Obviously it is a mental health problem, but I still haven't heard a convincing argument about why machine guns (and don't tell me that these bump stops and AR-15's and whatnot are not machine guns) are legal. They sure as hell aren't good for self defense--that'd be a shotgun or a handgun.
IBTL.
Lof8 said:Agreed. You should also have to pass a mental and financial check before reproducing.
SO. MUCH. THIS.
In reply to volvoclearinghouse :
You may have a valid point there.
However as a former veteran who’s actually fought in a war, ( 80% of vets don’t see combat) the appeal of more mature service people makes a lot of sense.
One more caveat if I may? We need to have elected people representing those younger people too! After all this country was founded on the principle of representation. No taxation without representation!
In other words? Why limit elections to older people? Especially the house of representation!!!! Do all good ideas come from people older than 35?
I believe a lot has to do with proper parenting. Albeit, this case, the kid had no parents. But.... My observation is that young "adults" have not been taught responsibility. Cause and effect. Watching your kids grow up, should not be done as a casual observer. If you see something, say something, as the saying goes. Instead of Play Station, make them take the garbage out, rake leaves, etc. If you find your child is having problems, seek professional help, and don't worry about labels. Yes, it's work on our part, but the results are worth it. Much better, and rewarding than any car project.. ....
Why raise the age to vote? Less than half the US population exercises their right to vote to begin with! How about making it mandatory to actually vote? Then we'd see some changes...
Bob the REAL oil guy. said:Lof8 said:Agreed. You should also have to pass a mental and financial check before reproducing.
SO. MUCH. THIS.
So you seriously would be OK with the government telling you who can and can not have children? This from someone that doesn't want gun control? What more fundamental right is there than reproduction?
dculberson said:Bob the REAL oil guy. said:Lof8 said:Agreed. You should also have to pass a mental and financial check before reproducing.
SO. MUCH. THIS.
So you seriously would be OK with the government telling you who can and can not have children? This from someone that doesn't want gun control? What more fundamental right is there than reproduction?
This.
For those of you who are stuck on this parenting thing:
How many mass-shooters have siblings? If parenting was to blame, they'd have multiple kids who exhibit similar tendencies. This is not the case. What about parents who raise who kids who at least externally, look successful and well adjusted?
Again, the Las Vegas Shooter - a relatively successful, normal looking guy who just so happens to have about 50 guns in his basement. Parenting, for better or worse, does not create that individual.
On "permit to reproduce" - you want to keep people from reproducing? Make birth control and Plan-B free to anyone who wants it. Offer free vasectomies. Problem solved. Oh, and better sex-ed would help too. Instead, we deny funding for all of the above.
docwyte said:Why raise the age to vote? Less than half the US population exercises their right to vote to begin with! How about making it mandatory to actually vote? Then we'd see some changes...
We can no more make participating in democracy mandatory than we can make it mandatory to every able-bodied person of adult age to own a firearm. Rights aren't mandatory.
Besides that, how many people who do vote, actually put any thought into it beside pulling a straight party-line ticket vote? Or even research candidates?
As Mencken said:
"all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
Simply raising the voting age isn't timocratic- if that were the case, then the current voting age restrictions would be, too. One could make the argument, I guess, that giving voting rights sooner to people who hold a job _might_ be, but even that's a stretch- especially if they'd get them anyway at 26 or whatever.
In before the lock...
pheller said:On "permit to reproduce" - you want to keep people from reproducing? Make birth control and Plan-B free to anyone who wants it. Offer free vasectomies. Problem solved. Oh, and better sex-ed would help too. Instead, we deny funding for all of the above.
THIS!
In reply to pheller :
Why are vasectomies so expensive? Because they're worth it. 
volvoclearinghouse said:We can no more make participating in democracy mandatory than we can make it mandatory to every able-bodied person of adult age to own a firearm. Rights aren't mandatory.
Voting is compulsory in Australia.. also North Korea. So there's a couple of very different examples for ya'!
In reply to pheller :
It doesn’t solve the problem but it’s a real good place to start. There are a lot of people who look at kids as income from the government. Those people won’t be using contraceptives or plan B.
So we could also pay women to get IUDs or tubul litigation. Or for men to get vasectomies.
You will never be able to "permit" reproduction. You've got to incentivize not having kids. This is easier for some (educated, high income earners) and harder for others (Catholics, people dependent on social programs for income because their rural mountain town doesn't have any jobs, or their education in a city is so poor they don't have any skills to apply to an urban job market).
In any case, I don't blame parenting for our uniquely American form of mass-murder.
More young people voting might change things, gun ownership among young people is considerably lower than that of people over the age of 50.
mtn said:Obviously it is a mental health problem, but I still haven't heard a convincing argument about why machine guns (and don't tell me that these bump stops and AR-15's and whatnot are not machine guns) are legal. They sure as hell aren't good for self defense--that'd be a shotgun or a handgun.
IBTL.
While I see no need for the bumpstocks I have actually used one. They suck. Hard to use, wildy inaccurate etc. As for the AR, it's an ergonomic platform, accurate and fires a great varmint round (.223) that is great for coyotes. With the heavier 62gr round the weapon is great for home defense over a shotgun. There's less overpenetration, has better stopping power than a handgun and with the collapsible stock and the ability for attachments like flashlights and reddot it's really well suited for home defense. The idea that a shotgun is the magic hit everything in hte general direction is wildly inaccurate. At 15 yards, my 19" 12ga pattern is the size of my palm. While it's mildly larger it also can overpenetrate.
I use mine for coyotes and entertainment. I have 20 30-rd mags loaded, not because OMG TEOTWAWKI but because I hate loading mags when shooting. I have one loaded with 50-gr varmint loads for the 'yotes.
From a comment I heard today: "A society soon to have people running around with both concealed weapons and an emotional-support animal has reached the apotheosis of solipsism. We have failed to teach our young to self-soothe."
Car and Home ownership among young people is considerably lower than that of people over the age of 50, too. I think its more of an economic decision than a philosophical one.
The larger point here, is that moving the conversation away from simply firearm regulation/banning/ confiscation and delving into the root cause of this issue is more difficult, but ultimately more productive.
In reply to Bob the REAL oil guy. :
And this is part of the problem: people who know nothing about firearms purporting to have all the answers on regulating them. It would be analogous to someone who had never driven a car suggesting we could solve accidents by removing all of the accelerator pedals.
mtn said:Obviously it is a mental health problem, but I still haven't heard a convincing argument about why machine guns (and don't tell me that these bump stops and AR-15's and whatnot are not machine guns) are legal. They sure as hell aren't good for self defense--that'd be a shotgun or a handgun.
IBTL.
Bump stocks were a case of Yunicking the ban on machine guns. The rule is that a gun must fire one shot for one pull of the trigger. A bump stock was a device that caused the gun to bounce around so much that it effectively pulled its own trigger. Apparently it was approved on the grounds that it was a lousy substitute for a real machine gun. I personally don't have a problem with a ban on bump stocks, although with the exception of the Vegas shooting, they haven't been a factor in mass shootings.
When I was in high school, shortly after Columbine, there was an ongoing joke: "A student attempted a mass shooting at Southwest Dekalb - and was promptly killed by return fire." Southwest Dekalb was one of the roughest schools in the district, with a reputation for a gang problem.
dculberson said:Bob the REAL oil guy. said:Lof8 said:Agreed. You should also have to pass a mental and financial check before reproducing.
SO. MUCH. THIS.
So you seriously would be OK with the government telling you who can and can not have children? This from someone that doesn't want gun control? What more fundamental right is there than reproduction?
Of course not.Its a mental exercise in the ideas of how humanity has degraded. Simply put any two humans can make a child. Doesn't mean they can handle the implications of what that means nor whether they will do a decent job of it. Wouldn't it be nice if people that shouldn't have children can't?
Bob the REAL oil guy. said:mtn said:Obviously it is a mental health problem, but I still haven't heard a convincing argument about why machine guns (and don't tell me that these bump stops and AR-15's and whatnot are not machine guns) are legal. They sure as hell aren't good for self defense--that'd be a shotgun or a handgun.
IBTL.
While I see no need for the bumpstocks I have actually used one. They suck. Hard to use, wildy inaccurate etc. As for the AR, it's an ergonomic platform, accurate and fires a great varmint round (.223) that is great for coyotes. With the heavier 62gr round the weapon is great for home defense over a shotgun. There's less overpenetration, has better stopping power than a handgun and with the collapsible stock and the ability for attachments like flashlights and reddot it's really well suited for home defense. The idea that a shotgun is the magic hit everything in hte general direction is wildly inaccurate. At 15 yards, my 19" 12ga pattern is the size of my palm. While it's mildly larger it also can overpenetrate.
I use mine for coyotes and entertainment. I have 20 30-rd mags loaded, not because OMG TEOTWAWKI but because I hate loading mags when shooting. I have one loaded with 50-gr varmint loads for the 'yotes.
If you want to shoot animals with a .223 round for good reasons.
But that really doesn't mean guns like an AR15 is needed- you don't need 30 rounds at once to shoot an animal, and you don't need to fire them off as fast as your finger can pull. You say you want 20-30 rounds, but do you really need them? Are you going out and harvesting coyotes? I bet you really only need 5 or so. And if you need more than 5, the time between firing the 5th and 6th shot would be long enough to change the magazine.
In other words, there are better tools for what you are doing than an AR.
I just learned that 11 teens die every day from texting-related accidents while driving. I'm going to add "ability to purchase and possess a smartphone" to my original list.
On a semi-serious note, anyone heard about GVROs? Interesting concept....
But what determines the ability to successfully raise children?
Parents can have a little monster at age 10, and he's President at age 60. Did his parents raise a successful child? By who's measure?
Likewise, you can have a kid who meets the mark of being an excellent child at age 18. Top grades, accepted into a big school, no problems at all. Shoots up an elementary school at 20.
Now, we could say "violent people are raised by bad parents", but what about a sniper in the military? He's good at killing people. He almost kinda likes it. He's a good soldier, no problems at home. Did his parents raise him right?
What about a kid who's a boxer or likes MMA? Again, no problems with the law, exemplary student, but man don't mess with him cause he knock-you-out. Are his parents "good?"
Lastly we've got this non-violent kid who doesn't even want to touch a gun before he's 18. At 23 he shoots up a movie theater. Are his parents to blame?
volvoclearinghouse said:The larger point here, is that moving the conversation away from simply firearm regulation/banning/ confiscation and delving into the root cause of this issue is more difficult, but ultimately more productive.
The right questions are rarely the easy ones. What is the automotive analogy? "Better to cry once" or something like that, If building for reliability and performance it is usually wiser to just spend the big money up front and do it right...
Without getting political. IBTL
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