Pointing to Chicago is such a lame talking point. The difference between success and failure with gun policy approach is national adoption, you can't go district by district, and allow one group free reign and another to not have anything and expect it to work. Chicago wasn't in a plastic bubble, guns were getting in no issue and not hard to get for anybody wanting to get them by stepping out of Chicago but all of the US implements the same policies and it'll take some time but those numbers will go down, we know it works the models are out there. It's worked in Australia, it's worked in the UK, it's worked in Japan, it's worked in Canada.... it's working in multiple countries, it's not working in Tokyo while people in Osaka all have aks...You can't have equal people getting different sets of rules and expect compliance, that isn't how people work. The Chicago experiment was always doomed for failure and despite best intentions all it did was create a talking point for the nra. That doesn't mean the policies in themselves cannot work, just not under those conditions.
It's not lame at all, it shows that it's a culture problem. Yes, Chicago residents can go to nearby areas and load up on guns, but the people living in nearby areas can too and they don't have the homicide problems. You could give all kinds of high powered weapons to the Amish and they wouldn't use it, give muskets, black powder and a lot of lead to prisoners and you'll see multiple shooting deaths. All Swiss males 20-34 are required to have an automatic rifle in their homes, and they don't have the homicide problems America has either.
I'm not arguing that it's not cultural, but you cannot judge the efficiency of a policy if there is that easy a work around of the policy. The policies simply had no teeth. Switzerland is not a gun culture. Australia was a gun culture and nationwide enforcement and it no longer is. America will always love it's guns but that does not mean that policy cannot lead to progress but it has to be implemented properly to do so. America also has a drug culture, there is still enforcement on that level, many countries have limited to no drug policies and they don't have raging prescription drug epidemics, what is the difference? why enforce one vs the other? because they know on some level policy does make a difference. It isn't solving the problem but they know without it, it would be worse
The Swiss have one hell of a gun culture. There will always be a work around as we've seen with drugs or gun laws in places like Mexico, Brazil, or Venezuela. The problem is we can't agree on a policy, let alone if that policy will work. It's obvious if you read this thread that I don't think banning AR-15s will lead to less mass shootings or deaths. What do we do if we implement a gun law, but it makes things worse overall? The drug laws in America do more harm than good, and directly lead to gun violence, and many countries had similar drug problems until the legalized and many of those problems went away or were diminished.
Pointing to Chicago reveals the futility of gun laws. There already is a national policy that you can't take a firearm from 1 jurisdiction into another in which that firearm is illegal. It is a national policy and Chicago reveals how it fails.
Bringing up Australia is just comical. Australia is an island with a mostly homogenous population that is a fraction of that of the United States. The UK is the same and after they banned guns they, like Australia, saw a spike in rapes, burglaries and assaults. In fact, you're more likely to be a victim of a violent crime in the UK than you are in the United States.
This guy wrote a good column on this that provides background on the basics:
Assault rifle: Generally, that term is considered to mean a selective-fire rifle chambered for an intermediate power cartridge. That allows you to switch from single shot to burst or fully automatic fire, using a round smaller than a heavy rifle such as the M-14 but larger than a handgun. The term has sometimes been attributed to Adolph Hitler, who used the German "Sturm<iframe frameborder="0" src="https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-15/html/container.html" id="google_ads_iframe_/36117602/hnp-houstonchronicle.com/Local_6" title="3rd party ad content" name="" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="300" height="250" data-is-safeframe="true" sandbox="allow-forms allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" style="font-family: Georgia; text-align: center; background: transparent; border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;"></iframe>
The AR-15, solely semi-automatic, is not an assault rifle.
Assault rifle: Generally, that term is considered to mean a selective-fire rifle chambered for an intermediate power cartridge. That allows you to switch from single shot to burst or fully automatic fire, using a round smaller than a heavy rifle such as the M-14 but larger than a handgun. The term has sometimes been attributed to Adolph Hitler, who used the German "Sturm<iframe frameborder="0" src="https://tpc.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-15/html/container.html" id="google_ads_iframe_/36117602/hnp-houstonchronicle.com/Local_6" title="3rd party ad content" name="" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" width="300" height="250" data-is-safeframe="true" sandbox="allow-forms allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" style="font-family: Georgia; text-align: center; background: transparent; border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;"></iframe>
The AR-15, solely semi-automatic, is not an assault rifle.
It's not lame at all. It shows gun control isn't the issue here.
The most important question we never answer is "why." Why did this Cruz kid decide to shoot up his former school a few days ago? Talking about gun control is putting a band aid on an issue. We need to get to the root of the issue. In Switzerland, they have lot's of guns. They don't have school shootings. Why not? It's a cultural issue and if we can answer the "why" then we can begin to fix the problems.
You're making a common liberal mistake though. In Australia, they rounded up their guns in a gun confiscation and called it a "buyback" program. There was no buyback about it. It was a confiscation and if you didn't agree, you were jailed.
Can you imagine the police going door-to-door in the U.S. and rounding up privately owned weapons? You'd have civil war. Australia and the U.S. are different. Our origins aren't the same. Our founding isn't the same. You can't compare the two countries.
Nobody is arguing here dickhead. It's a forum and guitarjosh and I are having a good conversation about gun control. Nobody is angry with anyone else.
You always pop in to take your shot and it's old. If you want a forum where everyone agrees all day and doesn't talk, build your own platform. I hate posters like you that don't contribute other than to pop in, act like a douche then leave for two weeks.
the founding fathers made gun rights as strong as they did not for hunting or sport, but the ensure a free society and protect people from tyranny
it's hard to argue against that concept, I see and overburdening government trying to reign in freedoms today, I see people wanting government to redistribute wealth today, I see the potential for increased violence based on all the Trump hatred today, I see idiots calling people like me white supremacists today, so I'm very concerned about the direction of our political decorum
There's a way to change the Constitution, it's called a constitutional amendment, I fully support everyone's right to pursue such
The overwhelmingly vast majority of gun owners behave in a legal and thoughtful manner, punishing them will not prevent crimes
I do support stricter laws, like waiting periods and FBI background checks. I believe people with mental illnesses or issues like this kid had should be put on a restricted list immediately pending further investigation of his (their) case. I believe people who possess guns illegally or who sell guns illegally should be strictly punished
