• YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The UK and Canada have similar occurrences, but not in the vast number as the United States. We all understand the access to firearms is the problem.

    • SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Except for all the people trying to deflect blame from firearms by blaming mental illness. Without any will to actually address mental illness, of course.

    • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      How do you effectively remove firearms from the equation at this point? Doesn’t the US have something like 120 guns per 100 residents? I don’t want to be the guy tasked with taking someone else’s gun away, that sounds incredibly dangerous. It also doesn’t seem fair to task someone else with that duty.

      I won’t disagree that it’s a problem, but I don’t have a solution either.

      • Vegasimov@reddthat.com
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        11 months ago

        Every country that currently has gun control laws, at some point didn’t have gun control laws and did have an armed population

        They all managed to pull it off, the USA is unique in thinking this is an impossible task. And they haven’t even tried

        • CADmonkey@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Every country that currently has gun control laws, at some point didn’t have gun control laws and did have an armed population

          Many of those countries had only an armed aristocracy, and they made those laws to keep firearms out of everyone’s hands before there were hundreds of millions of armed people.

            • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              Interestingly enough, you can still purchase rifles and shotguns in the UK… you can even purchase an AR-15 or a Beretta ARX 160 legally in the UK so long as it’s chambered for .22LR and approved by the police. You just have to tell them it’s for a shooting club; not self defense.

              When the UK passed their laws, it was more targeting handguns.

              One of the biggest problems around guns in America is the culture. Dickbags seem to want to associate manhood with the usage of this one specific type of tool.

          • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            To provide actual discussion:

            Increase rigor for screening on all firearm purchases

            Removal of any and all “gun shop loopholes”

            Voluntary, no questions asked, buybacks on any firearm

            Two of these make it harder for new guns to enter the equation, while not making it impossible for a reasonable adult to get one, and the final drastically lowers the number of guns in circulation.

            • Frog-Brawler@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              That’s a viable start, and both of your suggestions I am in favor of, but it will not remove the millions of firearms that are already in the hands of 1/3 of the U.S. population. It would also not prevent someone from 3D printing a ghost gun. Considering that some gun owners are also handloading / reloading their own ammo at home, you would effectively need to ban the sale of all smokeless powder as well. However, even in doing that, it would not take back the millions and millions of rounds that people already have.

              • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                Right. And these are all valid concerns, but they exist everywhere. The end of the day, you’ll actually never remove firearms from the equation, and I’d argue you really shouldn’t. The idea is to limit the access to either people who are damned and determined (3d printers, home gunsmiths and reloaders, etc) and those who are somewhat qualified.

            • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Voluntary, no questions asked, buybacks on any firearm

              That’s already a thing for the most part. You can walk into any gun/pawn shop and sell your gun there and they’ll be happy to take it off your hands AND pay 5x more than a gun buyback program from the state.

              Removal of any and all “gun shop loopholes”

              That was never a thing. The “loop hole” was selling private party since no individual person has access to the NICS.

              • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                The reason you’re going to get more for a gun at a pawn shop or gun shop is because they’re going to resell them. The idea with a government initiative would be to decommission the guns.

                It’s my understanding that the term “gun show loophole” is used is because it was/is a common enough practice to meet at gun shows and sell as private sellers, thus bypassing the requirements for bg checks.

                I also realized now that I typed gun shop instead of gun show, so sorry if that caused confusion, I’m going to blame autocorrect.

                • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  The reason you’re going to get more for a gun at a pawn shop or gun shop is because they’re going to resell them. The idea with a government initiative would be to decommission the guns.

                  Now you had all of that energy and resource that went into making the gun + the energy required to destroy it vs letting someone who actually wants it, and it mentally OK using. And what if it’s a historically significant firearm? Trying to destroy guns is not going to get firearms owners on your side.

                  Opening up NICS so the average Joe selling private party can double check the person they’re buying it from would be a huge step forward. That’s a win win for both sides.

      • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You can’t, but in Canadian communities where firearms are more prevalent you see the same result. Mental illness and access to firearms is a huge red flag no matter where in the world you are.

      • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Most places solve it with buy backs and slowly tightening the vice. So that people have both incentive and time to come to terms with it before it comes to a point where they would have to fight to keep them. The crazy gun nuts are actually more talk than action, despite how often they “say” they aren’t.

          • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Those weren’t gun nuts, those were Trump nuts.

            A large percentage of them probably are, but they where there because of Trump, not guns.

          • Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            I still would. It’s not like ignoring it has been making it better. Many other countries solved the problem exactly the same way. A steadily ratcheting buyback does work for 90-95% of gun owners. And yes you are left with the crazies that are most likely to actually do terrible things with their guns, but at that point they will already be criminals before they even shoot… so it makes things alot easier.

      • credit crazy@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That’s another problem I have with simple baning of guns all your doing is disarming the responsible folk as what are you going to do with the people who fight back with said guns and what about the people who hide their guns or people that get guns illegally you have to remember that there are people that break the law

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Historically, old America looks very different from the current one. I look at things like our transit network being entirely train-based, and now being completely car-based. That is a HUGE change driven by demand.

        The point is just that large, glacial changes over many years are by no means impossible if we’ve set it as a target and there’s motivation. Nobody ever barged into a railway company’s office and said “We’re tearing up your lines by force and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

        • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          What kind of argument are you making here? Rail lines were torn up by force. Vehicle manufacturers bought up all the public transit systems in the US and destroyed them to increase dependency on cars.

          And then they lobbied hard to make it illegal to cross roads outside of crosswalks, they lobbied for highways and road expansions, and manipulated the public into believing that real freedom comes from owning a car.

          None of that was truly driven by real demand, the system was manipulated to increase car dependency to the benefit of the car manufacturers.