8 shot dead and several gunshot injuries at Fed-Ex facilities

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Why can you not understand that entire generations grew up with guns in the home? There have been guns in homes (in the states) - and wagons - since Pioneer Days.

Our Dads were veterans (and hunters)? NO one was killing anyone in those days. No kids were shooting up schools. Mass shootings weren't happening regularly.

Today they are. What has changed? There is your problem. Mental illness, most likely - and why? What have we done to the young people? It's not the guns; the guns have always been there.

Entire generations grew up being able to walk off the street and onto a plane too. And we could carry bottles of drink onboard if we felt like it. And boxcutters and knives.
And if you were nice to the crew, they'd even let you go sit in the cockpit during the flight for a while.

No-one was crashing planes into buildings in those days.

So using your argument, we should do away with bomb scanners and metal detectors at airports, disband the TSA, and instead concentrate on mental illness?

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Entire generations grew up being able to walk off the street and onto a plane too. And we could carry bottles of drink onboard if we felt like it. And boxcutters and knives.
And if you were nice to the crew, they'd even let you go sit in the cockpit during the flight for a while.

No-one was crashing planes into buildings in those days.

So using your argument, we should do away with bomb scanners and metal detectors at airports, disband the TSA, and instead concentrate on mental illness?

Yes, you are correct that we had a much more peaceful world and a lot more freedom pre-911. Thanks so much to those who forced us to all be treated like criminals at the airports. (sarcasm).

Same with guns. A few do something wrong, and the micromanagers jump to restrict everyone as if we are all children who can't control ourselves, instead of figure out better ways to identify the evildoers.

We would do no worse. The theater isn't actually doing anything:

"At major airports throughout the United States undercover agents have slipped a shocking number of weapons through security checkpoints during covert exercises conducted randomly since the devastating 2001 terrorist attacks. Reports on the so-called “red team tests,” are kept secret by the government, but a major news agency got wind of some results and they are downright scary.

In secret tests at major airports such as Los Angeles International and Chicago’s O’Hare, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers missed loaded guns, bombs and other types of explosives in dozens of cases. The recent lapses indicate that little has changed since a 2007 government audit revealed that airport security screeners missed hundreds of fake bombs during tests at three major airports. In those runs, TSA agents in Los Angeles, among the world’s busiest airports, missed 75% of the bogus bombs and screeners at O’Hare missed 60%."


Has it improved since that article: No.

"Just before the crucial and hectic Thanksgiving holiday travel period, a government watchdog has found the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) missed roughly three out of every four knives, guns, weapons, and mock explosives screened through its airport checkpoints."

 

[Whyayeman]

There is NO "doing it easily".

This flies in the face of the evidence of the last few weeks. People who really should not be allowed anywhere near a firearm have been running amok. Look at what is happening to your country! Your forefathers (though many Americans' forefathers were not pioneers but European immigrants with no tradition of carrying arms) might have needed weapons but it is the scale nowadays that matters.

There are 434 million guns in civilian hands today (source guns.com). Who knows where they are, how securely they are kept, how easily they can change hands? Is there a register?

 

[MIDutch]

Same with guns. A few do something wrong, and the micromanagers jump to restrict everyone as if we are all children who can't control ourselves, instead of figure out better ways to identify the evildoers.

Bummer that there is no way to actually identify the evildoers until after they've done something like this.

Innocent families burying their dead is the price of "freedom", I guess.

 

[MIDutch]

This flies in the face of the evidence of the last few weeks. People who really should not be allowed anywhere near a firearm have been running amok. Look at what is happening to your country! Your forefathers (though many Americans' forefathers were not pioneers but European immigrants with no tradition of carrying arms) might have needed weapons but it is the scale nowadays that matters.

There are 434 million guns in civilian hands today (source guns.com). Who knows where they are, how securely they are kept, how easily they can change hands? Is there a register?

And that 434 million guns are owned by only 32% of the US public.

What Percentage of Americans Own Guns?

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

This flies in the face of the evidence of the last few weeks. People who really should not be allowed anywhere near a firearm have been running amok. Look at what is happening to your country! Your forefathers (though many Americans' forefathers were not pioneers but European immigrants with no tradition of carrying arms) might have needed weapons but it is the scale nowadays that matters.

There are 434 million guns in civilian hands today (source guns.com). Who knows where they are, how securely they are kept, how easily they can change hands? Is there a register?

That's just not true that they are easily walking into gun shows and buying guns. It's just not happening, and that is the assertion here to which you responded.

Are people out there going crazy? Sure....willing to bet very few of those nut jobs shooting people acquired guns legally on their own (I don't mean the ubiquitous angry young man on depression meds (which are known to cause "feelings of wanting to harm self or others) getting Dad's legal gun). Most of them are acquired on the street and those street guns will not go anywhere when the micromanagers attempt to take guns away or reduce purchases by law abiding citizens.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Bummer that there is no way to actually identify the evildoers until after they've done something like this.

Innocent families burying their dead is the price of "freedom", I guess.

That's how freedom - and crime - works, unless you want to live in the movie "Minority Report" where the pre-crime division is monitoring everyone and determining who MIGHT commit a crime. We don't arrest or punish evildoers until after they have done evil.

Of course, those who know them best could speak up earlier, but I suspect everyone worries about being wrong.

 

[Whyayeman]

America is a long way from imposing any kind of gun control. Actually gun sales hit a record high last year - 21 million weapons sold, a 60% increase on 2019.

There seems to be an insatiable demand. Clearly gun lovers cannot get enough of them. I do not understand any rationale for this spending spree as the 34% of the population who own them all must surely by now be well able to shoot game, practise target shooting or defend themselves and the nation against whatever perils it might face. Maybe buying them is an addiction or something akin to that.

That there is such an obsession amongst millions of Americans should worry the other 66%. Evidently it does not.

 

[MIDutch]

That's how freedom - and crime - works, unless you want to live in the movie "Minority Report" where the pre-crime division is monitoring everyone and determining who MIGHT commit a crime. We don't arrest or punish evildoers until after they have done evil.

Or, alternatively, you could live in a country with lots of freedom where one third of the population is NOT armed better than the majority of the world's armies.

 

[MIDutch]

America is a long way from imposing any kind of gun control. Actually gun sales hit a record high last year - 21 million weapons sold, a 60% increase on 2019.

There seems to be an insatiable demand. Clearly gun lovers cannot get enough of them. I do not understand any rationale for this spending spree as the 34% of the population who own them all must surely by now be well able to shoot game, practise target shooting or defend themselves and the nation against whatever perils it might face. Maybe buying them is an addiction or something akin to that.

That there is such an obsession amongst millions of Americans should worry the other 66%. Evidently it does not.

It's the wild wild west mentality where everything was/is decided with a gun battle in the middle of main street.

As my father-in-law said to me "you're not a real man until you know how to shoot a gun."

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

America is a long way from imposing any kind of gun control. Actually gun sales hit a record high last year - 21 million weapons sold, a 60% increase on 2019.

There seems to be an insatiable demand. Clearly gun lovers cannot get enough of them. I do not understand any rationale for this spending spree as the 34% of the population who own them all must surely by now be well able to shoot game, practise target shooting or defend themselves and the nation against whatever perils it might face. Maybe buying them is an addiction or something akin to that.

That there is such an obsession amongst millions of Americans should worry the other 66%. Evidently it does not.

People collect different things. How is this confusing? Some collect coffee mugs. Some collect swords. Some collect guns. (And/or millions of other things). Not my bag, but I really don't care what law abiding people do.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

Or, alternatively, you could live in a country with lots of freedom where one third of the population is NOT armed better than the majority of the world's armies.

Except that this country, through hard and learned experience, decided that the people must be able to protect themselves against an overreaching government and included that concept in the Constitution. For good reason.

Virtually every society that turned to a dictatorship disarmed its citizens first. 20 million were killed in Russia, 20 million in China, 6 million in Germany before and during the War. And that's just last century.

 

[Whyayeman]

... this country, through hard and learned experience, decided that the people must be able to protect themselves against an overreaching government and included that concept in the Constitution.

That experience was the Revolution against Britain. 250 years ago there was a reason for raising armed militias. There is none now.

As for this business of the over-reaching government needing to be constrained by its people, it is just daft now. It is nothing now but a pleasing fiction, a deadly fantasy. It is not the government that is the problem but the gunmen.

 

[Whyayeman]

I have taken a look at the wording of the Second Amendment. Here it is:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

That is it - in full. No mention in it that 'people must be able to protect themselves against an overreaching government'. Somehow that idea has crept in but there is nothing in the Second Amendment about it. I am led to think that the American people do not know their Constitution and are being led by the nose by the NRA and its supporters.

 

[GreatLakes4Ever]

Except that this country, through hard and learned experience, decided that the people must be able to protect themselves against an overreaching government and included that concept in the Constitution. For good reason.

Virtually every society that turned to a dictatorship disarmed its citizens first. 20 million were killed in Russia, 20 million in China, 6 million in Germany before and during the War. And that's just last century.

I don’t care what your arsenal is, if you try going toe to toe with the US Military you might leave a scratch but your family will be picking up what’s left of you with a sponge. The idea that you can fight the government with your guns is a stupid fantasy at best and suicidal at worst.

 

[MIDutch]

Virtually every society that turned to a dictatorship disarmed its citizens first. 20 million were killed in Russia, 20 million in China, 6 million in Germany before and during the War. And that's just last century.

Really.

Could you provide some citations as to how many firearms the Russian, Chinese and German civilian population had before they were taken over by the dictatorships?

This is a common "explanation" offered by gun-rights advocates, but the actual evidence is surprisingly (not really) always lacking.

 

[Whyayeman]

Virtually every society that turned to a dictatorship disarmed its citizens first.

This is just not so. The examples of Russia, Germany and China do not support the contention. These populations had very little in the way of weapons.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

That experience was the Revolution against Britain. 250 years ago there was a reason for raising armed militias. There is none now.

As for this business of the over-reaching government needing to be constrained by its people, it is just daft now. It is nothing now but a pleasing fiction, a deadly fantasy. It is not the government that is the problem but the gunmen.

Well, you got one thing right. It is the gunmen...not the existence of guns, which have always been in this country since its inception.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

This is just not so. The examples of Russia, Germany and China do not support the contention. These populations had very little in the way of weapons.

Incorrect. They had enough to make them targets to be disarmed.

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Except that this country, through hard and learned experience, decided that the people must be able to protect themselves against an overreaching government and included that concept in the Constitution. For good reason.

So if a section of the community were to decide that they were being unfairly targeted by, say, the police and the justice system, and in some cases killed, you would support them taking up arms against those same agents of the government?