So how many people DO have to die before the GOP back gun legislation?

[Locut0s]

Yes of course it's a rhetorical question. But you would think there would come a point where they would right? 93 people on average are killed every single day in the US with guns. And on mass shooting days like today it's more of course. The answer is clear. No number is high enough. A thousand a day wouldn't be enough. Because guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Yes, people with GUNS!

But of course I'm asking too much, to have these people actually have compassion for other people.

[GP6971]

1. They never will

They're interest is only staying in power and the money they get from the NRA to keep them there.

[msongs]

2. the purpose of guns is to kill PEOPLE mission accomplished nt

[Initech]

3. All of us apparently.

Then maybe they might do something about it because there will be no one left to vote for them.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

4. If Sandy Hook didn't do it,

nothing will.

[Locut0s]

11. The fact that their answer to the horrors of Sandy Hook is more guns...

Arm the teachers they say. Fuck why not arm the students then too. I mean sure mass shootings occur in other gun “safe” countries like the famous one in Norway. But of course we aren’t talking to sensible people. The point is always how many of these mass shooting do we want. Other countries have them but not to this degree. Arm ALL the people because a good person with a gun will stop a bad person with a gun. Sure. That’s the argument of someone who is only semi sane. Who believes that legislating gun ownership is one step away from a totalitarian state, when indeed it’s as likely a step towards one. Never do they question the fundamentals. Like why so many people want to kill other people in this culture of ours. Or their own assumptions. Like whether a truly good person would find it that easy to kill even a bad person on a rampage. Cause if that part of their little desperate argument falls apart then the whole thing does. Abortion is murder of course but we can’t do anything about the killing of mass numbers of children in our schools with guns.

[Hayduke Bomgarte]

5. "you would think there would come a point where they would right"?

Sensible people would rightly assume other sensible people would, and that they would have long ago. We are not talking about sensible people though.

[Locut0s]

8. Which is why I said it was a rhetorical question...

I know this is the answer. It’s just sad and scary.

[blueinredohio]

6. $$$

[tanyev]

7. Hell, they didnt do anything when they themselves were targeted at that baseball practice.

WTF?

[Eyeball_Kid]

9. There's never enough dead.

We could form a 300 million person circular firing squad, and when 99% are dead, the remaining would STILL want to fall in line with the NRA.

The NRA is like a church, complete with "infallibility" characteristics. Their followers worship them. They can do no wrong.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. What I want to suggest

would probably (and rightly) get a visit from the Secret Service.

But I will say that even if they are deliberately and selectively targeted (not that I even remotely think that should be done) they will still not back sensible gun legislation.

Because guns are more important than lives. Period, end of discussion. Not my life, not yours, not my child's, not your brother's, no one's life matters more than guns.

[Locut0s]

12. My fundamental problem with them is one of morals not logic. That to kill is good...

Of course their logic is also torturously twisted to confirm their biases. But it’s the morals of their arguments that I find most troubling.

And those morals boil down to basically that to kill people is a good thing, so long as they are the right people. Bad people. It’s one thing to argue if capital punishment may or may not be necessary in extreme cases (something I am even against), or if Wars are on occasion justified once in a very long while. No the argument is that killing in the act of self defence is a neutral act.

I’m not going to argue if killing in self defence is necessary or not because I feel the problem is deeper than that. My argument would be to strive for a society where such a thing is rarely needed. But at any rate the argument goes that to kill someone in self defence is not only needed, but that it’s a good act. This to me is not only extremely highly suspect, it’s morally cancerous. A society that believes that killing is fine so long as you have found the “right people to kill” (those that are going to harm you is the label usually used) has already decided to label a group of people as worth killing. IMHO it doesn’t matter if the people are about to kill you, it’s the culture of prelabeling the situation in which you picture killing people that is so troubling. Sure you may end up killing someone who decides to try to kill you. But this should be a on in a million incident. To have a culture in which one contemplates the act and purchases a device and practises using it because the assumption is that the need will arise to “kill the right person”, is a deeply sick society. There is a real sense imho in which you have eroded your sense of being a “good” person when you have conditioned yourself to kill other human beings. Even if those other human beings happen to be “bad”.

[Straw Man]

14. I think you have hit ...

My argument would be to strive for a society where such a thing is rarely needed.

... the proverbial nail on the proverbial head. And that would require a complete restructuring of American society from the top down and from the bottom up.

I think where you go wrong is your assumption that successful self-defense requires killing. Granted that the chance of death exists whenever a firearm is fired at a living being, but I was taught in a self-defense class that the most successful defensive use of a firearm is the one in which no shot is fired. Every self-defense instructor I've ever encountered has emphasized the reality that killing another human being, even with justification, has huge legal, emotional, and moral consequences and will change one's life forever, and not for the better.

[Locut0s]

16. I agree with you 100%. In fact I was going to mention some of that...

You are right I should not have said that self defence may require killing another. I suppose there are cases where that may be true however they are rare. It just goes to show how deeply ingrained this falsehood is that I too have learned it as well even though I try to remain diligent and question my own beliefs.

One of the things you touched on, as did I very briefly, that I was going to mention but neglected to was how killing another person changes someone. I believe I said they believe it's at worst a neutral act if the person is a "bad" person and they do so in self defence. The truth is that if you are a "good" person the the act of killing another, even in self defence, will be deeply traumatising. It can't help to be so. And indeed if it is not, then that is a clue that something is deeply wrong IMHO.

There is also the argument that you touch on about whether the success rate in self defence even should be close to 100%. The world IS a bit of a dangerous place at times. I would argue that it is inherently LESS dangerous than they like to think it is. Their fear of the world is indeed what makes it more dangerous. A good deal of what makes the world a peaceful place is the acceptance of those things we can not change. There are people out there that want to kill us. Yes. There are robbers out there, child molesters. Yes these are terrible things. But they are also few and far between in a healthy society. And part of life is the acceptance that we can't change these horrible facts. Learning self defence is a great idea. But owning a device purpose built to kill these bad people suggests that you have surrendered to your fear of the world. You are going to die, it's inevitable. So are your children. Of course you want to protect them. But at what cost. Their morality? Once you accept you can't change this fact you open up other possibilities. Dialogue, descalation, compassion.

[Motownman78]

13. Only when gun violence affects rural

America will the GOP enact gun control.

[area51]

15. This,

along with refusing to acknowledge health care as a basic human right, allows the gop to perpetually cull the US population.