Do you think we will ever get to the point in America....

Where there isn't a mass shooting almost everyday? or are our politicians to corrupted to change any laws to at least reduce it?

I think you guys definitely need more guns and stop doing things half baked and allow every citizen to own nuclear armament. Because nukes don't kill people, people kill people.

Never fear, David Chipman is here to be tapped as head of ATF. A rabid anti-gun activist and former Waco goon, he's here to make sure mass murder is only done by the state.

The ATF has subverted our democratic process before in order to push legislation, I suspect they will do so again under this goofball.

Nope

You know, there are some extremists that worship a certain interpretation of the qu’ran and call for Jihad; there are also some Americans who worship their Constitution and the right to bear arms.

Probably no....

Or worse, those who worship government. Usually they're forced to do so in countries that do not have a constitution or a right to bear arms ;-).

@vl4d_l3nin said:

Never fear, David Chipman is here to be tapped as head of ATF. A rabid anti-gun activist and former Waco goon, he's here to make sure mass murder is only done by the state.

The ATF has subverted our democratic process before in order to push legislation, I suspect they will do so again under this goofball.

I'd find irony in this if it wasn't simply a matter of hypocrisy and double-standards. The same people who cry that the police have too much power and are murdering innocent people rally behind a person like him, who was part of a police action that murdered innocent people while telling us only the police or government should have guns, and in the same breath of complaining about how poorly trained police are, are the only ones "qualifed" to use firearms.

Sense and logic are certainly not hallmarks of the left.

Aren't there already laws against gangs/organized crime?

Yes.

I believe TC just wants someone else to say "ban guns" for him.

Nah, just better background checks especially on assault rifles.

It will be around the same time we acknowledge mental health and education and take concerted steps to deconstruct the culture of fear, prejudice, hate, and violence as outlets for insecurity.

You know, never.

Found the communist.

:P

No, it’s hard enough to keep the police brutality and killings down let alone the crazed individuals that get inspired to go on a killing spree.

I doubt you even know how the background check system works or the fact that in the vast majority of homicides committed by a firearm in this country, the weapon was purchased illegally, or stolen, meaning the individual doing the shooting isn't going to subject themselves to any kind of screening no matter what the laws say. This is why the media focuses on rare events and even goes so far as to redefine what a mass shooting is so they can categorized every gang shootout as one to pad the stats.

And again, if you had a clue on the matter you'd realize that of the roughly 8-9 thousand homicides a year where a firearm is used (which is statistically EXTREMELY low for a country with a population of over 320 million), that only about 250-300 of those are actually committed with a rifle, of any kind, and fewer than half of those are with those so-called "assault rifles." That means you're ignoring over 8,000 other incidents to focus in full tunnel-vision fashion on a number that is only about 1% the size of the other one.

So, having some education and facts on the matter rather than the typical, predictable, emotional response would do you some good. Because it's hard to take anyone seriously when they start whining about the buzz-word "assault rifles" when almost the entire firearm homicide statistic is dominated by handguns.

Assault rifles are already illegal to own. The AR15 is a semiautomatic not and assault rifle. If we are going to write laws lets at least know what we are talking about.

@eoten: Most countries do not easily grant firearms licenses.

Figure out how to stop people from hating each other and you'll become an extremely rich man.

Not trying to pick a fight, but you seem mis-informed.

The US does not issue or grant firearms licenses at all.

I own numerous firearms of all types and never once have I had to ask permission from my government to acquire one of them.

I am a citizen of my country, not a subject of my government.

You don't have background checks and a waiting period before you purchase a gun?

No, only for vote registration. :P

I'm not giving up my right to own a gun because of a select few morons.

That "right" is based on opinion of the SCOTUS. It was not always interpreted as it is now.

1. But studies show background checks work,

Two recent studies provide evidence that background checks can significantly curb gun violence. In one, researchers found that a 1995 Connecticut law requiring gun buyers to get permits (which themselves required background checks) was associated with a 40 percent decline in gun homicides and a 15 percent drop in suicides. Similarly, when researchers studied Missouri's 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase law, they found an associated increase in gun homicides by 23 percent, as well as a 16-percent increase in suicides.

Research Suggests Gun Background Checks Work, But They're Not Everything : NPR

2. Over 80% of Americans support stronger Universal Background Checks. So your stance is garbage politically as well if being garbage factually wasn't enough,

Washington, D.C., March 10, 2021 - New polling released today by Morning Consult and Politico again confirms that the American people want to strengthen the background check system. The survey, conducted between March 6 and March 8, 2021, finds that 84 percent of voters, including over three-quarters of Republicans and 82 percent of Independents, support a law requiring a background check for all firearm purchases.

New Polling Shows Overwhelming Support for Universal… | Brady (bradyunited.org)

Feel free to refute both claims with citation.

What Biden and crew are tryng to do is create a backdoor registry by forcing all transfers to go through a recorded government system. This means a father passing on a rifle that has been in his family for generations to his child will be documented, and have to pay the fee (yeah, essentially another tax). And Supreme Court has already made rulings against registration so unless somehow the Supreme Court suddenly had a handful of new activist judges added to it, that's not going to change.

The fact that the entire argument in the left is disingenuous to begin with, trying to use fear mongering to make people willing to give up the low hanging fruit in order to get their foot in the door on full scale registration tells me the gun control argument never has been, and never will be about saving lives. Of about 9000 homicides a year with guns, almost all of them are handguns, not rifles of any kind, and when a rifle is used, almost all of them are not what is superficially described as an "assault rifle". These are facts, that if avoided, ruins any argument the left had on the topic.

The other fact, and the other reason leftists are a joke to argue with on this topic is how they have made a saint out of someone like Daunte Wright in Minnesota, what a good guy he was, and how innocent he was, ignoring how he used firearms to victimize a woman.

Wright, 20, and another man had been charged with first-degree attempted aggravated robbery in December 2019 for allegedly trying to steal $820 from a woman at gunpoint, according to Hennepin County District Court documents.

The more people like you defend and excuse trash like that who use firearms to victimize innocent people, the less I am going to take your pleas to disarm the other 100+ million people who have done no such thing seriously.

No waiting period, but you have to pass the instant background check.

The last 3 or 4 I bought, I did have to pass the background check, but since I'm not a god damned criminal, and I've never been adjudicated mentally unfit, I passed.

The rest of my guns were either purchased before the instant background check was implemented, or I bought them from an individual.

I think it's more likely that Kevlar vests will not only be common to wear among all ages but you'd get to head to Walmart and pick up a Spider-man themed one for your son and a Barbie themed one for your daughter, Or vice versa.

Rather then any changes to gun laws that will reduce them, if it hasn't already then why would it happen in the future when it's likely considered a common place occurrence?

So what. All firearms should be registered. Passing them on should also require that.

Fearmongering? There's shootings every day now making the news. No one need add to that. People are sick of it. Also gun owners are the minority in the country. Why is so hard for those who love their guns to agree that we need better regulation? No one is talking about taking your guns away.

Real talk.

Just out of curiosity, what is so wrong with registering a firearm?

I mean objectively. I understand 2nd Amendment debates are heated for many reasons but let's just forget the 2nd Amendment for a second and debate about this in a vacuum. What is the issue with registration? What is the issue with knowing a parent has passed on their firearm to their child?

I bought my dad's car from him, I had to register it, I had to pay a fee. Why can't or shouldn't we do that with firearms?

Also, as a separate subject, how do you feel about "red flag" laws? For example, if you are concerned about a gun owner harming themselves or others, you can call the police and have their gun confiscated for a period of time. They get the gun back, they're not arrested, it's just in the event they mentioned shooting themselves or shooting up their place of work or something.

@comeonman: In that case the answer to the above is clearly, no.

So expect more gun violence!

Our government doesn't have the right to require permission or to keep lists on who has what. The second amendment was created as a check and balance to government overreach. Registration is absolutely the first step to confiscation and mandatory buybacks. It's exactly what happened in the UK, Australia, and many other countries which is an action our government doesn't have the authority to do.

And secondly, the arguments fall flat when the people demanding registrations, restrictions, and regulations have no actual interest in reducing crime. When the people crying out for registration do so under disinformation and deception, there's even less reason for intelligent people to trust their motives are in any way altruistic. Case and point, whining about "assault rifles" and then listing completely arbitrary and superficial features that have absolutely nothing to do with the function of said rifle because what they're really targeting is something completely different.

The entire gun control argument is ridiculous, and let's face it, the gun community has been lied to again, and again, and again. They've compromised, again and again, and again getting nothing in return. It's a struggle between people having the right to protect themselves, and the people, the citizenry having the final say in the balance of power, and not a bunch bureaucrats. It's really none of Joe Biden's or Nancy Pelosi's or Chuck Schumers business what I own, where I got it, why I have it, or what I do with it unless an actual crime has been committed.

Do you really have that much faith in these people to be honest about their motives and altruistic with their actions? When you really stop and think about it, do you trust them with absolute power over a citizenry powerless to do anything about it? I don't. And I don't trust anybody with an R by their name either.

You can lose your right to vote but not the right to own a gun?

That is incorrect.

If you are a convicted felon, you lose the right to own firearms. You cannot buy any more and any that you have must be surrendered.

That is what the instant check system is all about. Are you a convicted felon, or adjudicated mentally unfit.

If you are a convicted felon and are caught in possession of a firearm, I believe it is an automatic 5 or maybe 10 years in prison.

We hear a lot about the push to restore voting rights to felons from the left, but never any desire to restore second amendment rights.

Violence is a fact of life, be it perpetrated with bare hands or a weapon such as a knife, a club, or a gun. In a nation of free people, such as the USA, the police are a reactionary force, so each person must be allowed and prepared to defend themselves and their loved ones.

There is an old saying in my country: Abe Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but Sam Colt made all men equal.

Samuel Colt invented the modern revolver hand gun that allows even the smallest/weakest among us to be able to defend themselves against the physically stronger person.

Push for restoring 2nd amendment rights will go through much easier if voting rights are restored.

Again, the ideas the left come up with are completely ludicrous, and have nothing to do with the issue, that is why nobody's going to listen to you. "We have shootings every day." Sure, and where are those? By whom, and what are they using? They're in cities where all the restrictions you are begging for already exist, by people who bought them illegally, and they're not "assault rifles."

And even the whole "assault rifle" moniker gets you laughed at. Whenever you ask a politician or leftwing activist to describe it, they always point to superficial, cosmetic features that look scary. Like a telescoping stock, or a pistol grip. So actually understanding what it is you're even talking about is always a good first step to being taken seriously on any issue.

Restored by whom? The people who don't think anyone has second amendment rights to begin with? I'm calling bullshit on that theory. Do you even know the last time a federal firearm regulation was eliminated, or a bill was passed in favor of gun owners? If you don't count the 1994 AWB sunsetting in 2004, there's none that I can think of. Government doesn't give back rights after they've been given permission to take them.

That's where you the people come in. Granted someone in favour of fascism is hellbent on getting that power removed from themselves.

There are many things that can be tried that could potentially lower the numbers of mass shootings, but it requires an ounce of caring for people you don't know with perhaps opinions opposing your own, which means it is opposed by Republicans.

That's complete bullcrap. Nobody has made valid, reasonable proposals. What's opposed is emotional, knee jerk nonsense that does nothing but punish innocent people while doing nothing to solve the issue. Tell, how the **** does banning a pistol grip and telescoping stock on a rifle (which is what states like NY did) going to save lives?

@eoten: Wrong. The Second Amendment was created because they didn't trust established militaries. The early military they favored were regulated militia's much of which was state/location supplied. The US for many years had not much of a central military. The fact that they included the word well regulated militia in the amendment was not an accident. The militia's by the way did drill.

Also we are well away from the end of the 1700's and things have changed. Gun laws should as well. We no longer hunt our own food which did make muskets necessary. But hey, we can let all citizens have muskets. You want to use early American ideas then that is what we should do. But semi automatics are not what the founding fathers had in mind when they added that amendment.

I do recommend reading up on their ideology rather than twisting their words though.

@comeonman: You do realise, other democratic nations do not have gun violence like the US, nor do they have such high levels of other violent crimes.

I’m not sure how “free” people feel when they’re worried about gun violence at home from a partner or outside in a gang shooting or a mass shooting event.

There is no freedom with fear.

Are you willing to accept that legislation which has nothing to do with guns can affect gun violence?

I agree 100% :P I think the government should hand guns out to citizens to be honest.

That is the issue, idiots that know nothing about guns are the ones trying to rewrite the laws. The issue is they are complete idiots when it comes to the laws now or about the guns themselves. Hell Biden screws up all the time and you can tell that guy literally knows dick about guns or the real laws.

@horgen:

I am more inclined to restore voting rights to felons than I am inclined to restore 2nd amendment rights.

But, neither should be restored immediately upon completion of the sentence. I think society has the right to expect a person to show they are not going to continue their criminal ways before their rights are restored.

And I am reluctant to restore gun rights to anyone that has committed a violent felony, especially if they used a gun.

I don't understand how you can consider yourself a free and sovereign individual if your government requires you to ask their permission to own the basic tools of self defense.

Guns are not going away. Bad people have them. I have an inherent human right to self defense. Taking away my ability to own firearms leaves me at the mercy of criminals with only the hope that government will detect and stop them.

No thank you.

Just cannot agree with that sentiment. Seems a bit immature to think that way, imo.

Such as?

The fear is in your mind. It's called hysteria, and listening to a lot of fear mongering media with an ulterior motive behind spreading that fear will do that to you. Of the 9,000 homicides a year with firearms, which is statistically EXTREMELY small, the vast majority of it is localized to a few small parts of a few major cities. Cities that have been deep blue for decades I might add and whose policies haven't been very helpful to the minority communities and generally have resulted in more poverty, but hey, let's be afraid of an inanimate object. It's easier, right?