National POLL: Support For Gun Control Measures

[Andy54Hawken]

This does affect me, it affects you, it affects all of us. You can be certain that this is a problem that you and I and all of us have because there is a major political movement attempting to take away what you and I feel is a right to own. If we dont come to the table with a solution then our rights will disappear.

It seems that my point here ain't clear.

I am not going to shoot up a school....
Therefore whatever motivated the shooter to do so ...was his problem , not mine.
Since I don't see shooting up a school as a solution to what ails me.

I do agree that the actions of the shooter affect firearm owners...and if we don't start being more proactive...then we stand to lose much , if not everything we enjoy about firearms.
Andy

 

[Member 34319]

Voted for all of them, got to keep the algorithms busy.

 

[Koda]

That is the real issue: the shooter, not the gun. Anyone willing to murder another human being, especially random human beings, is by definition mentally unfit and thereby should not be allowed to own any kind of weapon. The crux of the problem in the United States is a failure of systems designed to identify and constrain people who are mentally unfit. This seems to be especially true for children and young adults. Our current system is an abject failure. Don't expect real solutions until that happens...

This is where a solution lies, somehow we need to fix this. Somehow we need to get this into the national discussion with all Americans not just the pro-gunners.

 

[GrayGoose]

Now, we are talking about pro gun solutions here. Can we expand on how we can identify and respond to the signs of someone going thru such a mental state?...

We need to go further back than that. Not just identify and respond to signs of mental problems, but what has been causing the increased trend of those mental problems? What changed in our society? The root cause of the problem needs to be identified and resolved, before it results in the mental problem and subsequent tragedy we are seeing more often today.

 

[Koda]

It seems that my point here ain't clear.

I am not going to shoot up a school....
Therefore whatever motivated the shooter to do so ...was his problem , not mine.
Since I don't see shooting up a school as a solution to what ails me.

I do agree that the actions of the shooter affect firearm owners...and if we don't start being more proactive...then we stand to lose much , if not everything we enjoy about firearms.
Andy

Your point was clear to me. My point is this does affect us and it seems you agree with that as well. We are on the same page here.

and this is why im asking what pro-gun community can do to be more proactive?

 

[Koda]

What changed in our society?

what Im seeing is an increase in broken separated families and single parents raising kids on video games.

 

[jackrv]

This does affect me, it affects you, it affects all of us. You can be certain that this is a problem that you and I and all of us have because there is a major political movement attempting to take away what you and I feel is a right to own. If we dont come to the table with a solution then our rights will disappear.

You can go to the table with all the solutions you want and they'll still try (and maybe do it) to take our rights.

 

[GrayGoose]

what Im seeing is an increase in broken separated families and single parents raising kids on video games.

Yes. Those are a few. There are many others. Increased prescriptions of psychotropic meds, violent movies and lyrics, restricting parental rights, etc... are some more.

 

[nwslopoke]

what Im seeing is an increase in broken separated families and single parents raising kids on video games.

How many school or mass shooters under 21 came from well balanced respected families? Perhaps the Columbine shooters came from a two parent home but not sure how well balanced those households were. The vast majority of shooters I can think of come from some level of chaos while young. Staying with grandparents or foster care.

That hasn't much to do with gun control because that is not the root of the problem. There are plenty of mentally ill people who don't go on shooting sprees. Keeping boys to young men pre-occupied with positive influences and rewards will go a long way.

 

[Koda]

You can go to the table with all the solutions you want and they'll still try (and maybe do it) to take our rights.

This is frustratingly true, especially in deep blue states like Oregon where the only policy our Democrat senators will accept are theirs.

 

[OldBroad44]

Didn't vote because all the choices are restrictions on our Second Amendment Rights….

I'm for more spending on mental health solutions, but with results this time!!!

I voted NO on everything by simply hitting Cast Vote but not checking any boxes. Simple.

I was a bit surprised that so many on this forum voted for any of the possibilities. But then I suspect the difference between me and most of those voting yes on any of the options is they are assuming that honest unbiased competent people would be administering the laws and the info they have is accurate and those providing it are objective and honest and believe Americans have rights. I assume closer to the opposite. At the very least it will be urbanites administering the laws. Urbanites tend to be anti gun. Its likely those attracted to positions administering such laws will be very anti gun authoritarians.

These days its pretty common for false claims that the spouse is dangerous to be a part of divorce or custody battles. Would a cop or judge that didn't like the fact that citizens have guns make sure there was some justification for the claim? Or would he just chuckle gleefully at the opportunity to strip someone of all his or her guns and ask no questions? I suspect the latter.

On the surface, it may seem reasonable to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. But that's a pretty ill defined term. For example, many urban people think anyone who owns a gun is somewhat mentally ill. And if you own many or are interested enough in them to be on a gun forum you are obviously mentally ill. Every person who had ever used the services of a therapist for any reason might lose their gun rights.

 

[Koda]

That hasn't much to do with gun control because that is not the root of the problem. There are plenty of mentally ill people who don't go on shooting sprees.

I still this its part of the root of the problem as long as there are some mentally ill people who do choose to take their rage out on society. Virtually all mass shooters come from an unbalanced family background it seems.

 

[Koda]

Yes. Those are a few. There are many others. Increased prescriptions of psychotropic meds, violent movies and lyrics, restricting parental rights, etc... are some more.

I wish there was a way to get this mainstream. Maybe the pro-gun community can start swamping our gun rights groups to lobby for these changes in regards to the "gun violence" issue and demonstrate to Americans how this will solve or mitigate mass shootings.

ideas.

 

[salmon creek gary]

There is no good faith negotiation at the national level; any pretense of a "discussion" is at cross purposes. Not that we (gun owners) are wrong to be thinking of solutions, but whatever solutions we propose would be directed at real improvements in public safety. That is our mindset. However, those folks we see as opponents will summarily reject any such solution because improving public safety does not align with their purpose, i.e. total elimination of civilian gun ownership. In fact, they see any public safety improvement as a loss for them, because they need a steady stream of atrocities to keep the public in an uproar. Reducing the number/frequency of incidents would cool the public's emotional boil, and "they" absolutely need that heat to cram their gun grabbing proposals through the legislature.

And how does that emotional boil help their nefarious cause? Simple. So long as we have professional politicians, then "getting re-elected" will remain the primary job of office holders. With that mindset, even our so-called 'pro-gun' office holders may abandon logic and cave in to emotional cries from the public. And we know that too many of them aren't really all that staunch; it just depends on which way the wind is blowing. If their own political survival seems to demand it, they will turn RINO in a heartbeat. I only had to look at the news this morning to see that the winds of change are blowing. The MSM is trumpeting comments from GOP reps who are caving in to emotional heat from the public.

 

[P7M13]

I have a question especially for the objectors to this poll because it wasn't about "none" options; What can we do to mitigate 18-year-olds buying these guns and walking into schools?

The answer is identifying and resolving what causes a person to develop the mindset to plan and carry out such a tragedy, not merely restrict access to the tools with which they carry it out.

Both the above quotes are closely related. Don't limit thinking to age. Look at the Vegas shooter, his age and why did he target a concert?

Without writing a diatribe in an attempt to support my assertions, I'll just cut to the bullet points:

• Freedom is a balancing act where choice is given to the individual, and every choice is one that takes you in the direction of good or evil. BUT, every choice does have effects in both realms.
• Behavior is a reflection of the individual's genetics, their upbringing, and societal mores.
  • In 100 years, we may be able to tinker with genetics enough to identify personality and propensity traits of people, and ultrimately affect those of the child in utero.
  • Societal mores are deeply imbued in the first four years in the family, and reinforced (or altered) by subliminal and direct messages from society (i.e. teachers, adults, MSM and social media).
• I have long asserted that osmosis is one of the greatest forces in the universe, using a loose definition for the word force. A lot of what we see is the osmosis from the subliminal and direct messages by MSM and Social Media. From that, I assert that It is less the weapon's fault that a mass murder happens than it is the result of freedom of speech, which has greater effect on the individual wielding the weapon.
• If society is truly wanting freedom, it would recognize that horrific outliers are the result of such freedom.
• If society cannot accept those outliers, then it must accept that harsh limitations to those freedoms, including severe brutality as the consequential response to breaking those limits. I have long asserted, greater freedom demands greater brutality.
• It would also recognize that limits to freedom of speech would have a greater effect on reducing "mass shootings" than limiting access to firearms.

I have worked decades in industries where processes are extremely hazardous and when things go nova, i.e. Chernobyl failure level, the area affected is measured in two or three digits of square miles, and there are lots of bodies to pull out. What do we do? We have multiple layers of safeguards in place, and we routinely check and test them.
The same applies to public safety.

• Have plans which include passive protection, passive + active detection, and active response.
• Regularly test and verify the passive systems, have notification in place when those systems are not working properly.
• Train and test the active detection and response, quarterly, semi-annually, and annually.
• Assiduously following the above would probably result in intercepting >99.999% of the outliers.

 

[fstdraw]

I do support raising the age from 18 to 21 to purchase a firearm, but not to own one.

 

[Tony617]

My browser gave an error when I tried to cast my vote by not selecting anything so it did not work for me.

 

[Nick Burkhardt]

 

[Koda]

School Shooters: Understanding their path to violence is key to prevention

Psychologists and the FBI say they are getting a better understanding of the mix of factors that lead some kids to open fire on a classroom. The shooting can be an act of desperation fueled by anger.

www.npr.org

 

[Tomahawk67]

How about a ban on ALL gun laws?