Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

@TheMagpulPone  
OK, let’s talk about handgun bans then!

@TheMagpulPone  
@TheMagpulPone  
@TheMagpulPone
 
Mmm … Those are DELICIOUS cherries, aren’t they?
 

 
When did “firearm” get redefined to “only long rifles”?

@Ciaran  
Because long rifles are the only ones politicians seem to want to take from people despite them being used more frequently by law abiding citizens for home defense than by criminals by a wide margin.

@TheMagpulPone
 
There’s a saying we have in stats, “a matter of degrees”. We use this phrase when we talk about the public’s reaction to stats.
 
The “degree” between someone being mauled to death by a shark or a bear and someone being killed by a mosquito is massive. Nevertheless, you see states bend over backwards to build “bear and wolf” cages for bus stops.
 
Same thing here. The “matter of the degree” is a mass shooting vs a random crime. One is far more common, but the saliancy of the other is absolute.

@Zincy  
That doesn’t mean you trample all over the rights of the law abiding whom make up the mass majority in a vain attempt at stopping the tiny percentage of people that have used a particular weapon for evil.

@TheMagpulPone  
I disagree with your assessment of the situation.
 
I think politicians and a large percentage of the US population want to take weapons defined as “assault rifles” as defined originally in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 away from people because they get used a lot in mass shootings.
 
No one want to take your hunting rifle. Stop pretending anyone other than nutjobs want to take your hunting rifle.

@TheMagpulPone
 
Doesn’t it though?
 
That is the very nature of government. Your rights end where the politicians feelings begin. You put them there, after all.
 
Republican, democrat, they both strip away the rights of people. Both are happy to, so long as it is the “right people”. What the sacred cow of the month happens to be varies, but it is always there.
 
Some abridgment is needed, the Constitution is a living document and the necessities of governance require it to be more flexible than the average citizen fully realizes. Every small detail, the placement of each word, can change what the meaning of any given line is. It is impossible to be a “literalist” with it, because there is no literal meaning to it.
 
Each generation decides how much give and take it is willing to yield. But, there is always give, that is the reality.
 
What the masses choose to give, and what the politicians decide to take, may not always line up. But, that is power dynamics in a nutshell.

@Ciaran  
I don’t even own a hunting rifle. And the 1994 assault weapons ban had 0 impact on crime as determined by FBI and RAND. Which is why it was allowed to expire in the first place.

@TheMagpulPone  
We’ve talked about this before - you are misquoting and misrepresenting those studies. I understand that your bias forbids you to consider other interpretations, but you should at least stop stating that as if it was a fact.

@Ciaran
 
Laymen rarely interpret studies the way they are meant to be.

So, no-one wants to talk about handgun bans?

@Latecomer  
Nope. Look at the Fort Hood shooting. 14 people killed and all he had was a Five-seveN and 357 pistol. But it’s not a scary looking rifle.

@Latecomer  
Nope. No one calls for them despite their being the most likely firearm to be used in a crime.

@TheMagpulPone  
And would you like handgun bans any better?

@Latecomer  
No.

@TheMagpulPone  
Every gun has the potential to do damage but some are significantly better at doing so than others.
 
There’s no such thing as a “harmless gun” but there are some that shouldn’t be casually available for any random Joe or Jane to purchase or openly carry.
 
An assault rifle would’ve made that body count of 14 go up to at least twice the amount.

@TheMagpulPone  
Violet Rose gave a different statistic also apparently from the FBI.

@TheMagpulPone  
Well then, what does it matter to you what kind of gun people complain about?

@CaptainXtra  
Not exactly true. Take Parkland for example. Only two more people were killed and he was using an S&W AR-15.

@Latecomer  
Because the logic of it is always the same. Let’s punish the law abiding masses for the crimes of the few. They want to talk about forcefully taking away citizens guns, I have a better idea. If you’re going to go door to door anyway, how about you target every single felon/criminal and take their illegally possessed guns by force. Criminals are disarmed, illegal guns are off the street, law abiding citizens are left alone and happy, and you have way less houses to barge into.

@TheMagpulPone  
Erm, I’m pretty sure illegal guns are confiscated wherever possible as it is. Like any illegal items. But it isn’t a solution as long as they can always be re-obtained from the legal pool - or indeed, as long as criminals can just own guns legally.

My problem is that I’ve met many gun owners that seem to have lost respect for the fact that the weapon they carry is just that, a weapon. Not a toy, nor a status symbol, a weapon. An item crafted from the ground up to rend flesh, spill blood, and take life.
 
That scares me more than anything. I have no problem with people owning guns, any guns really. I have no problem with protecting ones self.
 
I do, however, have a problem with fetishizing weapons. I have a problem with a culture obsessed with instruments of death. Modern day “Spartans” who forget that the cornerstone of any warrior code is supreme discipline.
 
When you have a culture like that, you have incidents such as an asshole shooting kids for loud music, someone getting into a fight they started then pulling a gun and shooting the other guy, people who believe that political discourse should be done at the barrel rather than the ballot.
 
We don’t have a gun problem, we have a culture problem. And that is a much harder wound to heal.

@Zincy  
Now this is very true. There’s a certain respect one must always display when operating or even just carrying a firearm on their person. This is something more people need to develop.

@Latecomer  
You’d be surprised how many criminals illegally possess weapons that need to be confiscated. They don’t have them legally and they don’t obtain them legally. These laws need to be better enforced and more severe punishment needs to be implemented on criminals caught in violation.

@TheMagpulPone  
Well yes - but that’s what I’m saying, that illegal guns are already confiscated and it isn’t fixing anything.