Americans have now suffered 40 mass shootings in the first 24 days of 2023. More than 2800 total gun deaths—including 122 children. And yet GOP wants MORE guns & reject any regulation.
Honestly how corrupt & conscientiously ignorant must one be to ignore "well regulated" & only read "shall not be infringed" in your 2A interpretation?
Imagine if we read the 1A like that? "We would pass this bill but the 1A clearly says 'Congress shall make no law' so too bad!" It's absurd.
Pass Gun Reform NOW.
We may have a huge gun problem in this country, but at least we have a tremendous lack of access to health care, a substandard educational system, a feral two party system, and a monumental race relations problem.
@QasimRashid
Maybe GOP support of guns isn't about campaign donations (although there's that), so much as ensuring that the base of a dying political party arms up and stays that way, ready to support Insurrection Day, should that day come.
If that's what's afoot, don't expect GOP help on gun control, especially in the party's wingnut incarnation.
I have questions.
What SPECIFIC "gun reform" do you think you want?
What SPECIFIC "gun reform" do you think you're going to get past SCOTUS?
Especially *this* SCOTUS?
What specific outcome do you imagine getting - even if you got whatever exact law you think you want?
Why do you imagine you’re going to get that outcome?
Because prior attempts to “reduce harms” by banning things in the US have universally resulted in objectively greater harms (e.g. war on drugs)...
???
@isucceed @QasimRashid
Wrong. When we had an assault weapons ban in this country, gun death rates dropped. When it expired and gun nuts refused to reinstate it, gun deaths have skyrocketed and continued an upward trend ever since. So let’s start there.
America has no monopoly on mental illness and angry people, but we are alone in the civilized world when it comes to the absurd number of gun deaths, particularly from suicide and mass shootings.
The AWB didn't ban weapons with capability; it banned weapons with a certain "style" or appearance.
Scary appearance doesn't kill people. It just frightens ignorant ones.
More weapons with the same capability were manufactured and sold DURING the ban than prior.
This alone falsifies the widely held falsity you are fielding.
1/
What is it that "worked"?
What constitutes "worked"?
What would constitute "not working"?
What were the parameters and constraints?
"Assault weapons" do not significantly contribute to the overall statistic of "gun deaths". Banning them will not, even now, significantly reduce the totality of "gun deaths".
This simple grade-school arithmetic also falsifies the widely-held falsity you are fielding.
You can not "start there" on a foundation of ignorance and lies. Actual understanding of actual functional reality is the only base from which to build something that isn't nonsense.
2/
You are asking for an assault weapon ban, and implying that it will reduce the number of suicides.
Have you any information at all about the number of suicides in which assault weapons are used?
This is like Republicans demanding re-implantation of ectopic pregnancies (not a thing). People screaming for a thing about which they are utterly ignorant.
It's not a path to effective policy.
@isucceed @QasimRashid I’m trying to figure out what your position is on gun regulation.
The assault weapons ban expiration coincides with a dramatic rise in mass shootings, particularly in schools. I never said or implied that it had anything to do with suicides. You’re misreading it, hopefully not intentionally. But the absurdly easy availability of guns in general makes suicide far too easy and too successful.
My positions on things are not partisan, but based on actual expertise or at least literacy in the relevant disciplines.
I did not intentionally misread your comment on suicide, which was merely close to the other things you were writing about.
The first person I ever watched die was a GSW suicide. And, I can speak specifically to suicideology, but let's segregate discussion of that from discussing actual violent crimes, if that's OK.
I don't have a "position". I have understanding of the mechanics - based on education, *decades* of study, and hands-on professional experience.
Understanding how things work isn't a position; it's a competence. And, it will absolutely change the minute someone can credibly prove anything has materially changed.
Things like the Luty, the "ghostgunner", & 3d printing have changed - and demonstrated changes. "Ban guns" is not an actual thing - any more than banning meth.
@isucceed @QasimRashid
So you’re proposing no solution at all. Got it. Done here.
You sound like one of those people that goes around correcting people on the internet and feeling superior. Well, you do you.
Observing that an approach to something is completely unhinged from the mechanics of that thing isn't "proposing no solution at all".
Encountering someone who has put in the time and work - including professional work - in a subject should not lead a person to feel bad and run away.
It's not my fault that things work as they do, that I understand them, or that others might not.
It is my responsibility to speak up against stupid policy proposals.
Let's see if curiosity might lead us to some understandings...
1. Can you quantify "a dramatic rise" in mass shootings post AWB? What is the statistical deviation from prior?
2. Have you read behavioral profiles of shooters?
3. Can you say the percentage of guns used in post AWB mass shootings that were subject to the AWB?
4. Do you believe expiration of AWB was causative or controlling in the rate of mass shootings? Why do you think so?
If the topic matters to you more than scream-parroting the sad, tired, *false* talking points spoon-fed by political grifters, consider becoming educated in the relevant disciplines, beginning with how firearms work and the history of firearms, history of the US and US civics, sociology and psychology specific to violent behavior (I recommend Gilligan's work), and some solid study of law enforcement and contraband interdiction - and what a failure it *always* is.
I am happy to help anyone who wants to achieve competence in the material sufficient to support actual discourse.
This begins with deciding whether you want to actually participate in reality or to just spew emotion poorly camouflaged as political participation.
@QasimRashid Unfortunately, it's not absurd. The game where we play "what do words mean" with the text of the Constitution is a losing one.
The founders were white, slave-holding men. The words of the document they wrote are going to reflect that no matter how open-minded they were for the time.
This country used to believe that the rough patches of the Constitution could be finessed if the end result was a "more perfect union." Let's get back to that.
The fascists are trying to incite civil war.
@QasimRashid Yah, imagine if 1A was read that way, we wouldn't have DeSantis shutting down libraries.
Not giving my guns to anyone, it's time to expand rights not take them away.
The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected.
UVALDE, TX—In the hours following a violent rampage in Texas in which a lone attacker killed at least 21 individuals and injured several others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Tuesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre from taking…
@QasimRashid
https://kolektiva.social/@bwinbwin/109749891439412944
https://mastodon.social/@workingclasshistory/109748428676243147
@[email protected] Shay's Rebellion was the basis for the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution. They wanted state militia to have the ability to suppress rebellion. It was a "state's right" not an individual right. This was the common and traditional understanding before Scalia perverted our constitution.
@QasimRashid I'm fine with the fifth amendment.
"No person shall be held"
Qasim Rashid, Esq.
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