• bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    You’re not making a very good case. Historically speaking, American gun laws have universally been about disarmament as opposed to harm reduction.

    If, for example, the awb had included free publicly accessible classes on gun safety and massive funding for mental health services then you’d be able to make the connection between gun control laws and an effort to lower child mortality.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      R always deflect to mental health. But Reagan dismantled our mental health infrastructure, and R consistently votes against spending in that area. (Probably because they won’t ever seem to vote for anything that helps people, only for taking things from people.)

      So R needs to support gun control, OR support funding mental health services, OR come clean and admit that school shootings are a price they are willing to pay as long as they get to keep their weapons and do as they will with them.

      (They did like the mulford act, but we all know what that was really about. The one thing more important that guns to that crowd.)

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        It’s always one political party’s fault, never the clear result of what a system of government was designed to do.

        The nfa was bipartisan, gca was bipartisan, fopa was bipartisan, the Brady bill was bipartisan.

        The majority of child gun deaths are accidental or suicide.

        If the point was ever to reduce child deaths from firearms then the gun control legislation would have mental health funding and safety education funding attached.

        At some point you gotta look at two hundred years of extremely well documented history and recognize this system is working as intended.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          If the point was ever to reduce child deaths from firearms then the gun control legislation would have mental health funding and safety education funding attached.

          First, I don’t how that could be your response to my comment about the current state of mental health. So R is magically going to vote for two things they never (in recent history - say since school shootings became the big issue they are now - or even say since death by gun became the top cause of childhood death) vote for as long as we put those things together?

          It seems kind of ridiculous to argue here over the content of the regulations when there is literally no possibility that half of our legislature will vote for it anyhow.

          At some point you gotta look at two hundred years of extremely well documented history and recognize this system is working as intended.

          Hmm. Yep, everything stemming from our system of government is just peachy. We don’t still have problems rippling through our culture due to slavery and civil rights issues, one political party that has sold their soul to Trump and his cronies (oh and let’s not forget how they’ve welcomed the white supremacists into their midst) and is just itching for an excuse to go full secession, unsustainable wealth inequality, a large percentage of families living paycheck to paycheck, a healthcare system that routinely makes people choose between paying for food and shelter or healthcare and medicine and etc etc etc.

          Clearly with two hundred years of extremely well documented history of all these problems and our ineptitude and lack of will to solve many of them, we should conclude that the system is working as intended.

          • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            I don’t think you’re giving our congresspeople enough credit. Neither half of our legislature would vote a bill containing gun safety education and mental health services into law. Their aim with gun control laws is not to prevent child death from firearms.

            I disagree that it’s just peachy that we live in the prototype fascist state, still going strong, but the rest of what you said is true.

            • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              I certainly didn’t think I’d ever be Daffy Duck in the “wabbit season/duck season” gag, but here we are. While I (now) understand the point you are trying to make, I do not agree that this is the future envisioned by those who created our nation and system of government, and thus I must disagree that this is functioning as intended.

              • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                8 months ago

                Which version of that bit are you referencing? I know of three and they all end differently…

                You’re right though, the framers of our constitution would be appalled that women, the unlanded and blacks were extended the franchise.

                  • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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                    8 months ago

                    On the contrary! The one which shines brightest in my memory winds up with “Elmer season”!

                    Be vewwy vewwy quiet, weow hunting ewected officiaws.

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        I see mass shootings and individual murder the price we pay to prevent the government from massacring civilians like they did in Myanmar recently.

        If we really want a gun-free society we need to make sure the government doesn’t have guns. Given that’s impossible, the next best thing is letting citizens have guns.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          I hope you at least vote for candidates who support mental health initiatives. (Though that would rule out Republicans.)

          But anyway hey, at least you are honest. (Kinda. Aside from assuming I’m pushing for gun-free just because I wish republicans would even talk about gun control.)

          I see mass shootings and individual murder the price we pay

          It’s the price the victims pay. You see that price, that those dead people have paid, as something that you are willing for them to pay. Let’s not mince words. It’s your value judgement that it’s worth it for them to have died. I wonder if they and their families felt it was.

    • Gabu@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Are you aware of this little place called “The entirety of Earth except 'murica” ? Gun control seems to work pretty well, there.

      • bloodfart@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        What does that have to do with whether Americas gun laws are intended to reduce harm or disarm different segments of the populace?

      • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Well not so much in Myanmar. Or Nanking. Or Germany. Or Gaza.

        But sure. All the places the government isn’t massacring unarmed civilian populations, gun control is working out great.