The Right to Bear Arms...?

[ikyrian]

Right to Bear Arms: Daily Chart

Not having rigorous gun control isn't working in the US. People argue for it and against it, and what have you, but still, we see a lot of gun violence here. Why can't we give toughening our gun control laws a try? Seriously.

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Also, date didn't pan out - we had fun, but just didn't really connect. Besides, the man had shrimp scampi after I had already told him I was allergic. 9_9 Uh, yeah, no, dude. Fail.

Comments

[karweenie.livejournal.com]

Gun control frustrates me. I'm all for it, and I don't understand why people would rather protect the ability to blow each other away than the safety of their children. Houses with guns have a much higher rate of suicide. Houses with guns have a much higher rate of accidental death or maiming among children. Houses with guns enabled Columbine and all its copies.

Why is that sacred?

He WHAT?! I'm glad you're not dating someone who would take your health so cavalierly!

[taqwa.livejournal.com]

Just for sake of argument, my dad had two gun cases full of rifles when I was growing up. The cases were always locked and the ammunition placed somewhere else where neither I nor my siblings could find it.

That said, we never even touched the cases, or tried to find the ammo. Why? Because my father educated us about gun use and hammered home the importance of safety. I've only ever fired a BB gun, but I was taught from an early age how to handle firearms correctly. We learned quickly that guns aren't toys.

I would say that gun households which don't properly educate their children or practice appropriate safety methods are the households we should worry about. I'm not arguing against proper gun control regulation, but I think the examples you're using here are more failures of parenting than the presence of the guns themselves.

[karweenie.livejournal.com]

Failures of parenting they certainly are. And kudos to your Dad. If kids were supervised, or if their parents had half a clue (I'm thinking especially of the Klebold and Harris households), so many of those suicides, deaths or massacres couldn't have happened.

Out of curiosity, why did your father keep guns? Was he a hunter?

Completely tangential: The Suicide Factsheet says 56% of all male suicides are committed with firearms, and that men make up 79% of all suicides. Holy shit!

[ikyrian.livejournal.com]

Both of the guys I knew who committed suicide were by shooting. :( I can't help but think if they hadn't had immediate access to them, they wouldn't have done it.

And yeah, though much is made about female suicides, the sad fact is men are more likely to do it.

[karweenie.livejournal.com]

What really struck me about those stats was that older white men are knocking themselves off left and right. What is it about being the most privileged part of our society that irritates these men?

[taqwa.livejournal.com]

Yeah. My dad doesn't hunt nearly as often as he used to, but he did regularly when I was younger. We occasionally would eat venison or bear that my dad brought home.

[ikyrian.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of this. Like most things that can kill us, education is key. But I do think we need to have stricter gun control laws. We have to take classes to drive a car, why can't we do the same for firearms?

[karweenie.livejournal.com]

Because it's in the Constitution11!!!11

[taqwa.livejournal.com]

I'm down with this.