Guns

[Eddie]

Didn't Biden just tell us that no one hunts with an AR15?

Well - that would be news to me. Everyone I personally know who owns an AR15 hunts with it. Not deer, mind you. But they've hunted at least coyotes and rabbits with them. Wrong again, Joe...

[pellegrino]

Didn't Biden just tell us that no one hunts with an AR15?

Well - that would be news to me. Everyone I personally know who owns an AR15 hunts with it. Not deer, mind you. But they've hunted at least coyotes and rabbits with them. Wrong again, Joe...

though the most popular caliber is the 223/5.56, when calibered in .308 the AR-15 makes a great hunting rifle, and I know more than a few hunters who use it to hunt large game.

The thing about this possible/proposed ban is that it does absolutely nothing to really protect people. They are going after the symbol of violence, when the actual violence still remains embedded into the fabric of society.

[Eddie]

though the most popular caliber is the 223/5.56, when calibered in .308 the AR-15 makes a great hunting rifle, and I know more than a few hunters who use it to hunt large game.

The thing about this possible/proposed ban is that it does absolutely nothing to really protect people. They are going after the symbol of violence, when the actual violence still remains embedded into the fabric of society.

I'll give you an amen. It's a feel good proposal that some folks might think will have some positive effect but in reality will do nothing.

I was a pretty disappointed in Obama's initial press release - he talked about wanting to do something and do something fast...within the next couple of months. He made a point of saying that this wasn't something that they were going to take a lot of time talking about - it was time for action.

All I could think of was that more often than not if you don't take the time necessary to consider all of the ramifications - you end up making a dumb decision with more unintended consequences than you anticipated. Kind of like "let's hurry and pass Obamacare without looking at what it says or getting input from enough sources to understand the long-term ramifications".

In my perfect world - they would get people from both sides of the argument together and brainstorm what can be done to stop gun violence. The anti-gunners are famous for the idea of "take away the guns and it will stop". The pro-gunners are famous for their cry of "arm the populous to defend themselves and it will stop".

The reality is that neither of those ideas is a solution. So let's get together and talk about solutions. What is at the heart of the problem. What can be done to remedy that. And what are logical and sensible laws that should be considered that could help prevent gun violence? But to do this, both sides have to be open-minded and prepared for some give and take.

[CardiacCoug]

The thing about this possible/proposed ban is that it does absolutely nothing to really protect people. They are going after the symbol of violence, when the actual violence still remains embedded into the fabric of society.

Yep.

End the War on Drugs and improve care for the mentally ill in this country. Now that would be a rational response to these mass shootings and to the prevalence of gun violence generally in this country.

[YOhio]

Stewart's take.

http://www.uproxx.com/media/2013/01/...t-gun-control/

[Omaha 680]

Yep.

End the War on Drugs and improve care for the mentally ill in this country. Now that would be a rational response to these mass shootings and to the prevalence of gun violence generally in this country.

The crazy thing to me in all this discussion is gun violence is going DOWN and has been for some time. That is lost in all the proposals. There may be some things that need to be done to try to prevent these mass shootings, but it is all couched in a lie and plays on the public's fear that violent crime is getting worse in America.

[CardiacCoug]

The crazy thing to me in all this discussion is gun violence is going DOWN and has been for some time. That is lost in all the proposals. There may be some things that need to be done to try to prevent these mass shootings, but it is all couched in a lie and plays on the public's fear that violent crime is getting worse in America.

Yep. These mass shootings are terrifying but obviously still extraordinarily rare.

Gun violence is going down and the gun violence that remains is linked primarily to drugs, urban poverty, lack of education, and lack of economic opportunity.

Improving schools, lowering unemployment, etc. would all result in a greater decrease in gun violence than any new gun control laws.

[Indy Coug]

Yep. These mass shootings are terrifying but obviously still extraordinarily rare.

Gun violence is going down and the gun violence that remains is linked primarily to drugs, urban poverty, lack of education, and lack of economic opportunity.

Improving schools, lowering unemployment, etc. would all result in a greater decrease in gun violence than any new gun control laws.

If Romney had been elected, he could've forced everyone to convert and that would've solved things, Book of Mormon Style.

[SCcoug]

Yep. These mass shootings are terrifying but obviously still extraordinarily rare.

Gun violence is going down and the gun violence that remains is linked primarily to drugs, urban poverty, lack of education, and lack of economic opportunity.

Improving schools, lowering unemployment, etc. would all result in a greater decrease in gun violence than any new gun control laws.

Agreed.

This video is a few years old but is food for thought in the media's role in perpetuating mass shootings.

[YOUTUBE]PezlFNTGWv4[/YOUTUBE]

[dabrockster]

Shooting at San Fran school...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...dfa_story.html

[pellegrino]

Stewart's take.

http://www.uproxx.com/media/2013/01/...t-gun-control/

Unimpressed. his caricature of wayne la pierre is pretty ridiculous.

His reading of the second amendment in the second half is completely ridiculous.

The problem is that Stewart makes any of the positions the "gun nuts" have to appear like complete idiots.

Granted the pro gun agenda doesn't help themselves (Alex Jones, ), they really do a poor job of educating the public about firearms, but it's easy to parse up some of these messages and make them sound idiotic. That he does so for comic effect should remind everyone what he is, a comedian with a political opinion.

I take issue with his last statement too, which will likely become the take away catch phrase from his monologue.

Their paranoid fear of a possible dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present.

I realize he said this for rhetorical effect, but last I checked, we don't live in a dystopic society. We do not live in a post nuclear wasteland, nor are we oppressed by a totalitarian regime, dominated by a big brother mentality that squashes individuals and demands conformity in every aspect.

Our society is dysfunctional, it is deeply flawed in some areas, but not to the point that our every day is clouded by the menace of oppression and disaster. If Utopia is one of the spectrum, that is truly unattainable, then any Dystopia is by default its antithesis at the other end of the spectrum. As a society we sit somewhere in the middle.

[Omaha 680]

So I don't see any way AR-15s aren't banned again. How were existing owners handled under the previous ban? I just got mine about 3 months before the CT shooting. I was hoping to get a couple more 30 round magazines but that isn't looking likely.

[pellegrino]

So I don't see any way AR-15s aren't banned again. How were existing owners handled under the previous ban? I just got mine about 3 months before the CT shooting. I was hoping to get a couple more 30 round magazines but that isn't looking likely.

they were grandfathered in.

I don't think any gun ban will pass the house.

[Omaha 680]

they were grandfathered in.

I don't think any gun ban will pass the house.

So that means to legally possess them you had to report that you already have it and register it in some national database? Omaha doesn't require rifle registration so I'm off the books right now. Well, theoretically. Obviously the dealer has a record of the sale.

[Eddie]

So that means to legally possess them you had to report that you already have it and register it in some national database? Omaha doesn't require rifle registration so I'm off the books right now. Well, theoretically. Obviously the dealer has a record of the sale.

I thought that the assault weapon ban was a ban on the sale of, not a ban on the ownership of.

I think the only weapons you have to have registered are the fully auto ones. (aside from whatever city/state/whatever that has registration laws.)