Senate Gun Control

The fact that this needs repeating is part of the problem.

 

Edit: Well! No need for my post now. Just as well, since I couldn't figure out where the coding went wrong.

 

You are right at the top. Our culture started as a rights based culture because we fought for our rights.

I believe if I remember correctly you come from Australia. A colony that started as nothing more than convicts. No wonder your culture doesn't value rights since they didn't have any to start.

 

I invest in this thing called "security". Lock on the door, a motion activated light, lock on the windows. Works a treat.

Here's a photo of stylish black security door. No ammunition required.

 

Just because I find it difficult for the laws to allow things to be done doesn't mean I wouldn't follow them. I never suggested I would break the law or think you should break the law.

 

It's just a structure with four walls and a foundation, with some things in it.

 

Fair point. I wish you brought it up earlier when it was everyone else's sharp tones towards me and not the reverse.

All of this started out as a quite civil debate and discourse as even Anakinfan will attest to (she posted as much earlier about me) however the constant attack and assault for my beliefs has obviously made me defensive as I am sure you can imagine.

 

Yep, door security technology has definitely come a long way in my short lifespan.

 

A Coldplay poster prominently displayed on your front window is also a guaranteed safety measure to keep unwanted people out of your home.

 

Kevin Mcallister was probably more effective.

 

I think a Bieber poster would work better.

 

Given the time and cunning skill applied to his survival, definitely not representative of the minds of most gun lobbyists in America.

Show some mercy. Suicide is no substitute for homicide.

 

It's statements like that and "Australia banned guns" like Rew said that reinforce the notion of a profound cultural insularity that segregates the US from what happens in the rest of the world.

Australia, as a British colony, was founded as a penal colony however that was in order to establish British infrastructure in this part of the world. Free settlement occurred concurrently in New South Wales from 1788 onwards. It was this settlement that gave birth to Australia. Moreover, the convict aspect is largely cited without significant historical awareness - namely firstly that Australia was chosen because America, moving towards independence in the 1770s, was no longer an applicable place (gosh, if only your grasp of history was that good eh?) and critically the offences were petty in nature, or political. Working class prisoners were the bulk, having stolen small items like food or clothing that were economic needs and otherwise inaccessible to them. Hard crimes, like murder, rape, assault, were not transportable.

Furthermore, Australia was a British Colony. It is still to this day overwhelmingly culturally British. The rights conferred here are the rights enjoyed by British subjects. Even with the 1931 Westminster Statute and the 1986 Australia Acts there to dilute the legal and political links with England, you still have a situation where this was solely a British dominion with British rule of law and British values underpinning everything.

In other words, you are factually incorrect but at least consistent on this front.

The issue with a rights based culture is that it is absolutely a dangerous and volatile mix in a country with such focus on the individual. You absolutely remain deaf and blind to the rights of others and the need for utilitarianism - the greatest good for the greatest number - as a lubricant between society and the state.

As I stated earlier, the US is only place where an individualist culture can give rise to what is actually institutionalised selfishness but given the pejorative nature of that terminology has been dressed up to impersonate an ideology, and called libertarianism.

You have a right to life, a right to liberty, and a right to bear arms.

So does the person with whom you may engage in a lethal exchange of a small piece of lead, .45 of an inch in diameter.

You do not consider this, though. After Orlando, the main issue is the right of American to bear arms. Not the right of the 49 dead to life, which the fool Thomas Jefferson - a man who would have been laughed out of Europe for his child-like reasoning - called an inalienable right, a self-evident truth (because it just is), endowed by the Creator.

In a civilised society there would be no need to weigh up at what point the right to own firearms is unreasonably and inescapably infringing on the right to life without the consent of those right holders. None of the 49 dead, or any other victim of any mass shooting in the US, said they are willing to surrender their right to life for someone else's second amendment right.

 

You cannot compare Australia to America when it comes to gun rights because the Howard Government was acting under a valid head of power when they made reforms to the ownership of semi-automatic rifles in Australia via the gun buy-back scheme. Australia's head of power enabling this scheme was authorised by our Constitution because that document does not guarantee a right to hold arms nor is there a sibling Bill Of Rights constraining the power of Parliament to make immediate and much needed reforms in response to a crisis. As they'd say in America, it's chalk and cheese - not tomato and tomATO.

 

That... isn't really relevant to the discussion ColdplayNerd?

 

In fairness to myself, I was just using a bit of hyperbole to get my point across.

Obviously there are still guns in Australia. That was never in dispute, and I was not denying that. But the amount of guns owned down there is practically nil compared to how widely proliferated they are in the US. Or at least it feels that way when one compares the common-sense route Australia took toward guns in 1996 versus the head-against-wall approach of American exceptionalism in the face of countless mass shootings. I was expressing frustration, not making sweeping factual claims. Hyperbole.

The misunderstanding was my mistake, though. Sorry about that.

 

I'm weighing in late.

 

Well, no, I mean out of nearly 200 nations we're ranked 27th for proliferation. One in five people owns one.

Compared to three in ten with most of the Nordic states (Sweden, Norway), 2 in ten is painfully normal.

EDIT: The significance of the 1996 firearms restrictions was not that it banned guns. It was that it made it almost impossible to own the types of weapons that will be used in mass shootings. Hence why since 1996 there have been precisely no mass shootings.

It would be like if Americans were limited to 5 shot bolt action rifles, over/under shotguns and revolvers unless specific prescribed criteria could be met.

 

Y'all are still a heckuva lot better off than we are in this category, though.

Thinking about it, Japan would've been a better comparison point. I think guns actually are outlawed in that country according to a study I saw recently?

 

I believe they are almost fully outlawed in Japan and they have something like .6 guns per 100 people.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

Japan is indeed at .6, the world average per 100 people is 10.2 though.

So America is 10.1x the global average of guns per 100 people. This is absolutely a bad thing.

 

This is exacly what needs to happen. America I have a plan for you. Follow these simple 5 steps:
Step 1: somebody here lobby their local reps to pass legislation which bans all firearms in that state/precinct except as above.
Step 2: Wait for inevitable challenge on second amendment grounds.
Step 3: Arrange for the Supreme Court to adjudicate. Scalia is dead so Supreme Court will overturn Heller and declare that the above weapons fulfil the needs of a well regulated militia and so all other weapons can be banned and legislation passes constitutional muster.
Step 4. Pass the legislation free of any second amendment obstacles.
Step 5. Celebrate.