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We have got to find a way to bring people together, get everybody together with the same message. Needs to be soon. Cliche' or not it's a matter of life and death. Innocent people are dying every day. While there is probably no way to get us from killing each other, I definitely think we can reduce the collateral damage. The harder people have to work to kill each other, the less people die.

MikeFlora 7 Mar 11
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1

@MikeFlora, after reading all the comments from people coming at you and you single-handedly defending sane gun laws, I am convinced you are a Superhero! Carry on!

wowspring Level 6 Mar 15, 2018
0

"Oh my? Is that hypocrisy I smell?" (just a quote and joke, chill)

Weren't you openly ripping into and demonizing pro-2nd amendment American citizens who own guns a few posts ago?

Yet you now change your tune and say people need to come together.

Calling for division and unity in a short amount of time seems like a conflict of interests.

I'm aware you were likely talking about uniting anti-gun people but still. You should try to unite everyone and work together. Not segregate yourself from others.

Also it's not too hard to kill. A few people with back packs filled with kitchen knives killed 35 odd people in China and injured 143 people. Whereas Florida was only 17 dead.

I don't really care since I think disarming people and making them victims is a bad idea. Teachers who won't arm themselves to defend themselves are just irresponsible as far as I'm concerned. If someone said I was at risk of being shot, I'd arm myself because I'd want to protect my students and myself.

Lancer Level 7 Mar 12, 2018

I am talking us gun haters coming together to get rid of assault weapons

pro-second amendment does not mean pro unlimited gun ownership. The amendment starts with "A well regulated militia" and even the Supreme Court ruled it is not exempt from regulations.

It is the usual trick of the gun industry (who gains at people's deaths) and their lackey the NRA to push distractions like the number killed in car accidents or from knives. It is a complicated issue in this country and we need to get to where more civilized countries like Canada, England, Germany and most of the rest of the world are to solve it. Unfortunately, in this country money talks.

@JackPedigo

I like how you think that countries like Canada, England and Germany are civilized.

Canada's prime minister just paid $10 million to release an ISIS terrorist back into his general population, He's a known killer.

England is on board with the liberal "diversity and tolerance" propaganda. There are large amounts of crime and social disorder. I was almost king hit by a stranger out on an afternoon run in England. What part of that is civilized? There are also more knife attacks, acid attacks, harassment by police, etc.

Germany? They're experiencing huge problems due to unplanned and unsustainable refugee intakes.

My nation is a little bit more civilized in the way that when we see someone doing the wrong thing we usually band together to beat them up, it's not pretty and not civilized but it works.

Point is, there is no point in comparing the US to other nations. They have their own individual problems that are specific to their geographical location and lack of leadership.

@MikeFlora I thought as much. So single minded and illogical. People need to take a step back and look at the problem objectively but you my good sir are an excellent example of a human being. Rather than use objectivity and logical analysis you equip yourself with emotion and personal opinion.

Fair enough. One path is easier than the other.

@Lancer I lived in Germany 15 years and know of the refugee and excessive immigration problems. I was there when it toppled the chancellorship of Helmut Kohl. I have also visited the UK many, many times and liked most of what I saw and experienced. I also understand Europe and expecially England has a much higher population density than we do. That makes a big difference in lots of things. I agree, civilized is relative. But compared to what this country has today with our political idiots most of Europe is very civilized.

@Lancer This is a gun control now group what do you expect. Gun control is the topic here. There are hundreds of different kinds of guns out there and you are so selfish you can't give up one type of gun that was made as a weapon of war and has no business on the streets and you know that it does not belong in civilian hands, but you won't give in one inch. You come on my Gun Control Now group call me single minded, when you won't give up one bullet. Arrogant and selfish and you think you are better than me. Every time someone uses a assault weapon to kill people it's partly on you, because forget the 2nd amendment, It's the choice weapon for mass shooters and you won't give one inch on making these guns harder to come by just for that.

@MikeFlora

When have I ever said I wasn't in favour of gun control?

All I'm saying is you need to approach the issue differently because you are completely demonising the very people who you should be befriending. In order to change the gun laws, you NEED the support of conservative law abiding citizens. You NEED the support of the NRA.

If you want to really and truly fix this problem you need to educate yourself on guns before you try to implement any legislation.

Yes I like guns and I like to go shooting. I have nothing to do with he mass shootings happening in the US and he fact you think I do is reprehensible and abhorrent. This is the behaviour I am talking about. I am someone you could bring over to your side, instead you insult me and ridicule me just for enjoying shooting.

I would give up my right to self defence in a nanosecond if I was certain that it would fix the problem. But we all know what the real world is like. It is dangerous and volatile. I don't want the US to end up like Australia. We have given up our freedom to a government that cannot protect or provide for us, any of the basic liberties of a free nation.

Piece of advice. Treat gun owners and shooters like people, show them some courtesy and manners. Ask them about guns and gun laws. Ask them what they think would be a good solution. Treat them like fellow humans. Then form an opinion.

But please throw down your shroud of emotions. They have no place in an educated discussion.

@JackPedigo

Fair enough on most of your points.

But look at Europe. It's in chaos. It's collapsing and Brexit is just the beginning. There is nothing civilised about the UK or US governments involvement in creating the migrant crisis intentionally. They are responsible for countless deaths. Many more than just a handful of mass shootings.

Mass shootings don't just happen. We need to look at the specific cause, the gun is the method, not the cause.
Until the US media and citizens start looking at these incidents objectively. They will not stop them from reoccurring.

@Lancer People are dying here, people that haven't done a damn thing wrong. You aren't the only one, I'm getting attacked on other groups and not one of you people will give up one bullet, I'm out to take all the guns away and repeal the 2nd amendment. You all know assault weapons don't belong on the street, you just don't want to admit it. I don't want to live in a country where everybody thinks they have to carry a gun for protection. I can't believe what the NRA is doing to Fla. that's just wrong. Emotional? people are dying that don't have to and the NRA flat doesn't give a damn, and I get bombed with sarcastic insults because I want to make the world a little nicer place to be. When I'm old and grey I don't want to look back and wonder if I could have made a difference. I want to be able to say at least I tried. I watched a school do a mass shooter drill and it really messed me up. The Wright Bro.s were screwing around Kitty Hawk in the early 1900's and we landed a man on the moon about 50 yr.s later, and we can't keep our kids safe in school.

@Lancer I think your age might make it hard to understand there is a central cause and that is competition for resources. Poverty is a lack of resources needed to sustain one's life. The more demand on a limit of natural resources the more competition and that often turns violent. I am watching a British program called "Can't Pay, we'll Take it Away" I am amazed at the number of people just in London alone that can't pay rent or car payments. It says "rent arrears are becoming the fastest growing debt problem in the UK. There were more than 300,000 mortgages in arrears and 34,000 homes reposed in 2012. It marks 60% increase since 2006". It is scary. Unfortunately, excessive immigration only makes the problems worse. Many of the rent in arrears were from immigrants who are unable to pay.

@MikeFlora
You do realise that taking guns away from law abiding citizens doesn't make crime go away right? Gangs will get weapons from Mexico, the criminals will be the only ones with guns and everyone else will be perfect victims just like Australia.

I'm just going to point this out for your sake. There are no Assault weapons in the hands of the population in ANY developed nation. Semi-automatic is NOT fully automatic.

People are dying everywhere. People are being crucified, raped, burnt alive, skinned alive, etc. That's South Africa for some people who might not know.

I can empathize and agree with your desire to reduce the damage, however I just don't think that demonizing law abiding citizens is the right way to solve the problem. You need to realize, just wanting something to happen and asking for it isn't going to work. You need to change your approach. As I said before, rather than shouting and screaming about gun control. Think about how you can convince the NRA and other law abiding citizens about the merits of gun control. Get some evidence where gun control has reduced crime as a whole. Once you do that, people will no longer need guns to protect themselves.

However if incidents like Florida happen, where the government officers who are supposed to protect the innocent prioritize traffic control over saving lives. You have to ask yourself, if the police can't protect me then who can?

@JackPedigo You make a good point.
I personally am a little worried about the fact that the politically correct governments are allowing their nations to go unregulated as far as population goes. Because if this keeps happening, the cost of goods will increase and the middle working class will not be able to sustain a decent quality of life.

We really need to implement a restriction on the number of children that people can have. 2 children is enough. If we keep increasing our populations then eventually there will be too many people and insufficient resources. But governments don't care about this, because to suggest we might not have enough wealth to go around is contrary to their constant "growth" which gets them votes.

I am waiting patiently for a True leader to stand up and lead the people along the path of a sustainable society. If no body does this then I will do it eventually. If things remain the same, the Earth will be finished.

@Lancer I was a board member for a national group known as ZPG (zero Population Growth). We often talked to women about limiting the number of kids they had. Most would agree that is important but most also said they saw that many minority groups (primarily immigrants) had a high fertility rate and that there was a danger of the minority becoming the majority and then there would be no way to deal with population issues.

Governments work with businesses and businesses operate on a growth mantra. Businesses also want a source of cheap and controllable labor and push for more immigration. I am sure in England as everywhere else, people say they care about immigrants AND they provide jobs that most citizens won't do. This is double speak for we want them so that we can exploit them.

I have been banging my head against this wall for almost 25 years. People have to hit bottom before they wake up!

@JackPedigo

That's quite interesting. I had no idea that groups like ZPG existed.

It also makes sense for the government to want to exploit the minorities and I agree with the reasoning behind not applying a law on limiting the of number of children due to the fact that only certain people would abide by it.

China did a good job on incentivising families to only have 1 child. But many people think that population control is against their human rights. But what they don't see is the big picture, continuous expansion will only lead to war between different factions competing for the same resources.

@Lancer ZPG was founded by Drs. Paul and Ann Erlichman and was one of the original environmental groups. It was a national group and had chapters all over the country and was viable until the early 2000's.

China's policy turned out to be severely flawed in that many people aborted the fetuses if it was a girl. This left an overlarge number of males and too few females. This difference is a big cause of male violence. Again, a complex issue.

@JackPedigo

Holy crap. (Excuse my language). I didn't realise stuff like that actually happened in developed countries. That's sick. I mean I can understand chinas reasoning but still, aborting a Fetus just because it's a girl? That sounds like something straight out of the dictator.

@Lancer I was in Viet-Nam a few years ago. My sister-in-law is Vietnamese and we were with my brother and his family. We were not on a tour and spent a month in the country and went from Saigon in the South to Hanoi in the North. One night we were visiting my sister-in-laws family and were introduced to a young, wealthy couple who lived in the countryside. The woman (who had a slight build) was pregnant. They had a daughter and the husband worked for the government. The rules there state a government worker can only have 2 kids. The next morning we got word that after we left the woman started bleeding and was take to the hospital where she aborted 2 fetuses. It has become normal practice, especially if the first child is a girl, to go to a fertility specialist and get several embryos implanted and the women had 3 fetuses. It is also normal for some or all of the fetuses to abort as it is too much for the average Vietnamese body to take. I don't know what happened to the 3 fetus.

During the hunter/gatherer period it was well known a family could not support multiple children so infanticide was a common practice.

I would suggest that more people study population demographics to get a more realistic view of the world.

@JackPedigo
That's quite a sad story. Why don't people talk about these types of issues more than things like the fake gender wage gap? I'm shocked by this. I can understand aborting a fetus if the mothers body can't handle it, but doing it just for the sake of gender selection is abhorrent and almost like butchery.

Also thank you for continuing to speak with me, I honestly learnt a lot talking to you and I appreciate it.

I can sound a bit cold hearted sometimes but at the end of the day I hate the fact that human beings do such cruel things, either to each other or animals. I'd hope that one day people can put aside minor differences like gender and race. But in the real world it is a constant divider unfortunately. I won't say I'm fortunate for this, but I'm grateful that I have a male body sometimes. I've had to fight more often than my sister because guys where I'm from usually settle things with sport or fighting.

I feel like our species lost the plot somewhere. Like we had a bad start but I thought we would be improving and ascending above the mistakes of our ancestors. It's things like these gender biased abortions that make me lose hope sometimes.

@Lancer I am happy to give some of what I have learned to someone else. Often I learn things as well. I wish someone like me had come along many years ago when I was struggling to learn the truth about our world especially when it came to religion.

I think it goes a lot further than culture or evil people. Here is an article I just read in the Smithsonian (founded on a donation by a Brit.). It shows how an environment can shape a beings whole personality.[smithsonianmag.com]

Several years ago I read about the pyramids in Egypt being covered in marble. The Nile had a long period of drought and the people took the marble for housing or to generate income. It was said that people were so desperate they ate their own newly born children. Desperation drives people to do some desperate things. Cannibalism is well document with people in bad situations. Violence is often used when groups compete for resources which are in dwindling supply. I have been learning and studying these things for some 40+ years and still learn more all the time. Never be surprised at human behavior.

@JackPedigo

I am never surprised by the behaviour of human beings. It's easy to explain their actions and thoughts using the meaning and purpose of life. It's not complete, I still need to work on it more however it is in a usable state at the moment.

0

The answer lays with the magic of pot lucks, concerts, and social time on the sidewalks and front porches.

At the time the 2nd amendment was written, people had to depend on their neighbors a lot more than we do know. Your neighbor a half a mile away might be the only people within a 5 mile radius and you might not be able to ride that far or have the time.

1

Agree totally. Less guns-less killing.

Why is that simple idea so hard for the gun people to understand?

Who knows @JackPedigo?

@sassygirl3869 I am reading an interesting article in the "Humanist" titled "It's long been a man's world, can women save it?" [thehumanist.com] It seems it is all about the Y chromosome.

1

Agreed

marmot84 Level 7 Mar 11, 2018
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