Heh heh, I knew I was letting myself in for questions like that by using the word "halt." I'm more than happy to amend it. How does "slow" work for you? I mean, other countries with stricter gun laws have far less gun violence. It can be done here. I don't think American exceptionalism extends so far as to preclude it.

@Flyingsaucesir Over 60% of "gun violence" statistics are from suicides. And most of actual violent crime comes from handguns. Most of what people are saying today would do little to nothing to curb "gun violence", unless you destroy every gun.

@Tejas The largest killer of American children is gun violence. Bigger than RTAs, bigger than disease. bigger than any other cause. To put this into perspective, During the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland. You still had more chance of dying in an RTA than by an act of terror. So your kids are less safe than growing up in NI during the 70s.

@Tejas "Over 60% of "gun violence" statistics are from suicides."I have heard this argument several times before as if this is a get-out clause that absolves having a plethora of guns from any cause-and-effect correlation.
But here is the thing, Does having more guns make people more likely to commit suicide? I mean sure if you really want to take your life, you will find a way to do it but what if it was just a drunken idea? Without a gun, the logistics of suicide are a lot more complicated. Certainly not as easy as "swallow the barrel and pull".
So what do the figures say? The UK has a suicide rate of 6.9 per 100,000. The USA rate is 14.5. Now you could put this down to other factors than the availability of guns. But that might mean that life in the land of the free is twice as unbearable as in the UK.

@Tejas Yes, a large portion of the gun deaths are suicides. @273kelvin adequately addressed that so I won't say more than to point out that the raw number of non-suicide the gun deaths in America is around 15 thousand so far this year. Please don't tell me that's an acceptable number.

@Flyingsaucesir assuming your 15k number is correct, sounds right, how many of those are accidents? How many are justified wether through self defense or police shootings? And how many are criminals ie mass shooters gang members and robbers? Most gun crimes are committed by persons with handguns. But most people say ban rifles or ban all guns. Until some non infringing laws are proposed, you can expect me and people like me to hold on to the bitter end.

@Flyingsaucesir gun laws have mostly until just recently gotten stricter over the years. How come mass shootings and gang warfare wasn't such a big deal 60 years ago? The laws were lax yet no crazy violence.

@Tejas There's a lot to unpack here.

First. About 1,100 of the 15k were accidental shootings. About 800 were police shootings.

60 years ago there was no internet, no social media, no torrent of disinformation and wacko conspiracy theories, no Russian meddling in our elections. The world has changed. Our laws have to change with it, just to keep up.

I think you miss the mark by saying "most people say ban rifles or ban all guns." (I certainly don't say that. I have been a gun owner since way before I could legally buy one.) The legislation I see being called for is a ban on military-style assault rifles, not on handguns, hunting rifles or shotguns. And universal background checks. Close the gun show loophole. Institute red flag laws, so when someone is unstable we can take their guns away. Have safe storage laws. Disallow conversion kits to make semi-autos into machine guns. No bump stocks. No untraceable ghost guns.That's all sensible, straightforward stuff. Not at all an infringement on the 2nd Amendment. It's what the NRA used to advocate, back in the day (when I was a member).

@Tejas Still got the hat

@Flyingsaucesir my point was if handguns are the most used in crimes why ban all these other things you mentioned, it seems redundant to me. Some of those things are illegal and others are pointless. Universal background checks have been a thing for a long time, the only time you don't get a background check is if you are buying privately. Conversion kits are illegal, but I'd challenge you to find many people using an automatic weapon in a crime in America so kinda pointless to waste time on. I can tell your firearm knowledge is limited but at least better than most of these anti 2a people on here.

@Tejas Well the thing is, we do NOT have universal background checks. That's a problem. And if you look at these mass shootings, a handgun is usually only a backup to an AR-15. You know, a highly proficient minuteman could maybe get off 3 shots from his muzzle loader in a minute, two if he aimed carefully. And the muzzle velocity from that smooth bore was only a fraction of that from a modern assault rifle. Yeah, things have changed a lot. And the laws have not kept pace.

@Flyingsaucesir can you name a single store in the us that doesn't require background checks? No, because we have universal background checks. Check the amount of deaths from handguns compared to rifles. People don't own the same weapons as the military the military uses fully automatic capable weapons. You realize more people are killed by knives and bare hands more than rifles right? You muzzle loader point is accurate but it's nonsensical, citizens used muzzle loaders the same as the military.

@Tejas You're overlooking the gun show and private sale loopholes.

The fact that many different methods are employed for killing is both well understood and irrelevant. To stack up bodies with knives or boots takes time, and a lot of isolated incidents (of which there can be many in a country of 350 million people). For those intent on killing a lot of people quickly, the AR-15 is the weapon of choice.

The idea that civilians should have military rifles today because they did 250 years ago...now that's nonsensical.

@Flyingsaucesir I've been to many gun shows most dealers that go to them have an FFL, some gun shows require dealers to have an FFL. It's technically illegal to sell guns with profit in mind. And private sales happen rarely, but if you haven't noticed most 2A supporters don't like to sell their guns they like to buy them. Selling to a person you know isn't allowed to own one is illegal too.

Nothing about 2023 is average. There have already been 479 mass shootings this year. The number of gun deaths is almost 30 thousand. Around half of those were suicides.

What makes you think they aren't doing their jobs?

The way many in the GOP have become wholly sympathetic to Putin means that Russia's psy-op to enlist stooges is very successful. Also, these agencies have almost entirely failed to educate the electorate regarding these operations.

...and holding on to power, by hook or by crook.

@Flyingsaucesir That's part of it, once you've decided you're right and morally superior, pretty much what ideologies do, then anything you do is justified. Sort of the domestic version of Democrat foreign policy ideology.

@Druvius What is Democrat foreign policy ideology? Like, nurturing alliances with other democracies around the world? Engaging in trade abroad? Supporting a rules-based world order? Supporting a European country that has been invaded by a neighbor bent on genocide? All that stuff was very much in the Republican wheelhouse, before the Party became a cult of authoritarian personality.

@Flyingsaucesir We're the noble good guys defending democracy against the bad guys.

@Druvius You mean the USA and the 11 other European countries that are contributing significantly to the defense of Ukraine? Yeah, we are the good guys in this thing. (The USA ranks 12th in terms of percentage of GDP spent helpng to Ukraine, btw.)

@Flyingsaucesir I'm quite familiar with US propaganda thank you. It's a stupid border war/civil war that could easily have been avoided had the US and Ukraine acted in good faith. There's nothing noble about it whatsoever, that the US is bending over backwards to prolong it is an obscenity. That they are portraying it as some sort of struggle against autocracy is the same infantile propaganda the US has been using since 1945 to justify our endless colonial wars, but the lapdog mainstream media and many Americans fall it.

@Druvius We obviously have very different views on the origins and meaning of the Ukraine conflict. Yes, I do see it as a struggle against autocracy. That's the big picture. But on the smaller scale, it's people who were living peacefully in cities and villages being bombed into oblivion. Ukraine did not invade Russia; Russia invaded Ukraine --- an undeniable fact. And one of the two main political parties in America has abandoned it traditional embrace of the rule of law and the Constitution to become a cult of authoritarian personality (one that is aligned with Russia). That's why the CPAC held its annual conference in authoritarian Hungary this year, why the authoritarian leader Victor Orban was a featured speaker. Come on, man! Russia's meddling in our elections to elect the would-be authoritarian strong man Trumpty Dumpty did not take place in a vacuum. There is a larger game afoot. Putin saw a chance to sweep the board, and he went for it. Now he is on his back foot, very much taken aback and surprised by the manifest will and resolve of free people not to be ruled by tyrants.

479 mass shootings so far in 2023