We have had our 18th mass shooting for the year…..it is February 2018….and as usual we have the gun debate flying all over the internet and the news……it is a conversation we need but it seldom goes beyond the accusation of the two sides.
Hypothetically let us say that we were successful in a ban on the guns in question……
Looking back a few years after hypothetical new restrictions on semiautomatic weapons in private hands, we see a country grown more divided, but no less armed.
The strategy that gun controllers finally settled on was to shift the culture to make firearms ownership socially unacceptable. Then, legal changes would be possible.
“I think we have to cleanse our culture of this false idea that guns are cool,” gun opponents wrote. “Guns are not cool. Cool kids don’t use guns.” Others agreed, and they all pointed to an earlier example of demonizing a previously popular product. “Guns should be the new cigarettes,” they insisted.
This is why my suggestion was to have the President by-pass Congress and make an immediate decree banning sales of all assault weapons FOR TWO YEARS to at least serve as some immediate attempt to stop mass shootings… BUT.. it has to be linked with a comprehensive national mental health policy developed and implemented within that two year period, with the addition of any necessary gun controls like, age limitations, etc. via Congress. At the end of two years the ban is lifted.. and then it’s up to Congress to continue it or ignore it for other control legislation. But both concepts MUST be linked to be effective.
Look at the AUMF that was only suppose to be a temporary fix……that was 17 years ago….chuq
I see nothing where the AUMF had some deadline, renewal date, or any such time limitation. For sure many who voted for it didn’t think it would have been used to get us into future conflicts as it did, but that is a debate on original intent. Repeals since have fallen flat.
It was to authorize the attacks of 2001….never meant to be a permanent thing….chuq
Government mandated “Health” policies can easily lead to some form of “Selection” and/or confinement or segregation of individuals for the good of the nation. This has been tried before and the results were catastrophic — (World War II Germany.). We do not need the government to be scrutinizing citizens and making judgments about their mental health because it can become politicized much too easily and once that can of worms has been opened there will be hell to pay.
By the way.. my above suggestion will never happen… and I know that.
We don’t know that! Stranger things have happened.
It’s easy enough to ban something (no, not really) but so much harder to reinstate what was banned.
Again I use the AUMF as an example…it did not ban anything just it was suppose to be temporary……chuq
The flip-side of vilifying smoking was to make it appear to be ‘cool’ to youngsters. As fast as older people give up, young people embrace smoking as a rebellious act. Let’s hope that doesn’t end up applying to guns.
Best wishes, Pete.
Good point but I think that guns would not fall into that…..but then the NRA is masterful…..chuq
Rebellion always follows denial.
This country may need a rebellion to flush out the pipes of the Republic….chuq
Candy gum cigarettes where all the rage when I was growing up… and so were cap pistols.
But I was born into a world not much like the one we have today. ***sigh
I am an old fart and my younger days were not nearly as they are today……chuq
Reblogged this on Die Erste Eslarner Zeitung – Aus und über Eslarn, sowie die bayerisch-tschechische Region!.
We had an assault weapons ban about the time of the attempt on President Reagan’s life — I don’t recall the circumstances of the ban but I know it was effective and did what it was designed to do. I am not so much in favor of actually banning the weapons as I am in favor of requiring a thorough-enough required training program, pre-qualification and vetting for potential purchasers. One of the problems with weapons as powerful as these things that were designed for killing as many of the enemy on a battle field as possible in the shortest possible time is that somebody down the line is going to insist on the right to purchase and possess ever-increasingly powerful weapons — and for what purpose? There has to be some kind of limits.
Agreed…..no civilian needs an assault weapon …if they feel they need to shoot them then join the Army they will let you shoot one as much as they want……something tells me there is a little cowardice in there…..chuq
Iff’n these Hollywood Leeeeebruls actually done wanted to takes our guns away frum us, (Stop it, man. Sober up and stop acting like a Squidbilly. Besides ain’t not nobody thinks it’s funny nohow.)
Instead of just posturing on stage, if all these liberals who run Hollywood actually wanted to DO something about guns, they’d stop making/acting in all these fucking movies where the hero kills everybody in thrilling, fun, unrealistic, fantasy scenes only made possible by CGI. I used to think stuff like Dirty Harry, or Commando, was bad enough. That’s kindergarten material now. And speaking of kids, most grow up spending half their lives playing 1st-person-shooter games like Call of Dootie and laughing about their kills. Today, you can slit a throat at 8PM on network TV. Outside of Reality TV bullshit, prime-time is nothing but murder after murder. Even PBS is full of murder-based TV.
If you want to change the culture to un-cool guns, that’s how to start. Stop making so much violent bullshit.
Monkey don’t see. Monkey don’t do.
It is the mentality the macho crap…games feed that but so does the boob tube and Hollywood that glorifies war and the killing….chuq
Yeah, it’s all one big fucking combat zone. Even if you take out all the murders, what’s left is still about combat. For example, those “Fake Housewives of Boise” get into more hair-pulling cat-fights than an episode of Jerry Springer. Practically everything has a fight to the death, winner take all, mentality. They don’t even allow ties in hockey any more!!! They force teams into a…wait for it….shootout! How Un-Canadian is that?
Ah, where the hell is Michael Landon when you need him? We need some Little House on the Prairie type shit back on the dial. Where’s my man, Lawrence Welk? Bob Ross? Ain’t nobody poppin’ a cap in anybody’s ass after watching one of those shows. They mellow even me out. Back when I was kid, the librarian used to play a tape of Bob Ross. She and my teacher would then go outside & smoke some reefer to deal with us little terrors. By the time they came back, everyone was mellowed right out.
This is the type of programming we need more of, if we’re ever going to de-cool guns & violence.
Landon is lost somewhere on the prairie…….if those shows come back the cap I pop is on me….LOL chuq
What I believe needs to be done is we need a full, comprehensive report on violent acts committed with a firearm. Yeah, I know we have reports today, but we need to get VERY thorough. We need to have a report that shows how many acts were committed by people who have committed small crimes such as jaywalking or public-intox, Bigger crimes such as armed robbery or assault, how many have mental illnesses, what the illness is (Autism, Bipolar, Schizophrenia, Etc.), How severe it is, How many are drunks, How many are strung out, how many are men compared to women, Are they legal citizens or not, how many have ties to criminal organizations, Etc. But once we have all this data, we can begin to understand what causes these tragedies to happen and therefore, treat it as what it is. A people problem, not a gun problem. Just my two cents.
THanx for the visit and your input….chuq