The mass shooting in Las Vegas has re-ignited gun control debate in the US (note that technically ‘gun’ is not an apt description), but as has happened many times before , it is likely to change little if anything.
Defenders of the ownership of firearms has already begun – see the vacuous Tammy Bruce: Why gun control won’t end mass murder
Statistics are being re-published, like How US gun culture compares with the world in 5 charts
- Americans own nearly half (48%) of the estimated 650m civilian owned guns worldwide.
- Americans own more guns per capita than residents of any other country
- The US makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, but holds 31% of global mass shooters.
- Gun homicide rates are 25.2 times higher in the US than in other high income countries.
- Worldwide, the countries with the highest gun-homicide rates are in Central and South America.
More from Vox: Gun violence in America, explained in 17 maps and charts
America is an exceptional country when it comes to guns. It’s one of the few countries in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. But America’s relationship with guns is unique in another crucial way: Among developed nations, the US is far and away the most violent — in large part due to the easy access many Americans have to firearms.
-
America has six times as many firearm homicides as Canada, and nearly 16 times as many as Germany
-
America has 4.4 percent of the world’s population, but almost half of the civilian-owned guns around the world
-
There have been more than 1,500 mass shootings since Sandy Hook
-
On average, there is more than one mass shooting for each day in America
-
States with more guns have more gun deaths
-
It’s not just the US: Developed countries with more guns also have more gun deaths
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/9371383/guns_country.jpg)
-
States with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths
-
Still, gun homicides (like all homicides) have declined over the past couple decades
-
Most gun deaths are suicides
-
The states with the most guns report the most suicides
-
Guns allow people to kill themselves much more easily
-
Programs that limit access to guns have decreased suicides
-
Since the shooting of Michael Brown, police have killed at least 2,900 people
-
In states with more guns, more police officers are also killed on duty
-
Support for gun ownership has sharply increased since the early ’90s
The NRA is a very strong lobby group that donates a lot of funds to politicians. The chances of significant controls on the ownership and use of firearms in the US seems slim, unless Donald Trump decides to do something worthwhile about it.
One claim that keeps coming up is that the more good people who have guns, the greater the chance of stopping bad people with guns from killing.
It took armed police about 70 minutes to locate and stop the Las Vegas killer.
Things are unlikely to change much if at all.
BBC: Las Vegas shooting: Five reasons US gun control won’t happen
The NRA
The National Rifle Association is one of the most influential interest groups in US politics – not just because of the money it spends on lobbying politicians, but also because of the engagement of its 5 million members.
In 2016 the NRA spent $4m on lobbying and direct contributions to politicians as well as more than $50m on political advocacy, including an estimated $30m to help elect Donald Trump president.
Gerrymandering
Most recent attempts to pass new federal laws regulating firearms are over before they ever really begin, stymied in the US House of Representatives, which has been in Republican hands since 2011.
Due to the way the lines of House congressional districts are drawn, many by Republican-controlled state legislatures, there are more “safe” seats for Republicans than there are for Democrats.
In these congressional districts, the politicians are more responsive to their primary voters, who tend to be motivated by hot-button issues like gun rights. The price for crossing these voters is much higher than alienating those who, while perhaps more in favour of gun control, do not vote in Republican primaries.
The filibuster
If a gun-control bill were to make it out of the House of Representatives, it would still face a challenge in the Senate, where the rural-urban divide plays itself out on the state level, as well. States dominated by big-city voters, such as New York, Massachusetts or California, are outnumbered by rural and Southern states with pro-gun sentiments.
The rules of the Senate can also thwart efforts to enact more stringent firearm regulation, thanks to the “filibuster” – a procedural hurdle that means most major pieces of legislation need the backing of 60 out of 100 senators to pass, rather than a simple 51-vote majority.
The courts
With Congress more interested in rolling back existing firearm regulations than implementing new ones, left-leaning US states have taken a greater role in implementing gun-control measures.
After the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, 21 states passed new gun laws, including imposing assault weapons bans in Connecticut, Maryland and New York.
Some of the laws have run up against another barrier, however – the US judicial system. In recent years the Supreme Court has twice ruled that the right to own personal weapons such as handguns is enshrined in the constitution.
Could it change? Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch has made it clear he views Second Amendment rights broadly. The president is filling out the ranks of the lower courts with pro-gun-rights judges. If anything, the judiciary is moving to the right on this issue.
The enthusiasm gap
Perhaps the single biggest obstacle to new gun-control laws at the national level is that opponents tend to hold fiercely to their beliefs, while support for new regulation tends to ebb and flow around each new instance of violence.
The NRA’s strategy, and that of pro-gun politicians, is to wait out the storm – to delay legislative efforts until attention turns elsewhere and the outcry fades.
Pro-gun politicians offer their thoughts and prayers, observe moments of silence and order flags flown half-staff. Then, in the quiet, legislative efforts are deferred and ultimately derailed.
God is probably nearly as influential as the NRA in the US.
Fox News: Lee Brice performed at Las Vegas shooting venue: ‘I believe God has a plan’
“I have faith that God has a plan and that he will prevail. That this kind of a terrorism, which I believe that it is. What kind of terrorism it is, I don’t care. It’s just a fact that somebody is trying to make a point to scare people, country music fans, innocent people to stop doing what they want to do.”
President Donald Trump delivered a statement before the nation on Monday, expressing horror over the Las Vegas shooting on Sunday that claimed more than 50 lives and left hundreds injured.
The commander-in-chief prayed for healing for the victims, their families and the nation at large. He also expressed sadness, shock and grief over the tragic events, saying that the shooter — whom police identified as Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old male from Mequite, Nevada — “brutally murdered more than 50 people and wounded hundreds more.”
In addition to praising first responders for their quick response — one that he said was “miraculous” in nature — Trump repeatedly invoked God and faith throughout the short address.
“We cannot fathom their pain, we cannot imagine their loss. To the families of the victims, we are praying for you and we … ask God to help see you through this very dark period. Scripture teaches us the Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
“In times such of these, I know we are searching for some kind of meaning in the chaos, some kind of light in the darkness. The answers don’t come easy.”
Your NZ 
Patzcuaro
/ 5th October 2017Great cartoon, sums the issue up neatly, but can’t see Trump trying to drain that particular swamp as it put $30m into either attacking Clinton or supporting him.
George
/ 5th October 2017Its seems to be a mental health problem.
The US has been armed to the teeth since inception and every shooting just frightens the population into buying more weapons to defend themselves..
And most of the population doesn’t have the training to adequately perform that task
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017I don’t blame the singer for leaving the stage, he’d have been a fool not to-what would it have achieved if he hadn’t ? It seems that the order to do so came through his earpiece…and with his children and pregnant wife backstage, he would have been an idiot to stay and be a target.
Someone said today that she could tell that it wasn’t fireworks…but they sounded like them to me, especially with the other noises. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that it was anything else, I’d have to say, whereas a series of single bangs would be more obviously a gun. And at an outdoor concert, nobody would be surprised to have fireworks unless it was an opera or classical concert.
I have heard real cannons at an outdoor concert where they played the 1812 Overture. Blanks were used, of course !!!
David
/ 5th October 2017Mass shootings make up 0.3% of use murders from firearms, yet occupy almost all of the news and debate on gun control. I wonder why……
Blazer
/ 5th October 2017where are your stats from and do they include military conflict?
David
/ 5th October 2017FBI crime stats, and no they do not include military conflict. It’s a simple thing, Around 30 people a day are murdered by firearms per day in the US. These murders attract almost no attention, news, or even comment compared to events such as Las Vegas. If anyone is serious about reducing the US murder rate, the focus would be on this daily violence, as this is where 99.7% of Americans get murdered, almost always with a handgun.
Blazer
/ 5th October 2017so the muslim factor hardly registers…yes.
Corky
/ 5th October 2017Why should it?. Europe first, then America. I guess only Jihadys with a death wish take on America…too many guns.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017If anyone is serious about reducing the US murder rate, the focus would be on this daily violence, as this is where 99.7% of Americans get murdered, almost always with a handgun.
You seem to be making an unexpected argument here. Are you suggesting banning hand guns is the answer? (It probably is, by the way. If it’s a general ban on all guns, rifles etc in private ownership in the US – except maybe for registered hunters, farmers, people with a genuine need to use them for other than murdering other people or theoretically protecting themselves & their families if any from being being shot by other people by shooting them first. It worked in Australia.)
Your point about all the daily murders in the US attracting no attention by media is totally spurious, David. My bet is that you will find they are talked mentioned frequently, in newspapers, police stats, everytime another particularly horrific one crops up, or a politician shoots himself or whatever. But they are hardly likely to attract constant national media attention for the same reason they don’t in any country where gun murders are so commonplace they’re sadly just not news, and in any case no doubt right wing media, for example, has a lot of gun nuts who would rsther not talk about it.
Why do seem to think Americans need to own all these fking guns?
David
/ 5th October 2017“You seem to be making an unexpected argument here. Are you suggesting banning hand guns is the answer?”
3% of murders in the US are committed with a legal weapon.
“in any case no doubt right wing media, for example, has a lot of gun nuts who would rsther not talk about it.”
I doubt this very much, the vast majority of gun murders in the US would be exactly what right wing gun nuts want to talk about.
“Why do seem to think Americans need to own all these fking guns?”
See sentence above.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017How many murders do you think would be committed with illegal weapons if private gun ownership was prohibited (except as I identified – above) & all these Rambo-money-sucking-gun-freak gun shops & gun fairs were closed down, & police were able to arrest anybody without a permit found in possession a gun, or more guns or guns of a different type than they were permitted to own if they were a limited registered owner?
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017I doubt this very much, the vast majority of gun murders in the US would be exactly what right wing gun nuts want to talk about.
“Why do seem to think Americans need to own all these fking guns?”
That doesn’t actually answer my question David. I wanted you to be very specific & spell it out for me – so I know exactly where your head is at on this.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017See sentence above.
Sorry – that bit should been in the above too. That’s the bit that doesn’t answer my question.
David
/ 5th October 2017“How many murders do you think would be committed if private gun ownership was prohibited…..”
Roughly the same number as currently committed now, give or take a small margin of error and the existing downward trend. There would be a lot of police shootings in the process as well…
David
/ 5th October 2017“That doesn’t actually answer my question David. I wanted you to be very specific & spell it out for me – so I know exactly where your head is at on this.”
Your asking me to speculate on the minds of millions of Americans.
For me, I’m quite happy with the liberty argument for gun ownership, the only thing being that I wished the rest of the Constitution was as strongly defended as the 2nd.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017Your last paragraph – So, you think that Americans need guns to protect themselves from an oppressive government?
David
/ 5th October 2017” So, you think that Americans need guns to protect themselves from an oppressive government?”
No, that is something I have not said. I believe in the Constitution, under which the Government does not have the right to impinge on people owning firearms. If the Constitution is in force, there is no risk of an oppressive government.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017Why shouldn’t the government have the right to impinge upon people owning firearms? Especially & including people who aren’t fit to or who are too dangerous to be allowed to?
David
/ 5th October 2017Because it’s at the heart of why the US Constitution exists. The state is the servant of the people, not the other way around. To misunderstand this is to completely misunderstand the USA.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017So your argument now embraces the principle that even people considered too incompetent or too dangerous to be permitted to own guns by any other sensible people & governments else should be allowed to by the US Government because of their Constitution? That is where you seem to have now ended up. Is this correct?
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017* else = elsewhere – soz.
David
/ 5th October 2017“That is where you seem to have now ended up. Is this correct?”
No, not at all, how on earth have you managed to get there?
This is covered by the 4th amendment, due process etc. It really helps if you have actually read & understood the Constitution when discussing it.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017“No, not at all, how on earth have you managed to get there?,”
Because I asked you:
Why shouldn’t the government have the right to impinge upon people owning firearms? Especially & including people who aren’t fit to or who are too dangerous to be allowed to?
And you replied:
Because it’s at the heart of why the US Constitution exists. The state is the servant of the people, not the other way around. Which implied what I then asked you.
“This is covered by the 4th amendment, due process etc. It really helps if you have actually read & understood the Constitution when discussing it.”
I will later, I’m busy with a project outside at the moment but just had to come in becoz ma was on the blower & gets shirty if I don’t answer after the 4th ansaphone message. In a nutshell, what does it say – and does it establish the principle that the US government can regulate gun ownership?
David
/ 5th October 2017Just to save you some time, I did actually mention it;
Due Process.
It’s not a difficult document, nor is it long, it’s really worth a read.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017Ok. I’ll have a read. My fundamental belief though is that the original purpose for the 2nd Amendment is long gone, there is nothing to stop that Amendment being brought up to date, & the only real reason so many Americans own guns & invent reasons why they shoukd be allowed to do so is that American have been almost uniquely for a democracy conditioned to be particularly susceptible to manipulation & they are constantly being manipulated into buying them by various “patriotic” & fear-generating strategies, of which Amendment 2 is only one, by arms manufacturers & their associated sales & political cronies.
David
/ 5th October 2017“….he only real reason so many Americans own guns & invent reasons why they shoukd be allowed to do so is that American have been almost uniquely for a democracy conditioned to be particularly susceptible to manipulation….”
A rather fundamental point, the US Constitution means that Americans do not need a reason to own guns. They are free to do so if they wish.
That is the original purpose of the 2nd. If you think that is long gone, the world has lost something important.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017A rather fundamental point, the US Constitution means that Americans do not need a reason to own guns. They are free to do so if they wish.
A further rather fundamental point – as a result, the country is awash with legal & illegal guns, & the fkrs have an extraordinarily high gun crime rate.
David
/ 6th October 2017“A further rather fundamental point – as a result, the country is awash with legal & illegal guns, & the fkrs have an extraordinarily high gun crime rate.”
Yes, and all the evidence is that Americans are prepared to accept this as the price of that freedom.
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017Sad though. Isn’t it? Just so they can live their Rambo & American Sniper fantasies. And we all know how he exited the NRA.
Why else in heaven’s name – really – would people want to roam around Las Vegas open-carrying AR15s, as some apparently do, according to an Aljaz tv report 2 days ago?
I certainly accept that guns guns guns is how America is going to be. It’s a chicken & egg situation. People there will always feel they need guns to protect themselves from other people with guns or knives or nothing but their bare hands when they break in to steal their tvs etc. And the gun lobbies & massacres & gun crime will continue to stoke up their fears.
Patzcuaro
/ 5th October 2017A mass shooting is basically a terrorist attack perpetrated by a citizen rather than a terrorist organization. It is random event committed by someone with grunge against society.
David
/ 5th October 2017Effectively, yes it’s a terror attack.
phantom snowflake
/ 5th October 2017America’s deadliest mass shooting was…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
David
/ 5th October 2017Gettysburg?
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017There were guns on both sides at Wounded Knee, whereas the victims of modern mass shootings are defenseless and taken by surprise. Not that I think that what happened at Wounded Knee was all right, I don’t, but it was an armed conflict.
duperez
/ 5th October 2017Part 1 of an oldie:
Trevors_elbow
/ 5th October 2017What does God have to do with it? Humans have free will… They choose. God judges. Thats the theory…….You choose if you believe it or not
Ban guns and people will use hammers, knives, baseball bats etc…..
Mass shootings would be prevented so the carnage from big events would decline… but if most murders in the States are 1 on 1 then the death rate might not drop as much as some think…. a bullet or a knife to the heart have the same result.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017Yes, but this man would be unlikely to be
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017Damn, it suddenly cut out.
One would be unlikely to be able to kill 59 people and seriously injure 500+ others with a knife. Even in a domestic murder, the others wouldn’t wait to be stabbed to death.
David
/ 5th October 2017No, a knife is not going to be able to do anything anywhere near this scale, however he did own two aircraft that could have.
The truck attack in Nice killed 86 and injured 458.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017Yes, but that was a terrorist attack, this wasn’t.
People have driven cars into crowds in Australia and the US-and they were not Muslim terrorists, but the people were just as dead.
The Nice parade was commemorating the Reign of Terror (its actual name) that killed ??? innocent people-beginning with all the poor sods in the Bastille who starved to death because nobody could free them from their cells.
I would think that someone would have their work cut out to fly a plane down a city street.
David
/ 5th October 2017“Yes, but that was a terrorist attack, this wasn’t.”
Struggling to see how that makes any effective difference. This guy’s motive is still unknown, and it’s possible it will never be known.
“I would think that someone would have their work cut out to fly a plane down a city street.”
Not really, it’s not a challenge to plow one into a crowd of 22,000
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017If you can’t tell the difference between a terrorist attack and a nutcase or sadist doing a massacre, you must be politically naive.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017In a street ?
Plow ? Plough is the usual spelling of that word, except in the US..
The difference is that the US laws allow any nutcase to buy arms and carry them. One expects terrorists to commit terrorist acts, one doesn’t expect a fellow citizen to open fire on a crowd. The people are just as dead, but while to some extent terrorists can be identified and watched, nutters with guns that they have bought legally can’t be.
It was NOT a good look for the President’s campaign to be funded by the NRA; it will make it very difficult for him to go against them-and fair enough, he’s in their debt. The damned fool.
David
/ 5th October 2017“In a street ?”
Technically, the crowd was not in a street.
“Plow ? Plough is the usual spelling of that word, except in the US”
In France, it’s spelled ‘charrue’, so I don’t think you are entirely correct on this one.
“The difference is that the US laws allow any nutcase to buy arms and carry them. ”
US laws, very specifically, do not allow this.
“It was NOT a good look for the President’s campaign to be funded by the NRA; it will make it very difficult for him to go against them-and fair enough, he’s in their debt”
Why would he go against them? Obama didn’t.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017Charrue is the French WORD for plough, it’s not pronounced the same-as should be obvious. Charrue spells…charrue, just as maison spells maison and is not pronounced house, and chien is not pronounced dog. The charrue argument is a specious one.
US laws allow people to buy guns unchecked, to the best of my knowledge. And for some bizarre reason, even where automatic weapons are not allowed, an attachment to make a semi-automatic into an automatic for all intents in purposes is legal.
Trump took $30,000,000 from the NRA and then said that as they had come through for him, he would do the same for them.
David
/ 5th October 2017“The charrue argument is a specious one.”
Maybe, but it did make me laugh…
“US laws allow people to buy guns unchecked, to the best of my knowledge.”
Not true. Background checks are required. There is no evidence that Paddock was in any way a nutcase, if anything the opposite is true, it is without a doubt the most exceptionally well planned mass murder in US history.
Kitty Catkin
/ 7th October 2017It’s still a specious argument, as these are two words that nobody could read or pronounce in the same way.
I said ‘to the best of my knowledge.’ I have heard that people can buy them at gun fairs in some places.
Kitty Catkin
/ 7th October 2017I would suggest that you google US gun laws; I was right. Many states have no restrictions.
Patzcuaro
/ 6th October 2017This was a terrorist attack just not committed by a Muslim. Why did Paddock do what he did if not to terrorise. It was not spur of the moment this was a premeditated attack on innocent people – that is a terrorist attack.
Kitty Catkin
/ 7th October 2017That is hair splitting. You must know that terrorism has a specific meaning, one that is understood by everyone-that of organised violence, usually against a government*.
If any terrifying act is terrorism, it makes the term meaningless.
It’s not just Muslims (and it’s a tiny % of Muslims) who are terrorists. The term was around long before ISIS was.
*Oxford Dictionary. And the word terrorism, in the sense of reigning by terror, was current in 1877-my 1893 version of the 1877 Annandales’ Dictionary has it.
Trevors_elbow
/ 5th October 2017What does God have to do with it? Humans have free will… They choose. God judges. Thats the theory…….You choose if you believe it or not
Ban guns and people will use hammers, knives, baseball bats etc…..
Mass shootings would be prevented so the carnage from big events would decline… but if most murders in the States are 1 on 1 then the death rate might not drop as much as some think…. a bullet or a knife to the heart have the same result.
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017Your last paragraph – why shouldn’t they give it a try – and find out?
High Flying Duck
/ 5th October 2017That’s the bit missing in the Daily Show video from Duperez. Gun violence declined significantly in Australia, but did overall crime also drop, or was the drop in gun violence offset by other crime?
High Flying Duck
/ 5th October 2017I should add that no matter what the answer is to that question, the fact that “mass shootings” were stopped is probably reason enough for the tightening of rules,
I was going to add it would be hard to replicate that kind of violence by other easily attainable means, but ISIS is giving lie to that statement in Europe with innovative bomb, machete and bus mass murders…
Gezza
/ 5th October 2017True but they are a new and additional lethal category of killer, not an excuse for not doing anything about the ones we already had before they decided we all need to be Muslims or dead.
Kitty Catkin
/ 5th October 2017Bombs and machetes as weapons of mass killing are hardly new innovations, I fear. Look at Africa and the Mau Maus. Look at the IRA. Machetes have limitations, of course, but if a group of people are caught by surprise and/or trapped, a machete or a few machetes could kill a lot of people in the right (wrong) hands.
Raising ISIS is a red herring. The mass shootings in the US are done by Americans to Americans.
I cannot understand why in some places fully automatic guns are illegal but fittings to create these from semi-automatics aren’t. It makes no sense. It’s as if one couldn’t buy arsenic but could buy a product that would create it when it was added to sugar (for argument’s sake)
I am also finding it hard to understand how the gun in Las Vegas killed people at that distance. Let’s say that the ceilings in the rooms are 3m high, and we know that in the US the ground floor is called the first floor…that means that he was firing from 93 m up (at least) and that’s not allowing for the extra distance to where the victims were.
Patzcuaro
/ 6th October 2017If you call it a “mass shooting” that seems to legitimise the action, it was a terrorist attack.
Pete George
/ 5th October 2017Patzcuaro
/ 7th October 2017And the stupid
Conspiratoor
/ 6th October 2017I grew up in an environment where guns and killing for pleasure and food were considered normal. I look forward to instilling a love of the hunt into my grandsons. But i’m damned if I can come to terms with the motivation behind a bump stock
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017I’m assuming you mean you grew up in an environment where hunting for pleasure and food were normal. To my mind, killing for pleasure means something different.
Conspiratoor
/ 6th October 2017“The big beast stood like an uncouth statue, his hide black in the sunlight; he seemed what he was, a monster surviving over from the world’s past, from the days when the beasts of the prime ran riot in their strength, before man grew so cunning of brain and hand as to master them.”
What happened next?
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017Dunno c. Is there a page missing? 😳
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017I’m calling that another victory – you realise? 😎
Conspiratoor
/ 6th October 2017I realise youre calling that a victory G. Hows the single malt holding out
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017Surrendered at 7pm.
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017Winning! 💪🏼
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017(except went in wrong place 😠 !)
Patzcuaro
/ 6th October 2017A saw a gun shop owner being interview and he said if the government has guns then he must have guns to ensure the government was accountable. But the government has nuclear weapons, the logical conclusion of that agreement is that he then must have a nuclear weapon.
Corky
/ 6th October 2017No, not really. But you have understood the jist of the gun shop owners mentality. Tell me, what have you got to stop the government should it go rogue…you know ,like Fiji…just up the road. That vacum cleaner hose will only do so much damage.
Patzcuaro
/ 6th October 2017Well if he has a gun and the government has a nuclear weapon how is he going to hold the government to account.
The gun shop owners mentality harks back to an age in Europe when the individual was powerless, times have moved on we have democracies rather than kings and queens,
Corky
/ 6th October 2017Well, you are welcome to that view. However, I always go by human nature. And when some fugger comes around to my place and starts telling me how its going to be, I want the right to shoot him.
Gezza
/ 6th October 2017Why not just be satsfied with the right to smack him up, like when you decked that little philippino dwarf who pushed in front of you at MacDonalds (or whatever it was) that you posted about here once?
Patzcuaro
/ 7th October 2017New York Times on “The Cancer in the Constitution”
Corky
/ 7th October 2017The problem with the constitution is it’s continually usurped by executive orders. However, the second amendment is rock solid ( so far).
The irony here is the Second Amendment allows Americans to protect themselves from presidential executive orders once they started bordering on dictatorship.
Don’t know what liberals will be using for protection? Maybe pink heart shaped placards?
Yeah, good luck with that. I don’t think gun owners should waste their ammo protecting these idiots. But they will no doubt.
Gezza
/ 7th October 2017Lotsa US Liberals like guns too, Corky. ” Liberals” aren’t all cardboard cutouts. They all have their own individual differences & personalities. Just like not all righties are exactly like you – in fact I don’t think you are a “rightie” in the sense you seem to me probably closer to being alt right.
Half that country’s been conned & conditioned for decades into thinking guns are toys, necessary, or an extension of their gonads.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 7th October 2017America is full of people who love their country and hate their government. So they will vote to keep up heir guns.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 7th October 2017Damn. Keep their guns.
Gezza
/ 7th October 2017Probably correct either way, Sir Alan. I expect a lot of them are so enamoured of their muskets, semi-automatics, rocket launchers & suchlike that they bequeath them to their surviving family members after their expiry from natural causes or gun accidents, shootouts etc.
Sir Gerald.
Patzcuaro
/ 7th October 2017When the constitution was written:
“At the time, the typical firearms were single-loading muskets and flintlock pistols. At most, a shooter could fire off three rounds per minute, at a maximum accuracy range of about 50 yards.”
Now:
“Spraying at people below him, Paddock unleashed about 90 rounds per 10 seconds and could mow down his targets — human beings — almost a quarter-mile away. He was able to convert semiautomatic AR-15s into something very close to machine guns.”
That is a huge gap in fire power. When the constitution was written it was realistic to rise up against the government. I don’t think that that is realistic now without the armed forces going over to the rebellion.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 7th October 2017Really? Think how long it took to deal to ISIS in the cities it held. A major insurrection in the US would be impossible for their armed forces to deal with both physically and politically.