On Wednesday evening, a rifle-toting gunman murdered 18 people and wounded at least 13 more in Lewiston, Maine, when he opened fire at two separate locations—a bowling alley, followed by a bar. A manhunt is still underway for 40-year-old suspect Robert Card, a trained firearms instructor with the U.S. Army Reserve who, just this summer, spent two weeks in a mental hospital after reporting that he was hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base.
While the other late-night talk show hosts stuck to poking fun at new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took his rebuke of the Louisiana congressman to a whole other level.
“Now, we know the arguments,” Colbert said of the do-nothing response politicians generally have to tragedies such as this. “Some people are going to say this is a mental health issue. Others are going to say it’s a gun issue. But there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
Add Johnson to this
Thots & Raypers
why are they eating poop
You are what you eat.
But seriously, it’s blood.
I’m pretty sure it’s poop
If your poop is that color and you haven’t been eating a lot of beets lately, you should probably see a doctor ASAP…
You sound like you’ve been eating too much poop
While technically an amount, “none” can by definition never be too much 🤷
Well played
le downevoet
“I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!” -Shooter McGavin
I gave up after Sandy Hook. If the population can’t prevent assault weapons from being sold after such a gun butchers children, then they won’t make their representatives do anything that makes a difference. You have to fix it someday, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
The year of Sandy Hook, the gun lobby increased their “donations” to Republicans from $8 million to $16 million per year, where it remains to this day.
Also, be wary of saying “assault weapons” as it’s vague and used by the pro-gun crowd to undermine discussion – semi-automatic guns are the weapon of choice for criminals, terrorists and domestic abusers and are not necessary for hunting nor hobby shooting.
It’s why they’re strictly controlled in most countries.
Calls for gun prohibition just increase funding for Republicans.
Oh God the only time fascists start wanting to be a grammar Nazi.
It’s semi automatic weapons. Just because you can switch out one pin to make it full auto means nothing.
It’s a magazine not a clip!
Just like every word in the world, they’re all made up and become defined by the culture using them.
If I say assault weapons and you understand what I mean, then the word is fine.
Once you get into the legal areas, absolutely everything needs to be defined. Under assault weapon it’ll start listing every type and parameter with strict definitions of what they mean. They like to pretend that’s not part of the bill though lol.
However, there are farm rifles that have been semi-automatic for many decades, such as the mini-14. Also my Ruger 10/22 is an auto loading semi-automatic rifle.
Neither of these would be considered an assault rifle as they do not have a pistol grip.
I think that we should just allow these types of weapons under a owner’s permit, and then make sure that people take a basic training course, mental health and background checks, and make them liable for any harm that may cause through their ownership or negligence with these weapons.
I should also make it way harder to get a concealed weapons permit and restrict pistols more than rifles as most gun shootings are with pistols.
This is similar how Austria approaches gun ownership which in some ways is more lax than the US (they allow suppressors for instance).
Unfortunately rational discourse around gun laws in this country just simply does not happen. People are not motivated for change around these laws if they’re not motivated by emotional response.
🤪🔫⚖️
Yep it’s been proven time and time again that the vast majority of all Americans, republican voters included, want gun legislation.
Unfortunately every elected Republican feels beholden to their fascist base. Most of the elected are the fascist too. However so many of voters are single issue and want to stick their head in the sand to keep their 401k from dropping lmfao. It’s right fucked to everyone who sees it but they pretend like they aren’t enabling their shitbag cohorts.
The problem is that the “assault weapon” wording makes it easier for pro gun to dismiss you. The US has a lot of people obsessed with guns. I’d love if the US could just ban guns entirely, but reality is that we’d have to at least start with reasonable baby steps and cannot give them any easy way to get out. By using the “assault weapon” wording, you’re just making it easier for them to dismiss gun legislation cause they’ll claim “it’s too vague” (even if it’s not).
It’s unfortunate that wording has to matter so much, especially in colloquial usage, but it’s such an uphill battle to get even the slightest gun restrictions in place, so we sadly do need to be perfect. And yeah, it’s stupid. It’s dumb that the US can be like it is and people will still defend their guns to the death. But we have to account for that if we want to make anything better.
If they’re dismissive, they would never support it anyway. Don’t cater to people who won’t support you no matter what you do.
Exactly. That was the moment and it passed. It would take something so extreme it’s hard to even fathom. Actually, maybe it’s as simple as the left taking up arms and starting militias similar to the right.
Within days of Sandy Hook, an ex friend of mine showed me footage he saw on Alex Jones throwing questions into if they weren’t all actors. People will go to ridiculous levels of hypocrisy or mental blindness to ensure they don’t have to actually assess their values and beliefs.
Isn’t Alex Jones still claiming that Sandy Hook is a false flag by fake actors?
And didn’t he just lose a billion dollar lawsuit?
Everyone talks about assault weapons and mad shootings and ignores the vast majority of gun homicides.
All types of rifles combined make up 3% of homicides, and just about 1% of firearm deaths (handgun suicides are about 2/3rd of gun deaths).
That’s the reason the Dems didn’t really care when the AWB expired in the 2000s. Every single objective study of homicide rates, gun murder rates, and mass shootings showed no statically-significant impact of the AWB.
The real danger was easy, cheap access to handguns. A $1000 rifle that’s hard to conceal isn’t nearly as dangerous as a $200 handgun that can hold just as much ammunition and be easily concealed.
But after DC v Heller, it became clear that handgun ban wasn’t going to be possible, so the focus switched back to black rifles.
We have a lot of broken gun laws in this country, but I’m much more concerned with cheap zinc handguns designed to be disposable than I am an AR-15.
Hey I’m not super into politics, but maybe we should look into banning guns ¯_(ツ)_/¯
If you need one for hunting or varmint control there can be a special license for that but you gotta admit we got a little problem with guns in America.
I have guns but if the day comes where they’re banned fuck it I’ll turn em in if that helps us move past daily mass shootings.
i dunno i think we should just pray more. that always seems to work after every mass shooting.
Prays are worthless without thoughts as well.
What they don’t tell you is every bad thought or greedy prayer cancels out a good one.
No, don’t you think that we should instead ban mental illness? Because I’m totally sure that will work out better.
I live in Australia, we have gun bans. We still have guns. It’s not even really hard to get them. There’s shops. It’s just more like getting a really easy drivers licence. It’s not about banning them. It’s more about screening the people who want to buy them, and regulating their use.
I’m in complete agreement though I do believe there needs to be an exemption for people like my parents. Every spring/summer they end up with something between 6 and 12 coyotes in their woods.
Lol I specifically said varmint control, if you live on land that has coyotes or whatever all the power to you.
Lol whoops I missed that
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Look at all this naysaying bullshit. Honestly 99.9999% of people aren’t going to lose their life over having a gun or not. Maybe a few guns will remain hidden or in black market or whatever, but how many more school shootings will it take before we actually try something instead of just pointing out the reasons it won’t be easy and throw up our hands?
It’s disgusting and I’m tired of it.
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I think the issue that a ban will take years to effectively cool the possession of assault weapons is not actually an issue worth stalling over. While a lot of people tend to look at a law as “if it’s not immediately 100% effective it is garbage” in reality if you call for a refund based recall it will take a chunk out of the total guns out there. Patience is nessisarily.
Seizures of weapons in illegal transport or market will eventually account for another chunk. Guns are regularly stolen from home break ins so a lot of personal arsonal will find it’s way into black markets. Over time when the things can be reported when used in gun clubs or spotted in the wild you take away a lot of the “fun” quotent of owning the weapons making surrender much more likely. The legal ramifications of finding the weapons in self defense cases motivates from another end. If you can’t use them for self defense then the argument of what the point of having them gets stronger. A lot of people own these weapons in part for the same reasons they do expensive cars - the joy of using them and the cashe of bragging and showing them off. While 2nd amendment stans might hoarde them for ideological reasons they probably are gunna be forced to make them hard to find and make sure they don’t mention them to young children who might narc on them making kids getting their hands on them less likely.
The more effectively useless and detrimental you legally make something over time you do wear away at the trouble and anxiety required to maintain ownership. What the US should aim for is long game de-escalation. If people don’t start the process it just means the payoff is gunna be that further down the road.
How it went is Australia (trust me, we had shitloads of guns, buddy) was, people who wanted to hand in the small selection of banned guns, did, the people who didn’t, didn’t. Then regularly the cops do an amnesty day, where you can hand in any illegal guns, no questions asked. If they change their minds. People still own guns. You don’t ban them all, just the unnecessary ones, and you regulate who can buy them, kinda like getting a really easy drivers licence.
I appreciate your candid attitude but how many mass shootings have you committed? None? Then how does turning in your guns solve this? The state once again failed to do anything when the perpetrator literally admired to be homicidal. Maybe there are gun problems other times, but this fucking wasnt one of those times
Well it’s both. Having access to such weapons when someone is mentally ill is a bad combination. And having mental health going unchecked just makes it hard to capture the rage.
The fact is this issue is not just the guns or the people. It’s both. And everyone trying to separate them is not understanding the true nature of the problem.
I have an idea, let’s just ban murder. That should work. Lol
It’s already banned. WTF are you on?
That was exactly my point, thanks.
Banning things doesn’t make them magically go away.
What is your point, exactly? Because maybe there’s a misunderstanding here, because you seemed to make a pro-gun argument by forgetting that murder is, famously, a crime.
If that’s the case, it would raise the question: do you think we should regulate gun ownership to lower the rate of gun violence, the same way that the penalties for murder are meant to lower the rate of homicide? Or do you think we shouldn’t criminalize homicide, the same way people don’t want to regulate gun ownership, because if it isn’t 100% effective then it’s not worth doing?
I wasn’t making an argument, I was making a joke. I was imagining a fictional character believing that illegal things magically can’t happen, and murder does happen so it must be legal, so the obvious solution would be to make it illegal so it would stop happening.
Ah, okay.
I was inclined to think you were serious because, believe it or not, it’s an argument I’ve heard before. Apart from random people trying to futz through an argument, Ben Shapiro complained that Democrats, when asked what they’d ban, didn’t say “crime.”
I should add in seriousness, I do think it’s important to recognize that laws don’t magically make things go away. Sometimes things are very hard to eliminate, and sometimes prohibition of something actually makes it worse like with the Drug War. But like you said about murder, we don’t say, “murder bans didn’t actually eliminate murder, therefore we might as well get rid of them.”
well, they’ve already shat on the rest of the bill of rights. what’s one more?
The Founding Fathers would never have signed the Bill of Rights if they thought it would ever be amended in any way, yeah. Great point.
Well when laws are woefully out of date they deserve to be shit on. That’s how democracy and progress works.
These aren’t laws they’re supposed to be guaranteed rights
How’d that eighteenth amendment work out for you? Just so you don’t have to go search for it, it’s the one that made production, distribution, etc. of alcohol illegal. AKA prohibition.
The 21st amendment eventually repealed it.
So these things are not set in stone as much as everybody would like to believe. They can and occasionally are amended, repealed, etc.
Thats not part of the bill of rights
The bill of rights are still just amendments. There’s nothing inherently different about their status as amendments.
Rights become out of date and change over time as well, with that brain dead logic we should still have the right to own slaves.
you can still own slaves as long as they committed a ‘crime’. also afaik there was no explicit guarantee on the right to own slaves prior to the ratification of the thirteenth amendment.
Prison work is not slavery since it is voluntary.
The Bill of Rights is a set of laws, that’s what laws are.
In any case, who wrote the Bill of Rights in the Constitution? Men did. So, rules and laws were made by men for people. They were not ordained by God. They were written by people, and they can be changed.
How you gonna do that?
I dunno man, if golfing killed 100,000 people a year don’t you think someone would investigate? Why should this sport be different?
As it is, the most dangerous sport in America (mountain climbing) kills 30 people a year.
you could argue golfing probably kills way more people you would expect with all that fertilizer and pesticide runoff
Are you more free because the GOP refuses to regulate the militia? These people aren’t. Are we more secure? Absolutely fucking not. Go back and read your precious bill of rights and tell us what the point of the second amendment is. Republicans wipe their ass with the bill of rights.
what
Are you dumb?
no u
Why are people with your positions rarely able to hold more than the most simple conversations?
what
Let’s not let women or black people vote either /s
It’s fine, just because you want a killing machine doesn’t mean you or anyone else is entitled to it. Guns in 1776 were a little different than what we got now. I like guns and I think they’re neat, but the proof is in the pudding. They’re doing more harm than good.
Banning is never the solution. All it does is expand the black market. Those who want guns will get them.
If we have black markets for guns like Australia has them I think we’ll be in a much better position than we are today.
Australias were never gunfho as Americans about guns. American history is very short and not too long ago they used guns to get independence from britian, not to mention the civil war. Some believe that they will have to defend the country again in this lifetime, that’s why they value the 2nd amendment.
And some believe in Santa Claus. That doesn’t mean you should base laws on fairy tales.
If you want to defend your country with guns, join the military. Become a reservist.
Worshipping fear and delusions is the exact reason people like them shouldn’t own guns.
I mean… The rest of the world proves that you’re wrong. Like the whole world. They don’t have this problem. America does.
Right? Motherfuckers can’t afford rent or a home, but can shell out 10-15 grand for a black market gun lmao.
Most of the illicit guns people are buying are like $100 hi-point pistols. They’re not buying illegal ARs (also that’s what the Mexican cartels are doing).
Why even bother buying illegal ARs. They buy them in Texas .
The only thing expanding the black market is legal gun sales. Black market guns don’t just fall off the truck leaving the factory.
You know guns aren’t that hard to make, right?
Then why isn’t London full of homemade guns? If it’s not the availability of guns, then what is the reason the US has so many shootings?
London does have homemade guns. I wouldn’t say it’s full of them, of course, but they are there and they are a problem sometimes.
Availability of guns is obviously increased by the laws being such that large scale manufacturers can make and sell, as in the US. But it’s hard to disentangle America’s gun culture, gun availability, and its laws. America has so many more guns than the UK in large part because the gun played such a bigger role in US culture historically, you know, violent revolution for independence and settling the Western frontier and all that. Then once there are lots of guns more people need guns to defend themselves, and so on. That was all allowed by the laws. The culture perpetuates the laws, the laws perpetuate the culture, etc.
We had a shooting with homemade guns in Halle in germany in 2019. A nazi assaultet a synagoge. But his weapons were shit and he couldn’t kill anyone in the synagoge. So he shot random people on the street, killing two. If he had acess to reliable firearms the death toll would be much higher.
There are currently more guns than humans in the United States, and the reason is because industry mass manufacturers millions of these per year and they go on to the open market. While people could illegally manufacture ghost guns from a home workshop, if they were illegal these supply would be greatly diminished.
I don’t really think that’s an argument you can make.
It’s not really an argument. Other comment said “the only thing” contributing to the supply is manufacturers, like if manufacturers weren’t around guns would go away. I don’t think they would.
That isn’t even the issue here. This was an individual who was becoming more mentally disturbed and voluntarily checked himself into a psych hospital. It should not be controversial whatsoever that we enforce laws to remove guns from these individuals until the time an independent psychiatrist clears them.
This isn’t even just because of mass shootings. I’m worried about all the veterans with PTSD and depression who could commit suicide. We need to understand that taking someone’s guns when they’re in that state is helping them and could save their lives.
I will be the first person to protest if they illegitimately do this to people. I’m more concerned about the mental and physical health. Guarantee the return of their guns, or even allow a trusted individual to take them – just create incredibly steep charges if the person with custody of the guns hands them over prematurely and suicide or homicides happen.
None of this should be controversial. It literally helps no one to leave them with the guns. We can figure out a holding process for the firearms to ensure it isn’t abused to take guns away and that people have their property returned. But there should be absolutely no disagreement that people who are actively having mental health crises shouldn’t be near guns until they’ve recovered.
The corollary to your statement is that if we take guns away from people with mental illness, we are removing their ability to overthrow the government. This is a bad thing from the conservative mindset…
We want people to overthrow and kill people who are in the government, right? Right??
I know you’re playing devil’s advocate, but I’d point out that I don’t want to take away guns from people with mental illness, I want to temporarily confiscate them from people who are suicidal and homicidal until they receive proper treatment and stabilize.
After all, if they commit suicide, they won’t be very helpful for your (conservatives) ability to overthrow the government. They need to be alive, no?
Then let the get it guns in the black market. No reason we have to be selling military-style weapons to crazy people at retail.
This is a bullshit argument with no merit and you know it.
how successful was the war on drugs?
For the drugs, really successful. Drugs are doing great! Lol
At raising prices for people with money to pay off the law? Very
so, not successful?
I used to never smoke weed because it was so hard to get it just wasn’t worth the effort. Now that it’s legal and there’s a dispo right there, I always have my weed on me. availability matters.
On the flipside. Weed was always hard for me to get, so whenever I could I’d buy in bulk and it would last me for years.
Lol what a shit take.
it’s called an analogy you donkey
It’ll absolutely reduce the number of guns purchased and owned by the general population. Gun control isn’t an all or nothing situation.
It would almost certainly reduce the number of guns out there, I don’t think anyone would dispute that. Alcohol prohibition reduced the amount of alcohol and the number of consumers by a huge amount. What people would argue, however, is that Prohibition made the alcohol that was out there much more dangerous. They’d also argue that gun prohibition would reduce formerly legal owners by (made up numbers) 90% while only reducing already prohibited owners by 10%. Is that a net gain or a net loss?
Most people who do not have guns are totally uninterested in obtaining them. They currently face danger only from people who have them. They would face less danger if fewer people had them. This is purely statistical fact and is observable across the entire world. The US is unique both in gun laws and in gun deaths.
The US is unique both in gun laws and in gun deaths.
Gun laws, yes. Gun deaths, not as much The US does have a lot, I won’t argue with that, but I would not say it’s unique.
Gun crimes are committed by a very small portion of gun owners, so the statistics aren’t so simple. It’s like minnows and whales in sales. The issue is that if someone wanting to commit a crime is choosing not to because they worry their victim might turn out to have a gun and shoot them in defense, and then you remove that deterrent you end up with more crime. The number of guns randomly distributed would seem to correlate with increased violence and crime, but the distribution matters a lot. If you double the number of guns but somehow limited them only to the least criminal and most responsible, you’d probably actually decrease crime despite the number of guns going up. So whether a 90% decrease amongst good gun owners with 10% decrease amongst bad gun owners is actually a net positive, I’m honestly not sure.
I’ll put it this way, there’s never been a mass shooting where I live. Not one in my entire life. There’s only been a handful of people who’ve died to guns at all, and all of those people were killed by armed police officers.
The stats speak for themselves. Each bad gun owner can mass murder 20-30 people if they so choose. And if you’re gonna commit a mass shooting I don’t reckon you really give a shit if someone else there has a gun. Probably pretty laissez-faire about living at all if you’re willing to mow down as many people as you possibly can. That doesn’t happen here. That is a product of your country that continues to happen over and over again.
I do live in the US, and there’s never been a mass shooting where I live, either. The US is a very large place. Things vary quite a bit from place to place. A shooting totally could happen near me, I’m just saying the size of the US and its large population does make them look like a more common thing than they actually are sometimes.
I agree that public indiscriminate mass shooters probably are not deterred by the thought of someone else having a gun and shooting them to stop them. In fact that may be what they want a lot of times. Public mass shootings are a very small portion of gun deaths, though, even in the US. There are some lists of shootings that include things that don’t really belong. Gang violence is the one most often cited, if 3 people from one gang and 2 from another shoot at each other over a dispute, that’s technically a mass shooting by many definitions, even though its not really contributing to anyone else’s safety.
I’m not sure that’s the best site to use for support.
The Crime Prevention Research Center is a nonprofit founded in 2013 by John Lott, author of the book “More Guns, Less Crime.” He is best known as an advocate in the gun rights debate, particularly his arguments against restrictions on owning and carrying guns.
I checked an npr article about the subject and we seem pretty bad…but far from the worst. Should do better. Could be far worse.
It doesn’t seem like the FEE article citing CPRC and the NPR article disagree very much. But it’s true that some people will trust the NPR one much more, so that’s valuable.
Edit: I mean, the numbers in the articles aren’t necessarily the same, but the idea that the US could be better and could be worse is present in both.
Those stats hide what’s truly happening (EDIT: Hide is the wrong word, these stats are deliberately dishonest).
TL;DR: Those stats are listed per capita, and USA is by far the largest country on that list. Statistics have been averaged through 2009-2015 even if listed countries (A lot of them) have only one shooting in the time period. The USA has like a dozen mass shootings in this time period. Multiplie countries are on this list because they had 1 shooting in 6 years and have a population of less than 20million people. It’s deeply dishonest.
Norway is at the top due to the 2011 attack that was incredibly deadly. Norway has a population of 5.4 million people today.
All of these statistics are listed as per capita. So because Norway had an incredibly deadly attack and is a small country compared to the USA, it becomes a clear outlier. The site lists norway as having 1.888 deaths per million people, yearly average from 2009 - 2015. Norway has 5.4 million people today. That’s about 10 people dying to mass shootings a year. But wait! Remember, in 2011, 77 died total in the event but 67 were victims of a mass shooting. That reaaaaally skews that figure. EDIT: It is also the only shooting that contributes to Norway’s Stats in this list.
None of those countries on that list have more than 100 million people today except for the USA (335 million according to wikipedia) (Edit: and Russia, 140 mil). There was a clear choice to massage the data to use per capita to push the message that “the USA isn’t that bad” and it’s still coming up #11.
This is the reason that other sources don’t report these statistics as per capita - they’re incredibly rare, even in the USA. 99.9999% of people will not experience them. This doesn’t change the fact they are terrible tragedies and completely preventable. You can easily see in other, less biased sources that this is a US problem.
I highlighted Norway because it was especially glaringly deceptive, I expect the other statistics have similar problems.
Further edit: Look at the spreadsheet this data is from (Here’s just European countries):
THERE IS ONLY ONE MASS SHOOTING EVENT FOR SOME OF THESE COUNTRIES and it’s being averaged over a period of 6 years! LOL. LMAO, even. These countries are not having mass shootings every year like the USA is. These stats are so dishonest. Norway has only the 2011 attack!
The US list is longer than the list of all of europe:
This is the source:
I appreciate your detailed response, but can you explain why per capita is hiding rather than revealing? To me it only makes sense to look at per capita. If you didn’t, and said the US had way more shootings than Norway, I’d say, “yeah, duh, the US has a lot more people so of course it will have more.” You have to compare to the population or else it’s all meaningless. Maybe you mean something else and I’m misunderstanding.
I was familiar with the one Norway shooting and how that’s an outlier, but I don’t think the article’s argument rests that strongly on that one data point.
The black market might expand, but that’s one more deterrent for new attackers. However, the issue is that in the US alone there are something like 300million guns already in circulation or owner by private individuals. So a buyback program would need to happen as well and I don’t know how realistic that is. We’ve had mass shootings for decades and this government can’t do shit about anything any more as all bipartisan good will has completely evaporated and the discourse has become so toxic.
The fact that card admitted to wanting to do this and nothing was done boggles my mind. The entire state is on their knees until he is caught. Every school has been shut down and the surrounding towns are all still in lock down until further notice. I’m 2h away and they’re debating a lock down for us now because he had plans to go to saco,me and going through that down this morning you can tell they’re geared up and ready for the call
All locked down here in South Portland, which is about 50 minutes or so from Lewiston.
is it just me or does mike johnson look kinda like evil stephen colbert and it really makes me want him to revive the colbert report just to do a parody of him
Colbert compared their appearances on a recent episode
Unfortunately as long as republicans are in office no real gun control will ever happen.
That’s what the lobby pays them for.
I’m sure it has nothing at all to do with the base.
Sure, they sweeten the deal. There is no horror nor humiliation they won’t endure as long as they get to keep their guns.
But the neoliberal Republicans would sell them out in a heartbeat if that was more profitable.
👌
Tots & Pears ✌️
I watched this; it’s such a good moment.
Oh man, how will he ever recover?
I’m no gun expert or psychologist, but I am fairly certain mentally stable people don’t go round shooting up public places.
I am fairly certain the same could be said for someone experiencing a mental health crisis without access to firearms.
Exactly, you’re mentally stable until you’re not. And lot’s of things can trigger a crisis.
He was such a nice guy, who would have thought!
Just checked and it looks like people without guns are even less likely to do it
Most mass shooters are actually right wing nutjobs.
Take this one, he was part of a right-wing militia.
While he did have a metal issue, he also had access to far too many guns, and then continued access after threatening to go on a mass shooting. All because he was part of a “militia”.
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He’s full of shit there was nothing saying he was involved with any militia other than the national guard.
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An interview with a neighbor said it was a militia, in addition to his military status.
The entire family is apparently part of the Maine Militia movement. The Card family home is referred to as a “compound”.
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Hearsay
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Definitely one way of trying to . One question though, who’s going to pay for all that?
The mental health services are not going to be free and the gun owners certainly won’t be cool with paying it. The government definitely won’t pay for it…See, this is why I say I have no faith that the problem won’t be solved any time soon, if ever.
Too many hard and expensive choices to make that will prove massively unpopular with large parts of either side of the argument.
The gun lobby could pay for it! They’ve got 16 million a year to spare!
Too expensive! Says residents of the only developed nation where this is a regular occurance
Why would they go against their own self interests?
The Maine shooter received urgent mental healthcare. Then he killed 20 people with a legally purchased firearm.
If you genuinely believe that “universal healthcare with no waiting times, for free, to every man, woman and child in America, including people who don’t want help, that instantly cures them of complex mental health problems far beyond our current medical science and so completely they will never relapse for even a minute, all so we can indiscriminately sell them guns” is a reasonable position, by all means start building that system.
You can have your guns back when you’re done.
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Involuntary commitment disqualifies a person from owning guns legally. It’s essentially never happens though.
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Personally, this is one of the reasons I keep my mental illness to myself. I don’t want to hurt anyone but myself (and that’s not all the time), but knowing I might lose the right forever makes me keep a lid on things, and honestly prevents me from reaching out for help when I’m feeling particularly sour.
Also, the paperwork you sign before your NICS background check asks if you’ve been committed, voluntary or involuntary.
Also, involuntarily commiting definitely happens, but usually it’s after a failed suicide attempt, and just nets you a 20-25k bill (with insurance) and having no way of going back to work for three days costing you your job. I’ve got two friends with that exact experience.
And that’s the other edge of the double edged sword. If you say, “people with known mental health problems lose certain rights, even temporarily,” some portion of people with those problems will just fight harder to keep them unknown, foregoing help in the process. It’s just like how when certain places pass laws prohibiting having sex when you know you have an STD, some people just stop getting checked so they don’t “know” they have an STD.
There’s basically nothing temporary to government. You generally have to fight to undo anything, even if the laws says it should.
And it bans them from owning gun virtually forever unless they can afford a good lawyer and all the legal fees youll need to do it.
They don’t, but for some reason half the country wants tk keep selling those people weapons.
I hear calls for things like Red Flag Laws from conservatives pretty often, actually.
Where’s the legislation? Dems would sign on in a heartbeat.
There isn’t any because Republicans focus on tax cuts for billionaires first. Everything else is just posturing.
Think about it. What federal legislation have Republicans proposed and passed since Bush? Tax cuts for billionaires. At least Bush mixed it up with some giveaways to the defense industry.
I don’t know about other places, but here in Indiana we have a statewide Red Flag law. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think of Indiana as much of a blue state.
Mentally stable people don’t own guns
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Mentally stable people don’t own guns that are only good for killing as many humans as possible
If guns were not so prevalent… then this mentally unstable person wouldn’t be able to kill so many people in such a short amount of time. Even the fucking police ignored his hearing voices and mental clinic appointment.
Why is this so down voted? I’m seriously asking?
Are the people down voting disagreeing that mentally stable people generally don’t go around shooting up public spaces?
Edit: Jesus was just asking, down voting doesn’t help anyone who was confused as I was.
To everyone explaining the issue here thank you I get it now.
Because he’s arguing in bad faith. He’s removing blame from the ease of access to guns in a disingenuous, JAQing off way.
It really bugs me when people do stuff like that… I grew up in VT, where laws are lax, tons of people have guns, and nothing ever happens. Responsibly handled and in the hands of a stable person, guns can be pretty safe - but, if you remove either one of those things, they’re incredibly dangerous.
In light of that, I wouldn’t mind if access were restricted somewhat. I’m totally fine with my neighbor having a rifle to kill varmints on their property, but way less fine with folks like my paranoid uncle having a safe full of assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammo in a densely populated suburb.
In the civilized world, you have to justify your need for a gun with the presence of the aforementioned varmints. No yard, no varmints, no gun.
No one needs a machine gun to hunt deer, and no one needs a handgun. Handguns are lousy for self defense (“buy a shotgun”, to quote the President). All they’re good for is killing humans and making gun shareholders richer.
And no gun is going to help you if the government comes for you either. The cops are coming with tear gas, body armor, and tanks, and most importantly there’s no amount of cops you can kill that will get them to leave you alone.
All of the justifiable bases for having a gun are solved with a double barrel shotgun. Even if you’re being mauled by a bear, if two rounds of buckshot don’t stop it, you weren’t gonna make it anyway.
License shotguns like cars and get rid of everything else. “Only criminals will have guns!” That’s what your shotgun is for. And if the criminals are getting locked up for having mobile armories, even better. We can replace the current prison population of black drug users with actual gangsters.
In the civilized world, you have to justify your need for a gun with the presence of the aforementioned varmints. No yard, no varmints, no gun.
so gun ownership should only be allowed for people who own property?
Yes, and while we’re at it, yes to any other bad faith strawman argument you’ve got. GTFO with that bullshit.
In the civilized world, you have to justify your need for a gun with the presence of the aforementioned varmints.
Fuck that. We can talk about giving up our guns when the cops and government give up theirs
We can talk about giving up our guns when the cops and government give up theirs
Amen to that.
Good luck fighting off Pentagon drones with your hobby weapon.
Maine and Vermont has similar gun ownership rates and death by gun statistics.
“nothing ever happens” until it happens. then it’s all “how could this have happened” 🤷♀️
you only need an air rifle for killing varmints, AR-15 is designed for killing people.
That statement came across as the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument that is used against gun control, saying that it makes no sense to restrict guns when it’s the person using the gun who decides to kill, and if that person is motivated enough they can do damage even without access to firearms, so why bother?
I don’t think that’s your point at all, but people always reflexively downvote over shit like that.
Gun ownership is a touchy issue to the US population in general. shrugs
Ease of access to firearms is a massive part of the problem, but saying that I will be downvoted even more. Add in the fact there are people having mental issues and breakdowns more than ever, and you can see why mass shootings are increasing.
Simply put, it’s not an issue that is going to be solved any time soon, if ever. It is a highly politicized issue, which you can tell by the ferocity of the responses I got to my flippant original comment.
For real, I feel like their comment was literally only about the mental stability of these shooters. That’s it. But people read into what isn’t there and assume it’s a bad faith argument against gun control.
I’m no gun scientist but I’m pretty sure more people are killed by cars than guns.
We need more car control and reatrixktions on crazy people driving!
Bruh, you have to register your car with the government, you lose your license for driving drunk, you have to pass a test to prove you know how to drive.
We have controls for driving, rightfully so.
We should have the same and more controls on guns. This isn’t an either/or situation. Both cars and guns need sufficient controls to prevent deaths and injuries.
you have to register your car with the government
Only to drive on public roads. You can own one and drive it around on your own property with no registration or a license at age 13 if you want. It’s not a perfect analogy.
Bruh, you have to register your car with the government, you lose your license for driving drunk, you have to pass a test to prove you know how to drive.
yeah no one has ever driven an unregistered car or without a license
We should have the same and more controls on guns. This isn’t an either/or situation. Both cars and guns need sufficient controls to prevent deaths and injuries.
if we had the same or more it would still be less than the barrier of legal gun ownership in many states. anyone can get a license without actually knowing how to drive in a meaningful capacity. driving tests are insanely simple and you only have to take them once. sufficient controls would be reducing the reason to use either, whether it is justifiable or not. as it stands cars are still killing more people than guns but there is no national conversation on adding more restrictions on motor vehicles. this shows the reaction to the atrocities committed by mass shooters is just that, an emotional reaction in the heat of the moment.
yeah no one has ever driven an unregistered car or without a license
“If someone breaks a law we might as well not have it” is a shit take that inherently advocates for the legalisation of rape, murder, theft, human trafficking, torture, drugs, drunk driving and literally every law we have.
if we had the same or more it would still be less than the barrier of legal gun ownership in many states. anyone can get a license without actually knowing how to drive in a meaningful capacity. driving tests are insanely simple and you only have to take them once.
This genuinely isn’t worth responding to. Nobody would say it in good faith and nobody would read it and be convinced.
atrocities committed by mass shooters
By former “responsible gun owners”.
an emotional reaction in the heat of the moment.
Yes, people who aren’t psychopaths have an emotional reaction to 20 more innocent people gunned down, the latest in a string of thousands, that we’re told we need to tolerate forever because men with limp dicks insist they’ll save the country from crime and tyranny, despite arming the criminals, voting for the tyrants, having neither military training nor the discipline to undertake it and being morbidly obese.
It was illegal for this guy to kill a bunch of people but he still did it.
My point is more laws aren’t going to fix anything. Maybe try improving peoples lives instead of fostering the conditions that make people go crazy like this in the first place.
It was illegal for this guy to kill a bunch of people but he still did it.
With his legally purchased, semi-automatic rifle.
Isn’t it fascinating that we don’t seem to have any trouble using laws to keep landmines, grenades and high explosives out of the hands of domestic terrorists, but the moment it happens to threaten the hobby of middle aged white men and the profits of the gun lobby, laws are somehow powerless?
He was in the national guard. He probably also had a weapon issued to him by the military. What are you trying to say here?
Do you actually believe this, or are you just trolling? I genuinely can’t tell. Poe’s Law makes this impossible.
Nobody who comments at that rate isn’t trolling.
what
I’m not advocating for cars, but I’m pretty sure cars are significantly more used than guns, require a license to operate, and are not built to kill people (not entirely sure about SUVs but still).
Guns aren’t built to kill people. Even the military has guns whose primary purpose isn’t killing people.
…This may be the single stupidest fucking thing I have ever seen someone post on the internet.
Literally the PRIMARY purpose of firearms from their inception was to kill. I don’t even understand how you can have made it this far through life and be this unintelligent or disingenuous.
Not always people though. The vast majority of guns never even shoot at a person.
Just stop. You’ve embarrassed yourself enough already.
In that case, every gun should be the subject of an urgent product recall to address a serious malfunction that results in them killing multiple people every day.
You lie about as well as a toddler does. Just stick to the talking points the gun lobby gives you.
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It’s amazing to see a perfectly wrinkle-free brain in action
The rare wrinkle free brain comments always make me LOL real good. Perfection.
Shame it’s convex. We could be seeing much farther into deep space.
yes they are
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Because it’s impossible to be a leftist that supports guns. As long as the cops and government are armed, so should the people
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yeah because at this point supporting the right is unconscionable
It’s amazing that actual adults fall for the “leftists need guns to keep minorities safe from the gubbermint”.
Out of every comparable, wealthy country in the world, America is the only one with such permissive gun laws yet is still the closest to the authoritarian dictatorship you’re pretending to keep us safe from.
Minorities in America are routinely hunted by far-right extremists with legally purchased semi-automatic weapons or executed in the street by police.
But sure, share with the class exactly when we’re supposed to use our cool guns to fire on police, how exactly you expect that to play and when we can expect it to result in systemic reforms?
You fell for a marketing campaign, created by me in suits to sell more guns to people outside the usual “white, male, right wing and casually racist” market.
You may as well be posting tobacco company slogans.
there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
What about all the other things that are wrong with the world!
The point is that improvements can clearly, and easily, be made to gun control. Just because there are other problems too doesn’t mean the gun one shouldn’t be addressed.
You’re not gun scientist rigth… but what’s your opinion on the gun control today? Do you think the current situation is ok? If so, why America is so different than other countries regarding the number of death by gun ?
What is your opinion on guns and only guns today ? (because you didn’t take a position at all. It’s acceptable if you’re a child but not if you’re an adult)
Unless you’re a child, then it is guns.
https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/03/29/guns-leading-deaths-children-us/
Similarly, capping the age range at 17, instead of 18 or 19, also alters the result, as children aged 17 and under have a greater risk of dying of vehicle-related injuries.
I’m sorry bro
