Trump supports efforts to improve gun background checks

[Jazman]

A lot of Americans feel like unless they support the NRA, they will eventually lose their gun rights like what happened in the UK and in Australia. This is not an unfounded fear.

Do you know Brits and Aussies who are bothered by their restrictions and that they can't have as many guns, as freely? I'm pretty sure, unless you can provide credible evidence to the contrary, that there are many gun owners in both the UK and Australia and that they can hunt and sport shoot just like we can. So I'll take their freedom from mass shootings, lower gun death rate, lower gun suicide rate any day over your so called "freedoms".

[Jazman]

the political hysteria i see over the Parkland, FL shootings reminds only too well of the political antics following the Dylann Roof tragedy. i’m not amused.

Wow... isn't this just a bit insensitive?

[Josh]

A lot of Americans feel like unless they support the NRA, they will eventually lose their gun rights like what happened in the UK and in Australia. This is not an unfounded fear.

Do you know Brits and Aussies who are bothered by their restrictions and that they can't have as many guns, as freely? I'm pretty sure, unless you can provide credible evidence to the contrary, that there are many gun owners in both the UK and Australia and that they can hunt and sport shoot just like we can. So I'll take their freedom from mass shootings, lower gun death rate, lower gun suicide rate any day over your so called "freedoms".

Yes, I do, and no, there is much less freedom for hunting and sport. Their murder rate is also climbing and now cities have no-go areas since the only people who have guns anymore are criminals.

FYI: I’m Australian, an Australian citizen, and an Australian resident. Use the term “your so called ‘freedoms’” more carefully next time.

[Bootstrap]

The world has no other solution for violence than more violence. And so, I expect that eventually school security will become something similar to airport security.

Is that what freedom looks like? If we keep deciding that gun rights are unlimited and cannot be restricted, that impinges on lots of other freedoms. The Constitution is not the bottleneck here, politics is, but there are some measures that even most NRA members say they support.

[Bootstrap]

the political hysteria i see over the Parkland, FL shootings reminds only too well of the political antics following the Dylann Roof tragedy. i’m not amused.

Wow... isn't this just a bit insensitive?

Can't imagine why people would get emotional when people are being slaughtered. Of course, getting emotional whenever anyone suggests gun rights are not the only rights that matter makes perfect sense.

Seriously, I assume we all agree this is a real problem. And I certainly hope people who get emotional about this issue will allow people on the other side of the issue to have emotions too.

[Bootstrap]

Private ownership of guns is part of the American constitution. This will not likely change, no matter who is in power. And as long as there are guns, there will be murders with guns, including mass murders and school shootings. Because people have evil hearts. Even expanded databases for background checks, and many other solutions being offered, will not eliminate the problem.

Sure, we can't eliminate the problem, but we can do things to improve what we have. That's more limited by politics than by the Constitution, Scalia's Heller opinion contains a substantial list of things we could do that might well reduce gun violence.

If we can make it significantly harder for felons and mentally ill people to get assault rifles, I think we should try.

[Josh]

the political hysteria i see over the Parkland, FL shootings reminds only too well of the political antics following the Dylann Roof tragedy. i’m not amused.

Wow... isn't this just a bit insensitive?

Can't imagine why people would get emotional when people are being slaughtered. Of course, getting emotional whenever anyone suggests gun rights are not the only rights that matter makes perfect sense.

Seriously, I assume we all agree this is a real problem. And I certainly hope people who get emotional about this issue will allow people on the other side of the issue to have emotions too.

There are more deaths from toaster mishaps than school shootings, but that doesn’t mean emotional reactions calling for the government to ban or restrict toasters are a good idea.

[temporal1]

the political hysteria i see over the Parkland, FL shootings reminds only too well of the political antics following the Dylann Roof tragedy. i’m not amused.

not about emotions.
about focused political exploitation of emotions. not just wrong. intentionally destructive.

[temporal1]

Private ownership of guns is part of the American constitution. This will not likely change, no matter who is in power. And as long as there are guns, there will be murders with guns, including mass murders and school shootings. Because people have evil hearts. Even expanded databases for background checks, and many other solutions being offered, will not eliminate the problem.

Sure, we can't eliminate the problem, but we can do things to improve what we have. That's more limited by politics than by the Constitution, Scalia's Heller opinion contains a substantial list of things we could do that might well reduce gun violence.

If we can make it significantly harder for felons and mentally ill people to get assault rifles, I think we should try.

laws are for the law-abiding. proven beyond question.
the lawless, the criminally insane, do not give one whit about any law. proven beyond question.

the problems will not be resolved with more fancy paperwork.

a separate point:
crying out about “they’re killing our babies,” while passionately pushing for-profit-corporate-abortion, does not ring true. (institutionalized killing of preborns is thousands of times greater than deaths caused by firearms.) but, as Josh compared with toasters, there are loads of causes of injury-death greater than firearms.

emotions cloud reason.
on this matter, emotions are deliberately clouded for political haggling. money+power.

[Bootstrap]

There are more deaths from toaster mishaps than school shootings, but that doesn’t mean emotional reactions calling for the government to ban or restrict toasters are a good idea.

From what I can tell, about 300 people are killed by toasters in the USA in a given year, and about 33,000 are killed by guns.

Of course, most of these deaths do not occur in schools - that's true for both toasters and guns. I have not been able to find accurate statistics on mass toaster fatalities in schools. Regardless, nobody gets upset when we try to do something about toaster accidents.