The point I was making is that the guns are not the problem. Taking away guns doesn't mean you get rid of murderers. There are still stabbings, and bombings, and other miscellaneous terrorist acts.

I won't disagree that taking away guns may have some positive effect, but I was pointing out the fallacy of blaming it all on guns. That's a ridiculous idea. The guns don't DO anything on their own.

It's not about whether you're able to obtain a murdering machine or not, it's about how easy it is to obtain. Sure you can go about driving around in a massive truck and trying to run over people, but that's far more difficult than just mowing people down with a rifle. It's evident that there's a pretty big cultural difference between myself and the people arguing against me and it's nearly impossible to change someones beliefs, which besides I'm not trying to do at all. The point I was trying to make is that by making guns easier to obtain for a teenager, you allow things like this to happen on a more regular basis. I'm not saying that it would prevent crime or school shootings, but it would make potential murders think twice about their actions, as it would be way harder to obtain the required means for their crimes. You would create a very large hurdle for these people to get over first, as I belief getting in touch with an arms dealer (if, of course the ban on the possession of arms would be imposed properly - and that's a big if, I'm aware of that, but you invest so much money in your intelligence service etc I don't think it should be that big of an issue, I might be wrong though) isn't that simple, especially, whether you're a sociopath or not.

Apart from that, and I'm aware of the irony in this statement and the amount of shit I might take for it, your notion of freedom (i.e. the possibility to defend yourself with a gun if needed) differs from mine. Is it still freedom if it represses other people? Sure, you're free to own a gun, but because you have a gun, you put a limit on the freedom of other people, in a sense. Because anyone can get a gun, I'd better by a gun myself etc etc. You create a society riddled with paranoia, where literally everyone (I know this isn't 100 procent accurate, but I use this phrasing for the sake of the argument) has the possibility to murder someone in seconds.This to me, doesn't seem like a society where freedom reigns.

I know I'm exaggerating and I probably don't grasp what the loss of the ability to own guns would mean to an American citizen, because I'm not American myself and I have been raised in a country where guns aren't a part of everyday life. The point I was trying to make is that it's not about whether guns are to blame for the shootings, they aren't, a gun is an object, it's a human being that pulls the trigger, but that the availability of guns creates a society in which these things happen way easier.

"Guns aren't the problem, people are the problem" is a statement that is correct. If no-one wanted to murder people, or no-one snapped, etc, guns wouldn't be a problem at all. That's a correct side of the argument.

However, it is a lot easier to limit access to guns, which lowers the opportunities for mass murders, than it is to make humans not be dicks.

I also think that the increased access to guns is an important factor in why there are a lot of police shootings; if everyone can get guns, it means that any criminal has to be suspected to have a gun, which puts the police right on edge and makes them more inclined to shoot first because of the possible risk that the person they're dealing with has a gun. Here in Australia, because not just everyone can get guns, the police don't need to be as wary, so the number of our police shootings per capita is quite a bit lower.

America is never going to get rid of their guns; it's too ingrained into the culture and the gun industry has enough lobbying power to more or less halt any attempts to get gun registration implemented at a federal level. I accept that. But I still think it's worth discussing the fact that the prevalence and availability of guns in America can have a negative impact.

Dicks don't do anything on their own either so your analogy was still entirely wrong.

My analogy wasn't wrong. Someone said "let's get rid of guns". I likened that to saying "let's get rid of dicks". That's why my post said "That's what you're saying"

Thing is a dick is used for other purposes than harming people. A gun is solely designed for murdering. So yes, your analogy is wrong

I disagree. I think having a gun for competition, hunting, or even just because you like target shooting or collecting is a valid reason to have one.

I just also think that there are people who shouldn't have access to guns (one of which includes me), and the fact that in a lot of American states anyone can get a gun without any background checks or whatever just baffles me.

If your analogy was "people spike drinks to rape people so lets restrict the ease of access to drugs that are commonly used in these cases" then yeah that's a fairer analogy and sounds like a much more reasonable idea compared to cutting off people's penises. It's significantly less detrimental to a person to not own a firearm than not own a dick. There are pretty legitimate reasons to use both and restrictions don't necessarily mean an outright ban.

God I hate it when people have garbage opinions and they talk about shit they know nothing about.

Wait I though guns were made to protect us. When the 2nd amendment was adopted was this really what they had envisioned?

Still though, what defines a gun is that it renders a person the ability to shoot (and destroy) things. A gun that doesn't shoot bullets isn't a gun. A gun is a weapon, regardless of the way you choose to use it. When you hunt for sport, you kill animals. When you shoot targets, you destroy targets. When you collect guns, you collect them because their ability to destroy, the power that resonates from the weapon is something that attracts you. That's my point of view on it anyways. (even if you use your gun in a "peaceful" way, i.e. trying to scare a criminal away, the reason why you're effective is still because you're suggesting violence and the possibility to murder, which in my books is equally bad)

Dicks give life, guns take away life.

That's true, but I'm personally not opposed to hunting, albeit if its done in a way that is ecologically sound (again, Australian- we have a massive number of introduced species that can only really be dealt with via hunting). As for destroying things; yeah, that's true. A gun is fundamentally designed to take a small piece of lead and hurl it at something at a very high speed, destroying or killing it. But I think that there definitely are people who can own and use guns responsibly.

It's just that there are lot of people who aren't able to do that, and in America, they can get their hands on guns very easily, which is a recipe for trouble.

As for collecting- I've got a friend who collects historical firearms because he's a massive fan of military history- even does re-enactments of the Boer War and the like. He does hunt, but only in government sponsored culls due to environmental reasons. I mean, he does enjoy it, but his enjoyment isn't such that he will just go out and shoot at random animals for no reason. I think he's the model example of a responsible gun owner, and I don't think he should have his guns taken away, because he uses and appreciates them in ways that are not destructive in a social sense.

This isn't a gun rights discussion, boys. It's about hate crime that was perpetrated.

This is true, but I think most of the people reading this thread will basically go "Holy shit that's terrible, the families of the victims have my thoughts (and or prayers depending on religious affiliation), I hope something like this doesn't happen again".

And when you get to "I hope something like this doesn't happen again" you more or less have to look at the topic of gun control, to ask if it would have limited the ability of the hateful bastard that did this.

I sincerely doubt that Gun Control would be the root cause of this instance.
Considering the sheer number of Americans that own guns but don't commit hate crimes, I think you're fixing the wrong issue.

I agree.

However, I think it's a lot harder to stop people from being hateful or quashing racial ideology than it is to apply mild gun control.

I'm probably fixing the wrong issue (or proposing to fix the wrong issue), but I really don't see how we can stop racism in any way that's as concrete as something as simple as requiring background checks before someone can purchase a gun without getting all totalitarian and shit with limiting freedom of speech and the like.

Stuff like this is certainly not clear cut, and my own biases influence my opinion here. There's a lot of things in America that I admire - the first amendment is one hell of a humdinger, for example - but there is also a lot of stuff that just doesn't make sense to me, like being allowed to buy and use a gun without a license when you need a license to drive.

I have been moving this thread away from the given topic, which is specifically remembering the people that lost their lives due to this hate crime, but I think having discussions like this about it and things that could have allowed to happen are important.

http://puu.sh/iweLL/e6ef0728e9.png

smh

canadians..

You could also branch it into dozens of other socio-political issues, but the main one here is how we in American handle racism in an era that we claim is post-racial.

It's not that hard if you really want it, the problem is only for the normal citizens as they'd get arrested during police control and get 2 years whereas madman obviously doesn't care as he's about to be arrested or suicide anyways.
I have no idea how it is in Belgium, but the only thing between me or any other Varsovian and owning a handgun is 20km, 800 euro, their responsibility and peacefulness. And of course fear of imprisonment I guess.

EDIT: What US really needs and where the problem lies is with some people's mentality, if you look at the motives that don't appear in the other countries I'd say that racial prejudice and other stuff falling in the similar categories could make up for the bigger number of assaults compared to Canada.

The second amendment was more adopted over anything else for the purpose of protecting Americans against tyrannical government. It hadn't been long since British colonies had issued oppressive taxation, so it was natural then for Americans to feel the need to use them to protect against tyrannical government.

Today, the climate around guns has shifted to the sentiment you were talking about, that guns are a fundamental right needed for self-defense. Yes, some people will still refer back to the original constitutional intention, but the consensus among advocates for easier access to guns isn't driven by that as much anymore.

The thing about instances like this is that while they're tragic and horrible, handguns are still responsible for the far majority of homicides with firearms in the U.S. The shooting here was done with a handgun, but most of these mass shootings are carried out with a certain type of more powerful semi-automatic rifle. It leads to advocacy against these types of guns, but preventing mass shootings like this really would only be minimal to reducing the rate of gun violence in the U.S. as a whole. Shootings like these stand out more because they're sudden, they're vicious, and they're callous. What doesn't get as much attention is the fact that if you really wanted to significantly reduce the overall firearm homicide rate, you would need to find a way to stop gangs from getting handguns, because that's where most of it comes from. If you saw news reports every single time there was a shooting in a bad area like Oakland, Detroit, or Miami Gardens, there wouldn't be airtime for anything else. Unfortunately, a huge part of the problem we face in the effort to reduce America's overall crime-rate is that getting handguns out of the hands of people in gang-infested areas, and handguns in general is very difficult to do. Additionally, many people in those areas may want a handgun to protect themselves, and that's quite reasonable in their situation and climate. Until that happens, regardless of how limited semi-automatic rifles with huge clips are limited in access, America will always have a firearm homicide epidemic.

Also to clarify I don't say that gun ownership is good or bad, just don't think this is the core issue.

everytime we have a thread about this hooli always posts the same thing

can't be bothered (don't think anyone on here can) to go through all those pages of statistics, but something seems off about the way you compared the data of England and Wales to the US. Wouldn't it be more productive to compare the murder rate per 100k citizens (cuz it's more about murder in this case than it is about crime in general really) in a major English city like London and the murder rate per 100k citizens in New York or another major city in the USA? This is just a hunch (I won't deny I don't know much about statistics so reject everything I said if you please), but isn't the fact that the US is a relatively less urbanised country than England something that should be taken into account when comparing stats?

Its a cultural problem more than anything tbh, i used to be all for gun control but i live in the ghetto now and these people would be shanking eachother with plastic forks if it came to that

not to say that eliminating guns would not make america safer - definitely would, but i think by and large the violent culture needs to stop being propagated for anything to seriously happen

red you should take advice from yaug on how to bait people on forums because youre fucking horrible at it jesus

Are people seriously thinking "If he didn't have a gun he wouldn't have killed people?"
No, he would have fire-bombed them, he had the intention of doing much more than simply murdering people and would have done whatever he needed to to get to that end. Gun Control would amount to absolutely nothing in the prevention of this incident beyond some mediocre theory-crafting.
This same shit happens after every single shooting and you know what happens? People see it as emotional manipulation, because it is and nothing happens. You can't use this as a springboard to push an agenda. It's a springboard for conversation about race and how ingrained in our culture it truly is.

Nah, he's not baiting - at first he posted something much more stupid iirc, but edited it within 5 minutes as he couldn't remove the post.