Discussion Conflicted On Gun Laws

[nattys5thtoenail]

Im starting to believe that restricting gun access is comparable to abstinence, most school shootings happen because the shooter was being bullied in school or had issues at home and I'm starting to wonder if the issue lies within poor mental health systems rather than guns being easily accessible?

What do you guys think? This has been on my mind for a while and I'm curious about this site's perspective since a lot of us are mentally ill and stuff

 

[Ironborn]

I don't think the US understands how valuable their gun rights are, no matter how many laws and restrictions are brought in criminals won't care, they're criminals. All it does is reduce the law abiding citizens ability to defend themselves.
I live in the UK, our gun laws are very restrictive, farmers have them for pest control and you have actual shooting clubs but that's about it. Gun crime is still common enough to hear about it regularly but you never really see it in the media.
The disarmament of civilians in the UK has in my opinion been a disaster, criminals, our government and police have no fear of the public.
Knife crime is much more prevalent, people will always find a way to do harm, I've had knives pulled on me many times, I used to keep a wooden baton in my truck as defence and I would normally end up in more trouble than the scum trying to rob me because our police are beyond useless.
I believe in the old saying of "An armed society is a polite society."
I do agree mental health is a serious issue but if someone is determined to do others harm they will find another way.
It also I think it keeps a government in check, the UK is far too close to just being Airstrip One from 1984 at the moment

 

[nattys5thtoenail]

I don't think the US understands how valuable their gun rights are, no matter how many laws and restrictions are brought in criminals won't care, they're criminals. All it does is reduce the law abiding citizens ability to defend themselves.
I live in the UK, our gun laws are very restrictive, farmers have them for pest control and you have actual shooting clubs but that's about it. Gun crime is still common enough to hear about it regularly but you never really see it in the media.
The disarmament of civilians in the UK has in my opinion been a disaster, criminals, our government and police have no fear of the public.
Knife crime is much more prevalent, people will always find a way to do harm, I've had knives pulled on me many times, I used to keep a wooden baton in my truck as defence and I would normally end up in more trouble than the scum trying to rob me because our police are beyond useless.
I believe in the old saying of "An armed society is a polite society."
I do agree mental health is a serious issue but if someone is determined to do others harm they will find another way.
It also I think it keeps a government in check, the UK is far too close to just being Airstrip One from 1984 at the moment

I've also thought about the knife thing a lot, if you restrict guns then potential shooters will find another type of weapon to commit their act.

 

[Aimiya]

I've also thought about the knife thing a lot, if you restrict guns then potential shooters will find another type of weapon to commit their act.

I think that's why they always tend to cite "but the mass school shootings!" or something like that, which is one of the cases where said crime would be way harder without easy access to guns

 

[yabujin]

If I had a gun I'd be already dead






And some others

 

[ham and potatoes]

I'm starting to wonder if the issue lies within poor mental health systems rather than guns being easily accessible

It's deffinetly a mental health thing.
I mean, where I live, most everyone has guns, yet there aren't many shooting.
I look at kinda like having access to a gun is kinda like having access to something like a car.
You could drive a car into a crowd and kill dozens just as you could shoot into a crowd and kill dozens. What, should we ban cars too now because you can hurt others with em?

It also I think it keeps a government in check

Agree. The government will have a much harder time pulling shit that really negatively affects people if all those people are armed.
You think the Germans would have been able to round up and kill millions of jews if those Jews had been well armed? I don't think it would have gone over as smoothly

 

[supremelimbo]

i think its a cultural thing. all lot of americans are gun nuts and gun safety isn't really taught. guns are seen as toys in the USA. Australia had guns legal for a while but banned them after a single shooting. Switzerland and Czech Rep. has guns and no serious shooting problems. Another issue in the US is also the proliferation of the illegal drug trade. A lot of shooting occur because of drug related incidents. I'm personally against drug prohibition (iirc Portugal and Amsterdam have addressed this). USA is just a clusterfuck of poor political decisions that help no one. Adding to this, the NRA is also pretty rich. The way guns aer treated in the USA is just insane lol. I personally think that the citizens should 100% be armed

 

[Ferdinand Bardamu]

It's mental health or Political extremism. Mass shootings are a good example.
Lanza: Average IQ, severely unwell, didn't get treated.
Kinkel: High IQ, unwell, didn't get treated.
Cruz: Low normal, unwell, didn't get treated.
Tarrant: IQ unknown, maybe average, far right extremist.
Crusius: Same as above.
And so it goes. Political extremists, mainly from the Right, make up the majority of Political terrorists. It's less to do with guns. The UK has a massive problem with violent crime, but we've basically made it impossible to get guns. Why? Because of a poor police system that's been destroyed by budget cuts, and a massive influx of low IQ mutts from the Third World. (IQ and Crime are correlated, IIRC)

 

[bleeding_heart_show]

A firearm has no will of its own. Its will is the will of its holder. This is a mental health problem.

That being said, I am not sure any sort of mental healthcare could help someone that gets to the point of wanting to harm others. All the books/documents regarding the topic I have read miss the mark by a mile (at least in my opinion). They tend to focus on early detection and rehabilitation is barely an afterthought.

 

[Privateer2368]

Im starting to believe that restricting gun access is comparable to abstinence, most school shootings happen because the shooter was being bullied in school or had issues at home and I'm starting to wonder if the issue lies within poor mental health systems rather than guns being easily accessible?

What do you guys think? This has been on my mind for a while and I'm curious about this site's perspective since a lot of us are mentally ill and stuff

I think you're probably an American if you actually believe that.

We don't have school shootings because firearms are really hard to get hold of. Everywhere has mental health problems. Only one country has regular school shootings.