General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Mentally ill people.. [View all]brush
(53,767 posts)Last edited Sat Dec 15, 2012, 11:34 AM - Edit history (1)
Guns and mentally ill people being able to get them is why these shooting keep happening. It happens in other countries too (the Norway shooter, for instance. I think it was Norway.) But it happens so much more often here because we have so many more guns around all types of automatic and semi-automatic guns, and handguns. Fucking handguns! Hand guns serve no purpose but to shoot people with. That is what they are designed for. And don't give me the target shooting crap. Target shooting is to make one more proficient at hitting targets, many shaped like human torsos. Duh!
We need to outlaw handguns and automatic weapons for everyone but the police and the military. Shotguns and sporting rifles, ok, but let's get rid of all these killing guns and live like the rest of the civilized world. There were 23 gun deaths in the UK last year because casual gun ownership is not allowed there. There were 31,000 in the US. Let's get a grip. Fuck the NRA. And as far as the 2nd Amendment goes and the "well regulated militia" it describes, we have that in the military, the National Guard and the police local and state for God's sake! We don't need every Tom, Dick and Crazy being able to get automatic weapons and handguns killing guns. The founding fathers were cognizant of and fearful of war with Britain, also of the need for protection from wild animals on the frontier and from Native Americans, who they were stealing land from (I know, it's unfortunate but true.). They had absolutely no concept of automatic weapons and their rates of fire that number in the 100s per minute (Uzis can fire at up to 900 ROUNDS PER MINUTE)
Long guns at that time required required minutes to load. The following is a quote from "Or Rocks, Trees, Rifles, and Militia" by Christopher Geist.
"Then there is the romantic mythology surrounding the American militia, those intrepid citizen-soldiers whose battlefield heroics faced down the finest army in the world. Problem is, as Washington himself knew from the beginning of the conflict, militia was undependable, poorly trained, and generally ineffective on the field of battle. They came armed with civilian weapons ranging from fine rifles to cheap trade muskets to fowling piecesknown today as shotguns. Within each of these categories of arms, there were differences among individual weapons. A unit equipped with almost as many different kinds of arms as soldiers could not load and rapidly fire volleys in unison."
So even George Washington was wary of militia. The 2nd Amendment needs to be struck or revised for our national sanity because we've certainly gone off the deep end with this whole gun worshiping thing. Little kids are getting slaughtered now. It's time.