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posted by on Monday January 09 2017, @08:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the second-amendment dept.

The love of guns in the United States has been well documented, as have multiple mass shootings across the country such as those in Orlando, San Bernardino, Newtown, and Virginia. The ease of access to guns in American society comes at a shocking cost.

As of September 2016, almost 11,000 people have been killed as a result of gun violence. Despite this high death toll, mass shootings in America show no sign of disappearing.

The Stateside obsession with guns can appear baffling to UK observers unfamiliar with its origins. So just how did this gun culture become so deep-rooted in the American psyche?

BBC source: Why Are Americans so Obsessed with Guns?

Wikipedia: Gun politics in the United States


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @05:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @05:48PM (#452145)

    Just point it out so this [shooting firearms while imbibing alcohol] isn't normalized on here

    A noble enough goal in and of itself...

    this guy is exactly the kind of person who can't be trusted with firearms

    ... and yet here you fall flat on your ideological face. As stupid as TMB's claimed behavior seems to be, who was harmed? Who was even aware that there was a potential for harm in said situation until TMB himself posted about it after the fact? No one. And no one is exactly the same person who has any moral or legal authority to do anything about TMB's irresponsible use of booze and guns until someone else (or someone else's property) has been harmed or reasonably threatened to be harmed.

    By stating TMB is the kind of person who "can't be trusted with firearms", you are implicitly demanding TMB be forcibly disarmed since I presume TMB won't divest himself of arms voluntarily; if you were to follow through on that demand, you would be facing people like me: in general agreement with your evaluation of TMB's behavior, but armed and willing to kill you for trying to disarm TMB. If you want to get all "prior restraint", I propose we follow your plan to go big-E Evil and lock everyone up gagged in a gibbet where they can't do anything - starting with you.

  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:52PM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 10 2017, @06:52PM (#452176) Journal

    Okay, let's try an analogy. A car analogy, since I'm told these were popular 'round these parts:

    Suppose you have a guy who drives drunk a lot. Now he's driving really late at night, say 2 AM, and there aren't too many people on that road at that time. Not even cops, usually. Is his driving drunk still morally permissible? Why, or why not? What sanctions should there be for this?

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @07:58PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @07:58PM (#452209)

      Okay, let's try an analogy. [...] Suppose you have a [person] who [does something stupid] a lot.

      Let's analyze your analogy. There are multiple levels of sanctions, primarily split between public (law) and private (freedom of dis/association). What sanctions should there be for:

      - botching a service repair (i.e. loss of data)
      - failing to fulfill a promise
      - taking a personal risk which has resulted in at least one previous death of the risk-taker
      - horrible body odor, failure to floss teeth, and/or lack of clean underpants

      What levels of sanctions, if any, (for BOTH public and private sanctions) should there be for the above? We can't get to matters done in public until private matters are discussed.