
Originally Posted by
Churchill
It's still amazing to me the reaction (politically/policy-desire) that these rare Mass Shooting events create.
Consider, we have between 3-8 or so of these events per year (so 3-10 individual killers), killing aprox. 30-50 people in total. Yes, every single life lost is tragic, but in a nation of 350 million people, 50 is NOT alot.
Even if we take ALL gun related murders (excluding suicides/accidents), it's something like 8,000. Out of 350,000,000. And most of those are committed with illegal guns (legal guns account for most accidents/suicides).
Yet, if the two political "sides" got their way, the death of the 50 people this year would result in:
-350 million people have their 2nd amendment Rights Revoked or Limited. Guns would either be outright illegal, or severely restricted/regulated.
-350 million people have their medical privacy rights revoked, and we'd all be tracked for our State-Sanctioned Mental Health from then on.
-American gun manufacturers would be shuttered, costing thousands of jobs and millions to the economy.
-Hunting would be effectively banned, creating environmental problems, overpopulation, and robbing 50 million Americans of their primary hobby. Target Shooting and other hobbies would also be banned.
-Violent Video Games would be banned, robbing the vast majority of us who can play them and NOT go on a kill rampage of a hobby/passtime/diversion.
Thats alot of lost rights and privlidges for 350 million of us because of the crazed acts (and failings) or a very few individuals.
For example, lets look at the Navy Yard killer:
-Despite documented gun violence, he was never prosecuted (failure of Government).
-Despite documented gun violence, he did not lose his abillity to obtain Secret Clearance (failure of Government).
-Despite the Police having to visit him because he was "hearing voices int he Walls", he did not lose his abillity to obtain his Secret Clearance (failure of Government)
-Despite recieving medical and mental health care at the VA, he did not lose his abillity to own firearms or obtain his Secret Clearance (failure of Government)
And sadly, like schools and other places, a millitary base is no more secure or armed to a man with clearance that anywhere else, and the vast majority on-base are not armed in any form. Kill the security (which he did), and the rest are just targets. IMO thats a failure of Government as well.
So we have a systemic failure of Government to do it's basic job, yet if we listen to both sides of the aisle, the only "solutions" are more and more powerful Governmentm, to restrict/revoke the rights of ALL Americans, all 350 million of us, to be sure that 1 can't do this again.
Which is a pipe dream, because even if they got every restriction they want, and we're all disarmed, de-gamed and tracked and registered and mental-health-probed.......just like this guy, people will slip through the cracks, illegal guns will still exist, and events like this will still happen.
What I want to know is why, why do so many instantly grab at "restrict our rights!" as the solution for all, instead of tailoring the solution to the problem?
And why, as a side note, do the same folsk who would happily restrict oru rights on this, find the idea of "have photo ID to vote" to be the single most racist and objectionable idea ever to have been raised?
Some days I just don't get it.
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