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Iran...I Walked...I Jihad
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Not that I can see that this is remotely philisophical...But the whole idea of gun responsibility is a massive red herring. I am fully trained and cleared to operate army-grade weaponry (though point of trivia, due to an outstanding medical declaration from the Royal Army Medical Corps, I cannot fire them unsupervised...) but I don't think that kind of thing makes any difference to the situation at all.
First of all, you cannot compare guns and cars. Like them or not, modern society would cease to function without cars. Guns are a luxury item. Luxuries are far more prone to be legislated out if they are causing trouble.
Secondly, it does not matter how much the problem is lack of good gun education. The fact is simply that the high supply of guns in the US is a drect contributing factor to its enormous gun death rate. Decades of trying to educate people has had no discernible effect. People are dying, and in the US, the rate at which they are dying is ridiculous compared to the rest of the world. There is no damn time to try and get education working. Legislation to stop this death rate is the only sane solution at this point- and I am sorry for those who want to own guns, but like I say, people are dying and it is not worth it. And yess, 99% of those affected by such legislation would not be remotely criminal people but it if improves the gun death situation- and it will- that is a necessary sacrifice.
Thirdly, blaming it all on cultural problems with youth in certain cities is a distraction. The US gun death rate problem is spread all over US society. That the gun death rate amongst the criminal elemet is very high is not remarkable, because it is also very high everywhere ELSE. Obviously, that is just more discernable in criminal observation.
When i used guns and cars as a comparison i was using them as an example of how easy it is for a child to obtain possession of a lethal object. Don't down play the fact that more un-licensed, underage kids die from "joy riding" each year than little children shooting themselves.
As for "proper gun education" well I don't recall the US requiring more than your legal age consent and a 2 week waiting period. There are no classes or courses required to own a gun in the US.
In which case. These "vast" numbers of deaths caused by gun violence in the US are not a result of children finding their daddy's gun under his bed. Those cases are few and far between. Gun violence in the US stems from uneducated, socially outcast, misunderstood teens that chose the road of a criminal instead of a "normal" member of society.
The city with the most gun deaths in the United States, probably, also has the most gun related Police fatalities. In which case, I'm almost willing to guarantee that the majority of gun related fatalities in the United States are from unregistered guns.
Our gun control problem doesn't start in the home....it starts on the streets. Guns are just as easy to get as cocaine, speed, or E if you know who to talk to. And those are unregistered weapons that the cops are incapable of keeping under control.
If someone wants a gun...making it illegal isn't going to change a damn thing.
Often times its much easier for inner city youths to obtain a firearm through a friend of a friend than it is to sneak into daddy's room, find the key to his gun case, and then take it out of there. ANY responsible father would put belt to ass on a kid for fiddling with a gun without permission or supervision. Sorry if you're against physical punishment...but a quick foot to the ass often works better than "go to your room."