Yet another mass shooting in the US

Are you concerned? :grin:

Ba da bing, crash! Bang! rim shot.

Sorry, donā€™t mean to be flippant but I have no idea how your statement ties into the idea of reforming gun laws or mass shootings.

Love guns, me

Idiots with guns or idiots with votes are two sides of the same coin ingrained in the constitution

The fifteenth and second amendment shall not be infringed

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Right, none of them shall be though. Itā€™s not a box of chocolates, you donā€™t just pick and choose. Also embedded in our national values is the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and last time I checked, this gun violence is a serious limitation on those things. So some adjustments are in order. Not rigid dogma about an amendment written in the time of muskets.

EDIT: amended constitution to 'our national values".

Not to be nitpicky, but I think ā€œlife liberty and the pursuit of happinessā€ is from the Declaration of Independence?

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No, youā€™re right.

That would be accurate, not nitpicky.

Okay, I am being too nit-picky. They are both foundational documents. The Constitution protects life and liberty. They left out the happiness part lol. I imagine itā€™s too hard to draft laws to protect something as subjective as happiness

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While I respectfully disagree with your assessment of Biden, I do agree that trying to control guns wonā€™t work when in the end only the illegal gun owners will still keep them while stripping away the rights of others to protect themselves. If someone really wants to kill someone, gun or not, they will likely find a way.
In Canada they are trying to take away the ability to own certain guns from long time licensed collectors who are careful and legal while doing little to stop the gangbangers running around with guns.

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This seems like a small price to pay for a national policy that would lessen civilian casualties. You may be right that killers will find a way, but restricting access to weapons that enable them to kill en masse at high speeds is still a logical move. So is making them wait longer to obtain said weapons and more thorough background checks.

Nobody needs an AR-15 to protect themselves, those guns purpose is to mow down a lot of targets in a short time.

They can and will just get it from someone, or hire someone, or use a knife or whatever. I am not concerned if collectors or hunters own an AR15. Do the standard checks and thatā€™s all that can realistically be done. Especially a country like the states where it would take a miracle to actually collect all the guns back. Iā€™ve never owned a gun or wanted to own one, but it is such an engrained part of the culture for so many that itā€™s best to focus on enforcement of criminal activities to a greater extent IMO.

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Knives and pistols are in a whole different category than AR-15s though. They type of weapon makes a big difference. Nobody is gonna do a drive by knifing. Pistols can only do so much damage.

Can ban certain models of weapons and make all guns harder to obtain. National policy is necessary. State by state is dumb for obvious reasons.

Is that a reason not to make some sensible laws to make it harder to get AR-15s though? Culture can change, thereā€™s no reason to accept mass shootings as a part of our culture. This needs to change. ASAP.

Gang members seem to have no issue getting illegal weapons. In the end the legal users that will get shafted, the gangs will still be in business. No laws will stop them. I know itā€™s a divisive topic so Iā€™ll just say my peace and bail the thread :slight_smile:

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Definitely .
The Assault rifle type guns are insane.

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How do you figure?

This has always rang hollow to me - in the u.s.,.illegal weapons generally start off as legal weapons, so it stands to reason that limiting legal weapons would make it harder to get illegal weapons .

Compared to an AR-15? Iā€™m no gun expert, but the latter does a lot more damage more rapidly, no?

Assault rifles pack a huge punch.

So the kill rate is higher.

Semiautomatics can also kill many people too but less stopping power.

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You said a pistol will only do so much damage. The damage it will do is kill you dead. And no, not necessarily more rapidly - Iā€™d wager most pistols sold in the u.s. are semi-auto, just like an ar-15. The damage done depends on the cartridge. A rifle will be more accurate at distance, but most shooters arenā€™t exactly sharp shooters.

The whole ā€œassault weaponā€ thing is kind of comical. A whole lot of people are really categorizing weapons based on looks. AR-15ā€¦ ooooh, scary war weapon.

Mini-14 ranch rifle. Eh. Even though thereā€™s no real differences in capabilities.

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I appreciate the info, and Ill be the first person to tell you I am not well versed in gun specs.

It made me wonder, what makes the AR-15 style rifle the weapon of choice for mass shooters then? I found this as a possible explanation. Please weigh in if you have anything to add or correct: What makes the AR-15 style rifle the weapon of choice for mass shooters? - 60 Minutes - CBS News


Excerpt from article:

"This is a 9 millimeter bullet from a handgun, which we captured in slow motion. The handgun bullet traveled about 800 miles an hour. It sliced nearly straight all the way through the gel.

Now look at the AR-15 round.

Cynthia Bir: See the difference?

Scott Pelley: Yes.

Itā€™s three times faster and struck with more than twice the force. The shockwave of the AR-15 bullet blasted a large cavity in the gel unlike the bullet from the handgun.

Scott Pelley: Wow. Thereā€™s an enormous difference. You can see it right away.

Cynthia Bir: Yeah, exactly. There are fragments in here. Thereā€™s, kind of took a curve and came out. You can see a much larger area in terms of the fractures that are inside.

Now watch from above. On top, the handgun, at bottom, the AR-15.

Scott Pelley: Itā€™s just exploded.

Cynthia Bir: Itā€™s exploded and itā€™s tumbling. So what happens is, this particular round is designed to tumble and break apart.

The 9 mm handgun round has a larger bullet, but this AR-15 round has more gunpowder, accelerating its velocity. Both the round and the rifle were designed in the 1950ā€™s for the military. The result was the M16 for our troops and the AR-15 for civilians.

Cynthia Bir: Thereā€™s going to be a lot more damage to the tissues, both bones, organs, whatever gets kind of even near this bullet path. The bones arenā€™t going to just break, theyā€™re going to shatter. Organs arenā€™t just going to tear or have bruises on them, theyā€™re going to be, parts of them are going to be destroyed.