation
Mechanic
Ok, so you want to get rid of all gun sales tracking and instead replace it with a universal basically OK-or-not-OK system where all sales are checked simply to make sure the buyer is not a criminal or in some other legal matter?
Yes. I want to do this because rather than spitball or theorize that it would do nothing, I want to put it to the test, because it is the least-invasive thing to do and mollifies people who find the fact that anyone can buy a gun in a private transaction an insane proposition. Either it does nothing and has no effect, and that is proven, or it does have an impact, in which case it does a social good with minimal impact on gun owners. Right now, the expense and hassle of going to an FFL to handle private transactions is a pain in the ass.

Two things. One, just because there are penalties for someone for misreporting potential mass shootings does not necessarily mean they're not going to misreport. Especially if the punishment is light, or especially if the report can be made anonymously. "Well, they can't be anonymous then." you say. Alright. What if someone breaks into the system and gets a list of everyone who reported a mass shooter? Or what if someone gives a false identity in the report? A little outside the scope of the common criminal, yes, as getting a new SSN is practically impossible without connections in the SSA. But organized crime? I could see them pull it off and with regularity too. What a great way to get the government to disarm your target before you go after them. Also, what are you going to take as evidence? Photos can easily be doctored. Maybe a video? But stuff can be planted. Maybe a jealous ex decides to take away your right to defend yourself from them.
Yeah and consider the alternative, what we have now, in which PEOPLE ARE BEING GUNNED DOWN EN MASSE. The potential for abuse here is theoretical in nature (entirely possible), but the mass shootings are actual. And would abuse of this system be an overwhelming counterweight to the nightmare we have now? We won't know until we try. This business about "any legislation whatsoever could go horribly wrong" is a kind of conservatism which retards progress and ties us to a perpetual status quo -- a position I was once okay with. I am not okay with it now. I am willing to take risks to fix the current situation. There is a vast middle ground between reckless and impetuous legislative activism and a kind of conservatism in which we experiment with nothing.

100% of all legislation either abolishing restrictions or implementing them is argued against in this fashion. The logic here is the exact same logic they use any time Constitutional Carry (a change to the status quo) is proposed - in this case, it's akways "blood will run in the streets" and everything will go terribly if we abolish permits. Of course it doesn't. The same is true in reverse. Not every proposal for a law which restricts behavior is the start of a slippery slope, nor is it doomed to fail because people can think of theoretical ways in which it could.

I am willing to take risks to fix the shitshow we have presently, and I think other people should, too.

The second thing is, say someone IS a real potential mass shooter. And alright, you take his guns away. So what are they gonna do? Well, gee-wizzers. Guess the mass murder plan is a no-go. Nope. They know they don't need to carry a gun. They just need to murder in a very public manner. So in essence, you've stopped nothing. And the only way to do so would be to just arrest him there. But then, that's going right into pre-crime, and I'm sure we've all seen Minority Report.
Once in a blue moon some terrorist runs a car into a crowd (like that shitbag in Charlottesville), which is the usual go-to in this argument. (There's also Japanese stabbers).

But this is comparatively rare. The fact remains that if all of these other forms of mass murder were so tempting to mass murderers, we'd see their use a whole lot more often, but we don't.

Guns make this simple and effective. This argument that people will always, in all cases, kill as easily as they do without guns is just not something I buy anymore. Either guns are the best and easiest way to murder a lot of people, in which case doing what we can to prevent access to them by maniacs is a good idea, or guns are not special at all, in which case why are Second Amendment advocates so damn wound up about them? Keep and bear a katana.

I have never liked this argument. I think guns are special, and are as special as means of self-defense as they are of murder. As to the following point you make, they may well have meant "and bowie knives too," but they were clearly thinking about guns. The concept of laws banning the carrying of blades probably never occurred to them simply because every kitchen in this country has now, and probably always has had, dangerously sharp knives.

Guns are special. You can kill offensively or defensively in other ways, but there's a reason people choose guns, and the expense in obtaining them.

The technical definition of the word, "arms" in the constitutional and historical sense both means "anything that a man wears for his defense, or takes in his hands as a weapon." So they weren't just talking about firearms, although I'm sure those were very much on their mind as well when they wrote that amendment. Regardless though, firearms ARE powerful, and they do grant individual power (as opposed to, say, a nuke which is an extremely indiscriminate weapon that only has legitimate uses beyond terrorism on the global stage), so I'm not going to argue that they aren't effective. They are. But now, here's a question for you. Would a shooter be nearly as ballsy if they knew they were walking into a meatgrinder where everyone in the location he chose was packing?
I reject the premise of the question. Even in places like where I live which has Constitutional Carry and a really strong gun culture, it's only a small number of people who pack and will ever pack.

And I don't think the reason is philosophical so much as practical: carrying a gun and managing it like when you go to the shitter is a serious pain in the ass.

In my home state, my state org is constantly trying to do away with rules prohibiting carry in specific places -- like they want any place which seeks to ban arms - say, courthouses (which prohibit carry), to have mandatory gun storage lockers, minimally (a position I agree with -- never leave a gun in a car). They've chipped away at rules in school parking lots, with some success, too.

But it seems to imply an idea that every classroom and mall and factory and anywhere a shooting can occur will have ample people walking around with firearms, a scenario I not only think is practically unrealistic, but represents a regression to the State of Nature and a dystopia: we should not live in a world in which people feel compelled to carry guns everywhere because this many people are flipping out and going on murdering sprees.

We are regressing to that world. Everyone has a theory of how to fix it. More social services, better parenting, and gee whiz if these people would just fear the flames of hell like in the old days, they might be dissuaded from mass murder (well, except for the ones who think they're doing God's will by slaughtering people, of course.)

Or, we can experiment with pragmatic laws which may or may not have an effect, rather than undertaking the herculean changing everyone's consciousness. We can do that. I am not opposed to the central idea you seem to be presenting here: far better to change people, than to take risks with the sorts of things I'm proposing. I'm saying I don't think that is practical, or possible.

Consider this: We are, presumably, both pro-gun people. We are arguing on this point. It is unlikely either of us will convince the other on this fine point. (I don't mean this as pessimistic, but I've been online for four decades now and persuasion - both persuasion I've attempted, and the many attempts at persuasion others have tried - is rare).

Now imagine changing the very basis of how people interact with the world. Imaging getting a society which increasingly views life as cheap to start valuing it again. Or getting people to believe that -- and I think this is important -- civic life, and social life, is important. Meaning: you can be just as much of an individualist and engage in time and effort to improve your community without catching collectivism and winding up in the hospital.

I don't know how to do that. But I can imagine some of these "half measures" as you call them, at least being tried. And the ones I am proposing are, I believe, the least intrusive possibilities when you look at all of the other anti-gun legislation out there.

They can only cause this much damage because the little shits know they will most likely have helpless targets that can't defend themselves. Rather ironic in a country that has the right to defend oneself codified directly into the constitution. It's almost like... We're supposed to use those arms to... Defend ourselves too.
A lot of them probably assume they're going to be gunned down at the end of their rampage. They are going out in a blaze of glory. Some think they'll be martyrs. It is unclear to me that a person willing to do this sort of thing is at all scared of encountering resistance. It is also unclear to me how many gun owners are likely to risk their own lives in the event they can exit the scene.

Right now, the "out" here for people who take this position is that most of these slaughters occur in places were guns are prohibited. That may be relevant. I am unwilling to leap to the conclusion, however, that if you got rid of "no guns allowed" policies (which only good guys follow), that the outcome would be different. Maybe. But also maybe not.


That guy was being paid and stayed away.

And we're not even talking about all the shooters that have been stopped directly by absolute chad gun owners who were conceal-carrying. But those don't get reported...
The best place to watch this unfold is here:


This tracks, in real-time, defensive gun use, and I think it does it well by linking to local media (as opposed to anecdotes or summaries by pro-gun media). What becomes clear is the anti-gun argument that guns are rarely used for defense, based on some old study, is seriously flawed. Any time I've pointed an anti-gun person there, they've refused to comment in response. They argue with me right up until I point them there and I want them to account for it, then they suddenly end the discussion.

The only thing I would say here is that, often, social policies are proposed, and it turns out, they were actually half-assed and/or designed to pay off a bunch of corporations instead of actually helping people.
But isn't this the same argument as "the gun lobby" (meaning the gun industry) is pushing for all liberalization of gun laws? This may be true in some cases, but it is not a reason for paralysis, any more that the fact that Sig or Glock benefits from a pro-gun policy is not, in and of itself, a reason not to pass it.

There will always be some public hysteria. The media has gotten real good at stirring things up. I will say though, with the advent of Kyle Rittenhouse, it looks like people are finally beginning to get super pissed at this now.
I think the anti-gun crowd really made a tactical mistake when they tried to shoehorn the Rittenhouse debacle into their ready-to-go narrative. The trial was a disaster for them, and it was not a disaster because of bias or public sentiment. It was a disaster because they think in a very specific paradigm about white guys with firearms, and this didn't fit...at all. They know undecided/uncommitted people in the middle watched this and it didn't go well for them.

First of all, Rittenhouse came off as this squeaky-clean (if naive) kid, and was difficult to dislike when he took the stand, and man they really tried. Then there was that disastrous moment with Gaige Grosskreutz (not a good person -- people who haven't, should read about this guy's past to see what kind of a bastard he is) where he admitted to drawing first.

But you can tell a lot about how intellectual dishonesty works was after this disaster, how unwilling people were to say, "We got this, and Rittenhouse, entirely wrong." The damage went beyond gun control as a policy position -- the damage was that the dishonesty of the narrative here was on full display for everyone to see. People weren't buying the "white supremacist vigilante Rittenhouse" frame at all. You get the sense even people pushing it didn't actually buy it.

I understand this, but I must reiterate... Rights are not taken away for ANY reason.
Well, they can't be, right? They can only be infringed. They are inalienable, and even a lot of the conservative (as opposed to libertarian) gun movement doesn't get this: a prisoner in North Korea has the same rights as any American. They are simply infringed to a much more brutal degree. I've never felt this was moot or academic.

I will often hear conservatives claim a person gains or loses rights when they cross a border -- their nationalism shows -- and they don't. This is a radical concept, but it is the only way I've ever been able to think about rights. Because if people are indeed "endowed by their creator" with "certain inalienable rights," those rights don't disappear when they cross borders. I don't think God's an American, that David Bowie lyric notwithstanding.

Because if it does, it means rights are just privileges granted by the state; dad giving us the car keys, or taking them away when he catches us drinking his whiskey.

The question is when it comes down to the spirit of a right, and constraining those rights, and these exist (for example) in the form of time and place restrictions on the First Amendment, and for good reason. You can't simply set up loudspeakers anywhere you want and scream your protest in any direction, in whatever volume you want, and you can't directly incite violence, or libel someone either. (Incidentally: you can shout fire in a crowded theater -- that reasoning was overturned, and people who use that argument for infringing rights would be appalled if they saw what that argument was used to justify: imprisoning people for handing out anti-draft literature, a position most of them would most certainly not agree with.)

These are not counterbalances or a taint or poison: they constrain rights into proper context. For this reason, if a shoulder-based nuke was to be developed (since you mentioned that) - one that could be kept and bore - I do not think it would fall under the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment does not specifically mention defense; it only implies it, but we assume the "for defense" aspect of that right is there even though it isn't mentioned. We also assume that the enumerated right doesn't only apply in the context of the well-regulated militia, even the "unorganized" one, because if it did, you could ban hunting and target shooting out of the context of militia drilling. Hence the right definitely has contours. And I say that in the same manner it is not intended to restrain the government from requiring background checks, since there are people who clearly intend to use firearms outside the contours of that right.

There MUST be a line. There has to be, or else it's a free-for-all. As Tony Stark put it, we're in a system that has become comfortable with zero accountability. There is no doubt. But I would also say that these half-measures aren't really the answer.
No other measures are possible. Or, at least, there is no lobby of people who claim to care really deeply about the Second Amendment and their rights organizing to, I don't know, parent better, or whatever it is you think would fix this issue. As for common crime, fixing the depravations (and economic oblivion) of blighted parts of cities and depressed rural areas seems essential, but it is notable that there is a strong inverse correlation between Second Amendment advocates and people who believe we ought to be expending tax dollars on doing so.

A whole bunch of libertarians have shown up in the pro-gun world in the past 25 years, but I remember before that a lot of the people who were pushing the authoritarian drug war, supporting constitutional amendments to ban flag burning, pornography, and dildos, made up the bulk of the movement, and they're still there.

The louder people scream about freedom, sometimes, the more suspicious I become of them.


If we're really gonna fix things, we need to start over. There are so many problems now that are piled on to other problems that are piled on to other problems, and it's now a system where even if you fix one thing, another problem next to it tends to corrupt it.
This is possible after complete societal collapse, and only in that regard. The mass movements everyone wants to happen never happen. Americans have been waiting for various ones since the end of the Civil War. The late 19th and early 20th century Left wanted to topple capitalism. They got the 8 hour day. That's nothing near what they wanted, but it's not nothing either.

The US Constitution, only one of the many limitations on what government can do, is written specifically to create stasis (I don't have a link handy but there's a famous Antonin Scalia interview where he makes this point that this is a feature; not a bug.) Starting over is the equivalent of saying, "Ban rain on game day." - a good idea, but, also meaningless.

The only other option other than these "half measures" is the status quo, and I find this much death intolerable, as do many other people. People are always waiting for mass upheavals, collapse. Agorists believe crypto and black market activity will do it. The left prattles on about "late capitalism" (Marx thought the collapse was an inevitable product of historical momentum). The defining feature of the current system is in all aspects it is configured to preserve itself. Debord called this "The Spectacle."

For example, the background check system. Maybe fine on paper. And yet in execution, it fails.
How do you figure? Over 300,000 sales of firearms were denied by NICS in 2020. You would need a Schrodinger's Cat box and a way of observing the other timeline to prove that those 300,000 denials didn't have any positive impact on crime or mass shootings. They are also a minor inconvenience at best (I've done them about a dozen times).


You can say, well, a whole bunch of those people just bought one on the black market or in a private sale, but again, this is a theory, not a reality. Possibly true. Possibly not. You need the other timeline to prove it; or some kind of scenario in which you make a perfect copy of America, and have two Americans - one in which you abolish NICS, and one which you don't, to prove the point.

I'm urging experimentation - not any sure thing.

Or how about giving schools more funding? Fine on paper, but instead, all the funding goes to the building or to "administrative fees".
I question whether a well-funded school filled with apathetic students, and more importantly, absent or inattentive parents who don't give a shit is better than a poorly-funded school with attentive parents and students, but that's another topic. Still, without experimentation and measurement, how can we know for certain?

The problem with establishing causation ("this policy led to this specific outcome") rather than correlation is it is an in for anyone who despises any particular policies to point and say, "Correlation is not causation!" But, of course, lack of proof of causation is also not the same thing as absence of causation. It is a measurement problem. There's nothing metaphysical about it.

My larger point being if I could go out into the street in front of my house and sing The Internationale at the top of my lungs, and then we somehow measured that the murder rate dropped, and I did it again and the same thing happened, I'd be willing to do it from now until the end of time.

I guess at this point, I'm just waiting for the whole thing to collapse so we can start over and living my life to the fullest before that happens.
I've kind of concluded that to really understand the system, you have to understand that it is engineered to not make this possible. A Russian co-worker of mine once said, in response to some kind of libertarian boilerplate I was into in those days, "Welfare is the bribes we pay to the working class not to revolt." He meant that he found the prospect of even discussing its abolition ludicrous on face. I disagreed with him then. Not so much now.

Consider the current crop of leftist and how utterly sad they are compared to their forebears -- how utterly unlikely it is that not only will they not topple capitalism, but will barely cause it a slight inconvenience. The same is true of every other kind of radical. The will to up-end society -- to tear it down, or to rebuild it -- is part of the Spectacle we're trapped in: the McResistance, a brandable, monetizable phenomenon people can point to and say, "See: the extremists may criticize the system all they want." Look at Occupy Wall Street. All of that explosive direct action, perhaps, caused (at most) a butterfly to flap its wings on the other side of the world, but capitalism bled not a single drop of blood. Nor did the WTO at the Battle of Seattle in 1999.

I feel like, if you think things will collapse under the weight of the system itself, know that there is a deep incentive for millions of people to prevent that from happening at all costs. As I've said to my friends on the left: the genius of capitalism is the way it entangled the working class with corporate profits, because even if you could convince a worker to take strike action against his employer, it will only take someone to remind him that his pension or 401K will also suffer if he, himself wins.

No one wants to upend anything. They want a quiet life of financial stability.

If you're not left of center, if you're on the right, know that the status quo is similarly heavy iron. Dense like a black hole, so not even light can escape. People who think they're really going to permanently ban abortion will learn this in due time.

You could waste a whole lifetime waiting for the collapse.

I understand the desire to start over; it is natural and healthy and it comes out of genuine disgust for the present and these layers of problems you describe. A house of cards or complex of bullshit with a weak foundation.

I just think wiping the slate clean and starting over is not possible. If it were, the amount of carnage it would entail in reaction may well mean you wouldn't get what you wanted anyway.

They're all the same anyway really. They're always some variant of:

"Society no good. TIME TO KILL KIDS!"

"The lizard aliens are watching us, man!"
Yes but

"I AM A GOLDEN GOD!"
Look, some of us are telling the truth about this one. Holy crap, you should see me when I step out of the shower. No mass shooting for me though; I have a mirror to stare at in wonderment and awe.

Maybe a mixture of the three. In the end though, mass shooters are terrorists born out of both terrible life decisions and (very likely) terrible parenting. And yes, I feel very comfortable making that blanket statement.
Some of it is that, but some of it is also the willingness mildly dysfunctional people have to latch on to simplistic explanations about their current condition. Like I used to believe the NAP was enough -- it isn't; fortunately, that particular simplistic rule from which, I thought, all politics ought to spring, was harmless: merely, insufficient.

The difficulty here is that even people like Dylann Roof believe in their hearts that they are good guys. White supremacists think there is a genocide being committed against their race, and what they do in response to this, is heroic. The same is true of Islamic terrorists. The same was true of Propaganda-by-the-deed anarchists. And Ted Kacyzinski. I found Industrial Society and Its Future electrifying. I still think he's a murderer who belongs in prison.

This is not possible for society to process this currently: everyone thinks they're a good guy, but people pick frames for understanding the world and latch on to it like a dog with a chew toy, impervious to counter-arguments, for the same reason people get into cults.

Anti-cult "exit counselor" Steve Hassan talks about this in a good book called "Combatting Cult Mind Control." He was a Moonie. What he says is that people develop a "thought-stopping technique" such that, when they begin to question their own paradigm (or leader who is creating it), they have a kind of circuit breaker which stops the thought. People tell themselves that doubt and questioning their own idea of the world, or right and wrong, is the work of "the devil" or somehow serves an evil opposition, so that doubt itself becomes a kind of "barbarian who got through the gates." "If I truly believed in this, I wouldn't doubt." But this extends far beyond cults, into ideology, and while it is easy to convince people it exists in cults (or religion, broadly), it is very difficult to get people to say that the same is true of ideology.

The number one thing I want selfishly for the world, is for people to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and say, "I know I am full of shit, in some way. Some deeply-held belief I have is completely wrong, or incompletely developed. I know this because I have changed my mind in the past. How can I, in good conscience, believe that in 20 years I will not look back on me, right now, and think, 'How could you have been so wrong?'"

If we can get used to doing this, a lot of these social pathologies will fall away.

THIS WAS REALLY LONG.

SORRY.

But reality is complex enough to justify it. At least for me. A golden god.

Man, I am not cool enough to be in the same room as me.
 

Arnox

Master
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Right now, the expense and hassle of going to an FFL to handle private transactions is a pain in the ass.
Well, I certainly agree with that. lol

I might be missing something but I don't think this system would harm anything. I also don't think it would solve anything violence wise either. Though it certainly would make transactions a lot easier and smoother for everyone.

The potential for abuse here is theoretical in nature (entirely possible), but the mass shootings are actual.
That's not very relevant. ALL proposed changes are theoretical in nature including yours and mine.

This business about "any legislation whatsoever could go horribly wrong" is a kind of conservatism which retards progress and ties us to a perpetual status quo -- a position I was once okay with. I am not okay with it now. I am willing to take risks to fix the current situation.
I absolutely agree. Which is why I'm not arguing that we do nothing. However, your changes have the very high possibility of infringing even more on our right to defend ourselves through abuse of the system by both government and societal malefactors.

I am NOT opposed and, in fact, advocate heavily for it. For fuck's sake, this is what Sanctuary is. A site advocating for change on the internet. The Bill of Rights though is a VERY... I wouldn't say sensitive subject for me, but one that I'm very staunchly for and defend unceasingly. We can talk about a lot of things, but if we can't even agree on the Bill of Rights, then there's a problem.

Guns are special. You can kill offensively or defensively in other ways, but there's a reason people choose guns, and the expense in obtaining them.
And I agree. But even if we could do it totally accurately, taking guns out of the hands of maniacs and terrorists isn't going to stop them and they'll just start employing other methods of murder much more commonly, even if they're not common now. I know this because as we discussed, taking guns away does not solve the underlying problem whatsoever, which is shitty parenting, untreated mental health issues, and (to a degree) poverty. Do you want to stop gun usage or do you want to stop what is, in actuality, most of the issues we face in the U.S. altogether?

And I don't think the reason is philosophical so much as practical: carrying a gun and managing it like when you go to the shitter is a serious pain in the ass.
Carrying is a responsibility. Yes, it's a pain, but it's taking up a duty to protect yourself and others, even if it may be inconvenient. And hey, some people are probably like me anyway where the peace and satisfaction of having a weapon ready at your side is worth much more than the inconvenience of having to lug it around on your hip (or wherever you choose to stash it.)

represents a regression to the State of Nature and a dystopia
You better start believing in dystopias, Mr. Paco. You're in one. (I mean, comparatively speaking, not a very serious one at all at the moment, but it gets worse with every year and decade that goes by.)

Consider this: We are, presumably, both pro-gun people. We are arguing on this point. It is unlikely either of us will convince the other on this fine point. (I don't mean this as pessimistic, but I've been online for four decades now and persuasion - both persuasion I've attempted, and the many attempts at persuasion others have tried - is rare).
Well, you did convince me mostly with the firearm buyer check system, so it's definitely not a total loss.

Now imagine changing the very basis of how people interact with the world. Imaging getting a society which increasingly views life as cheap to start valuing it again. Or getting people to believe that -- and I think this is important -- civic life, and social life, is important. Meaning: you can be just as much of an individualist and engage in time and effort to improve your community without catching collectivism and winding up in the hospital.
Sometimes, man... You just gotta believe. You gotta be that pioneer and do what many people may be afraid of for whatever reason. Even just seeing someone strike out and make an example for others can be incredibly powerful. You never know who's watching you.

I don't know how to do that. But I can imagine some of these "half measures" as you call them, at least being tried. And the ones I am proposing are, I believe, the least intrusive possibilities when you look at all of the other anti-gun legislation out there.
I don't want you to get discouraged because you didn't convince me all the way here. Just the fact alone that you put in the time to write all this in defense of your position on a site that many people have probably never heard about in their entire lives is deeply humbling for me, and I know that you have given this some deep thought. It sounds trite but I appreciate it more than you know. Sanctuary is here for the free exchange of ideas, and you've already shown that you're a true "totsean" in that regard so far, as they would say back in happier times. But yes, I may not agree, but I respect you and truly hope that you stay here (and join us for a Classic WoW game night perhaps).

A lot of them probably assume they're going to be gunned down at the end of their rampage. They are going out in a blaze of glory.
Sure, but it doesn't change what we need to do in the end at all. Kill them as fast as possible before they harm anyone else.

These are not counterbalances or a taint or poison: they constrain rights into proper context. For this reason, if a shoulder-based nuke was to be developed (since you mentioned that) - one that could be kept and bore - I do not think it would fall under the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment does not specifically mention defense; it only implies it, but we assume the "for defense" aspect of that right is there even though it isn't mentioned. We also assume that the enumerated right doesn't only apply in the context of the well-regulated militia, even the "unorganized" one, because if it did, you could ban hunting and target shooting out of the context of militia drilling. Hence the right definitely has contours. And I say that in the same manner it is not intended to restrain the government from requiring background checks, since there are people who clearly intend to use firearms outside the contours of that right.
There used to be a really REALLY good video on the history of and importance of the 2nd Amendment on YouTube, but OF COURSE, it got taken down, and to my knowledge, never got put back up. In summary though, there's a lot of literature out there from the founding fathers talking about the 2nd Amendment and how important it is and its contexts. If you want, I can post a long list of relevant quotes by them regarding it. With that said, I don't really believe in following the letter of the law so much as the spirit of the law when it comes to the Bill of Rights. For example, the 1st Amendment is clearly to fully facilitate the unhindered exchange of ideas in an open forum. Being annoying is not exchanging ideas. It's just being annoying. This also directly ties into Sanctuary's site-wide rules and why they're there at all instead of the site being a free-for-all.

And so, the 2nd Amendment is there to give people the power to defend themselves from foreign and domestic threats to their life, liberty, and rightful property. Nukes are not, and can never be used defensively. (Or at least, not now.) They are a pure offensive and INCREDIBLY indiscriminate weapon. Therefore, they are not relevant to nor needed for defense. Hence why I agree the 2nd Amendment doesn't really grant access to them. Now, there IS a very interesting conversation to be had about explosives like RDX and C4, but that's another discussion for another time.

No other measures are possible. Or, at least, there is no lobby of people who claim to care really deeply about the Second Amendment and their rights organizing to, I don't know, parent better, or whatever it is you think would fix this issue. As for common crime, fixing the depravations (and economic oblivion) of blighted parts of cities and depressed rural areas seems essential, but it is notable that there is a strong inverse correlation between Second Amendment advocates and people who believe we ought to be expending tax dollars on doing so.
Again, maybe another discussion for another time. Though I generally don't think this is something that can really be fixed effectively by the government. Not without incredibly invasive laws anyway.

The US Constitution, only one of the many limitations on what government can do, is written specifically to create stasis
Sort of. I'm assuming you're referring to the checks and balances. It does absolutely mean that the government generally "runs slower", but the actions it does do are much more careful and considered and can be checked. Hence, why it seems the Constitution is making the government stay still for the most part.

I find this much death intolerable
I find this to be a curious statement. Not because it's objectionable by itself, but because I feel you're skipping over the many other horrible acts committed in this country that are not regulated or even paid much attention to (on the national level). For example, child abuse is RAMPANT, but does that mean we now need to register with the government to have children? Can others force us not to have children? How about the massive levels of corruption at the executive level of all these huge-ass companies? Does that mean we need to have every single transaction brought to the police before it gets cleared? Clearly these measures would be doing SOMETHING, so they're better than nothing, right? But if these measures ARE objectionable to you, then why do major gun regulations get a free pass and these do not?

This is possible after complete societal collapse, and only in that regard. The mass movements everyone wants to happen never happen.
If people get hungry enough, they will happen. For better and worse. But when was the last time the U.S. had a serious famine and/or national level drought? Not since the 1930s, but even then, (if I'm understanding the Great Depression correctly) that was an unavoidable crash, and the drought was due to bad farming methods, so there wasn't really anything to revolt against anyway.

I've kind of concluded that to really understand the system, you have to understand that it is engineered to not make this possible.
Well... Yeah. People don't wanna go hungry. Of course the system is engineered to make this as difficult as possible. Hell, I'd say it would be a terrible system if it didn't. But if you've ever played a game of Jenga, then you know that an unstable foundation will HAVE to collapse sooner or later. It is pure reality. There will be a whoopsie somewhere that will cause a chain reaction. A cock-up cascade, to borrow a phrase from Yahtzee, that will go tumbling down like a line of dominoes until the whole thing is in ruins. Don't believe me? Look what happened in 2007. Bunch of simple but terrible investments caused a massive housing crisis. Why? Because of a broken system stacked on top of another broken system stacked on top of another broken system and etc. And that was just REAL ESTATE.

An unstable foundation WILL result in ruin. It is unavoidable. You cannot stop it no matter how hard you try to duct-tape things together. It is only a matter of time.

You could waste a whole lifetime waiting for the collapse.
Hey, I'm still living my life to the fullest. I'm just saying, in order to fix all these problems, the whole system needs to come down, one way or another. And with the way the system is these days, I think I only need to watch. lol

This is not possible for society to process this currently: everyone thinks they're a good guy, but people pick frames for understanding the world and latch on to it like a dog with a chew toy, impervious to counter-arguments, for the same reason people get into cults.
This is due to rampant self-deception caused by echo chambers, media influencing, and bad upbringings. Once again, what we here at Sanctuary are trying to fix now. And I hope you'll be a part of our cult. We have a stylish website, so that means nobody can resist us.
 
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