Please be respectful of others' privacy, and avoid sharing personal information or sensitive content without their permission. If you are unsure if something is appropriate to share, ask for permission (use the 'Privately email' option when replying to their post) or avoid sharing it altogether.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 10
Says JD Vance about school shootings like the one in Georgia.
Despicable.
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Mr. Vance said, adding that he believed gun restrictions were not the way to effectively prevent school shootings. “We have got to bolster security in our schools.”
Bullshit!
Better gun laws ARE the answer as is plainly apparent in other modern democracies.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Mr. Trump has in the past encouraged the public to move on from mass shootings. After a shooting in a high school in Perry, Iowa, resulted in three deaths in January, Mr. Trump told an audience of supporters they have to “move forward.”
“It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here,” he said. “But have to get over it — we have to move forward.”
GOP is still running scared from the gun lobby.
No. of Recommendations: 4
“I don’t like that this is a fact of life,” Mr. Vance said, adding that he believed gun restrictions were not the way to effectively prevent school shootings. “We have got to bolster security in our schools.”
Bullshit!
Better gun laws ARE the answer as is plainly apparent in other modern democracies.
Indeed. I was in Japan and got curious about exactly what happened in Japan and how far the murder rate had dropped. I found that after WW2
SNIP Japan murder/homicide rate for 2021 was 0.23, a 9.93% decline from 2020. Japan murder/homicide rate for 2020 was 0.25, a 0.12% increase from 2019. Japan murder/homicide rate for 2019 was 0.25, a 4.12% decline from 2018. SNIP
Here's USA:
SNIP
U.S. Murder/Homicide Rate - Historical Data
Year Per 100K Population Annual % Change
2020 6.42 28.78%
2019 4.99 1.14%
2018 4.93 -5.99% SNIP
When I did it the USA was at ~4.5% and Japan was .2%. But guess what, after WW2 Japan was at 4.5% and it steadily declined. In fact the decline followed the die off of the WW2 generations.
Much reading later I deduced that successive generations had rejected the emperor and their bloody past and were non-violent. Nearly all of the murders after WW2 were done by the WW2 adults as the murder rate declined. And I found nothing that supported this view until years later. Someone had published a paper with stats and charts that supported this. But the Japanese do NOT talk about this.
We need better more cooperative citizens willing to compromise. Instead of being horrified by the carnage, we've come to accept it.
No. of Recommendations: 6
There is some creative thinking going on here.
First, in Michigan, a school shooter’s parents were sentenced to at least 10 years in jail.
In Georgia, of all places, school shooter parents are charged with murder among other charges.
Obviously, this will catch the attention of the crazy folks who value their guns more than they value a child’s life. They don’t care about school children being murdered in cold blood, but they may care about cooling their heels for a decade or more in a prison cell.
Gosh, it’s just so inconvenient to take 2 minutes to lock up a gun.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Gosh, it’s just so inconvenient to take 2 minutes to lock up a gun.
They get hit with a lot of fear mongering - "When seconds count!", and then there's cinema, series, etc. So rather than pay attention to the stats that show if you own a gun someone living in your house is likely to get shot with it, it gets ignored in all the emotion.
So lock up the gun and hope that when you're suicidal or want to kill your wife, that the few seconds extra it takes to get the gun is enough to bring you to your senses. Incidentally, the Euros consider that in murder suicide of a family, the family is killed as "extended self". Do us a favor and just kill yourself. If the Japanese can do it, so can you.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Bullshit! Better gun laws ARE the answer as is plainly apparent in other modern democracies.Yes! It is also plainly apparent here in our own Democracy. Fact: Red States Have Higher Gun Death Rates Than Blue States.
Murder rates in red states are 33% higher than in blue states.
Contributing factors:
Higher gun ownership rates in red states.
Less restrictive gun laws: Red states often have more permissive gun laws, making it easier to acquire and carry firearms.
Blue states are more likely to have bans or restrictions on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. Red states generally do not have such restrictions.
Higher poverty rates in red states, Lower educational attainment in red states.
Underinvestment in social services and policing: Despite rhetoric about being "tough on crime," red states often spend less per capita on both
social services and law enforcement compared to blue states.
And...
Red States Have Higher Gun Death Rates Than Blue States.
"The Data found that between 2000 and 2020, Trump-voting states had 12% higher murder rates than did Biden-voting cities."
"New York saw significant drops in homicides between 2021 and 2022, while Florida saw significant increases."
"Mississippi had a firearm mortality rate of 33.9, making it the state with the highest rate. The state also used its electoral votes to vote for then President Trump in the 2020 election."
"Louisiana had a firearm mortality rate of 29.1 and voted for Trump."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ariannajohnson/2023/0...
No. of Recommendations: 2
Gosh, it’s just so inconvenient to take 2 minutes to lock up a gun.
If you're claiming you want the firearm for "self defense", then it really is. If someone surprises you at home, you can't just say "wait a sec while I get my gun from its safe". 1poormom kept her .22 wrapped in a gun cloth in her night stand. I knew enough not to mess with it (firearm safety was drilled into my skull from an early age). No safe, no lock. For her purpose -self defense- that was the best place to put it. We were not rich, so our homes were not big. An intruder would need maybe 30 seconds to do a check to see if anyone was home, so mom would have had 30 seconds to get the gun.
That is the argument against locking the defense weapon, and it's valid. If you have to lock the weapon (which you should do with kids around), it severely limits its effectiveness for home defense. You may as well not have it.
Of course, this ignores that most burglars are not armed (they don't want a confrontation), and target empty homes (e.g. people at work). Even adding a chihuahua to the equation will dissuade most because they don't want a confrontation, and they do want to get in and out quietly. So a firearm is more likely to be stolen when no one is there, rather than used on an intruder.**
I conclude that rather than have a gun safe or lock, just don't have the gun at all. If you're safe and responsible, the gun is almost useless. If you're not, you're just asking for trouble.
Hunting weapons are different, and should be kept unloaded in a locked gun safe. There is no excuse not to. But then hunting weapons don't need large magazines nor high cyclic rates.
**Last time I visited the data, it was 22x more likely to be used against a member of the household than an intruder, including suicides.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Gosh, it’s just so inconvenient to take 2 minutes to lock up a gun.
If you're claiming you want the firearm for "self defense", then it really is. If someone surprises you at home, you can't just say "wait a sec while I get my gun from its safe". 1poormom kept her .22 wrapped in a gun cloth in her night stand. I knew enough not to mess with it (firearm safety was drilled into my skull from an early age). No safe, no lock. For her purpose -self defense- that was the best place to put it. We were not rich, so our homes were not big. An intruder would need maybe 30 seconds to do a check to see if anyone was home, so mom would have had 30 seconds to get the gun.
That is the argument against locking the defense weapon, and it's valid. If you have to lock the weapon (which you should do with kids around), it severely limits its effectiveness for home defense. You may as well not have it.
Wow! I disagree. Your stats sound right. They have biometric safes now, that open easily on a fingerprint or a 4 to 6 digit number. I know where you are coming from. I tried a biometric gun safe once, and it was 2-3 seconds to open - even in inputting numbers. I didn't buy - no gun. But I do expect to buy one and get my wife trained too, if she's willing.
You know where most stolen guns come from? Cars. People leave them in cars and some gangs specialize in raiding parking lots at times. So I advocate safes in cars -with easy access. Your center console can hold a locked pistol. I think quick and easy access can be accomplished.
My father never owned a gun safe, nor my brother, nor me. I sold my last gun in my 20s. I practiced not living in dangerous areas and not going to dangerous areas at the wrong times. We are such a crazy nation that some expats in the PI carried concealed weapons when they couldn't even own one. Claiming it's your wife's doesn't work with them.
The problem with gun safes is if you have multiple weapons you need an 800 pound guns safe or have it bolted to the floor to be affective.
It isn't a popular idea, but it's worth a shot or two. :)
