I'm very new to politics. I know democrats are in favor of additional gun control. I know republicans reject many if not all of the democrat's proposals for additional gun control. But what I don't know is what the republican's plan of action is to deal with murder massacres in America from gun violence. Specifically, do republicans believe in any form whatsoever of additional gun control, or should all gun control laws be left as is and not tampered with. What then is the republicans main plan for reducing gun murder massacres in America?
While technically a republican I consider myself a Constitutional Conservative. Imo, guns should be treated no differently than hammers and knives. Guns are a tool. Their usefulness for protection from criminals and governments far exceed the unintended deaths from accidents and criminal actions. Attempting to stop all deaths would have us living as Borg. Freedom and liberty come with imperfections in an imperfect world. If you are worried about being a victim of a criminal using a gun, arm yourself. You are far more likely to die of other means, so why bother addressing the hyperbole of gun violence?
Clap, Clap, Clap.... "not having a plan" for a problem doesn't automatically make your oppositions "plan" a go......sometime the cure is worse than the illness (Like OBAMACARE)
Let me ask you a question, if current laws do not stop criminals now, if current laws are not enforced at the federal level, if current gun control laws only affect law abiding citizens, why should we pro gun citizens (notice I didn't use republicans because many of my democrat friends are pro gun) want additional ineffective laws? My plan for reducing mass murders is for more people in these mass shooting areas to have the means to stop the criminal/mentally unstable murderer. Notice how the white house is surrounded by a sea of guns, seen any mass murders there? If it's good for the politicians it should be good for our children. Matter of fact I would be willing to contribute more in taxes to place armed security in areas where our most precious assets go unprotected everyday.
Ok. So firstly you expressed lack of hope that gun control laws accomplish anything towards preventing gun violence. But I've heard it said that statistics show that states with more gun control laws actually have less gun violence. Is this statistic wrong? Then you said your plan of action was to see that more people get guns to protect themselves. Does this mean that in your ideal world everyone would carry a gun so that everyone could be protected from other people carrying a gun? It just sounds a little odd to me.
No not lack of hope, I'd say lack of evidence was more reflective. Demographics play a lot into that but basically I would say yes you are wrong. Not really, we have lots of people carrying guns that no one needs to have a gun to protect themselves from, My Ideal which I thought was clear was that the law abiding carry guns to protect themselves and the undefended from actual bad people. In the end it's not odd at all, it works quite well for most of those who carry guns currently.
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/forum/topics/white-house-rejects-petition-calling-for-gun-free-zone-around-oba?xg_source=activity&id=4301673%3ATopic%3A1769245&page=2
So are you of the stance that gun control laws will hamper our ability to protect ourselves, as in good people who need guns will not be able to get them if gun control laws are put in place? Are you also of the stance that gun control laws will do nothing to prevent these unintended gun related deaths (particularly criminal)? I see that you value the freedom of guns. Do gun control laws necessarily prevent freedom of guns, or can they simply work to make sure these guns don't fall into the wrong hands?
Disclaimer: I'm not a republican. I don't believe in gun restrictions for the reasons mentioned by other commenters already. I would like to see more attention brought to the commonalities of the mass murderers. My plan would include stripping the pharmaceutical companies of their power in government. Research the anti-psychotic drugs that most of these people (including children) were on, or withdrawing from, when they committed these violent acts. I also think mental health care shouldn't be as under-funded as it is. Clearly an individual's mental health has the ability to impact a community in devastating ways.
Yes, I value freedom and the challenges that come with it. Gun laws, for the most part, are tyranny creep. It would be better to have harsher punishments for criminals who use them than make laws that infringe the gun rights of the masses.
The only form of gun control I believe in is the harsh punishment of those who use guns to harm others. Nothing suggested by the democrats recently would have stopped any of the recent mass shootings. - - - Updated - - - One name that shows that stat to be untrue: Chicago.
I'm not a republican, but I'll offer some sober perspective: FBI UCR data shows that, for decades, violent crime to include so-called "gun-crime" has been on the rapid decrease. At the same time, there are more guns and CCP gun owners every day, and those numbers have been on the rise forever. Faced with these irrefutable facts that are proven by government data sources, what conclusions can we come to? 1) More guns and gun owners in our society does NOT lead to more violent crime. 2) From a violent crime perspective, the US is a much safer place than it has ever been. 3) And it continues to become safer as time goes on. 4) Since it can be easily shown that violent crimes have been THWARTED by good-guy gun owners, they logically make OUR society a safer place. The ONLY way to have prevented any of the mass violence incidents, would have been to identify the shooter's mental illness prior to the incident, and lock him away. But, because we value liberty above all else, and we think that stripping one of his liberty must involve due process, we cannot just say "this guy MIGHT be a threat sometime in the future" and use that to strip people of their liberty and incarcerate them. Attempting to craft legislation that is supposed to limit the AVAILABILITY of guns to the lawless, by restricting or impeding the law abiding's ability to keep and bear them is a fools game, because the lawless do not abide by laws that try to impede their lawless goals. There is no law that prevents people from doing bad things, laws only define the punishments for having done them. For most people, the threat of punishment is a deterrent, but the bad guys don't really care about that. There are some half billion guns at large in our society, and the bad guys already have them. Writing legislation that infringes legal owners ability to keep and bear arms does nothing to affect the bad guys.
My plan is to do nothing. Why? We average 17 people killed over the last 10 years to mass murder. Its a drop in the buckets. A statistical bloop on the radar so to speak. What we need to focus on is raising children correctly and allowing failure to be a teaching point. We have kids coming out now who don't know how to handle failure and rejection. And its a damn shame. We also need to focus on poverty. People with jobs and homes, and assets have things to lose. They are less likely to turn to drugs and violence. Give people the opportunity to excel and they can raise themselves out of the muck. I am not talking about unfettered government assistance. I am talk about public works that serve a purpose and help build infrastructure. A great example of that is the city of Detroit right now. Its on the rebound and what started slowly is starting to pick up steam.
The republican stance on mass murders is to be realistic. There has not been one law proposed that would have stopped any of the recent mass shootings. Not one. These firearms were obtained legally. You can't keep firearms out of the hands of those that are legally allowed by law to own them. We are not about to pass laws just to say we did "something" even though we know they would not impact these shootings in the least. These "something" laws would only impact law abiding citizens. Why would anyone want to pass a "something" law that in effect would do "nothing". That's just political grandstanding that has nothing to do with fixing the problem. If we were to pass laws that don't impact the problem, when the next mass shooting occurs, people will be shouting for more gun laws saying we didn't go far enough. Then we are right back where we started. More ineffective legislation will be proposed, law abiding citizens constitutional rights will be trampled on, they won't be able to stop the lone crazy shooter, and then they will say we didn't go far enough....... where does it end? They won't be satisfied until American citizens are completely disarmed, which is a fantasy because criminals wont abide, and lawful citizens will be sitting ducks with no way to defend themselves. This is why republicans are seen as not willing to budge on this issue. Can you understand that it would be a never ending cycle if we were to begin to compromise?
The real question is how many more unarmed defenseless Americans do Democrats want murdered, assaulted, raped and robbed? I gather you haven't noticed that everyone murdered in a mass shooting was unarmed and all mass shootings ONLY occur where there is no one present displaying a firearm? Or that there has NEVER been a mass shooting where anyone else was armed - known or unknown to be armed. So... other than creating more free killing zones and making more Americans victims, what do Democrats plan to do? FACTS: 2,500,000 crimes per year are prevented by armed citizens - merely displaying a firearm. 200,000 rapes are prevented each year the same way. Private citizens prevent and stop more crimes than police. Police kill more innocent people over 500% more often than do armed citizens. Nearly all victims of murder, rape, assault and robbery are unarmed. Mass shootings have only occurred where everyone is defenseless. Cities with the strictest gun laws have the most murders, assaults and crimes. Cities with the most armed citizens have the lowest crime rates. I'm guessing you'll just ignore the overall facts and instead look for instances to justify you being disarmed and and it a criminal offense for you being unable to defend yourself or anyone else. Is that correct? Want to know where crime is the lowest? Where there is open carry. That is the solution. Not more gun control. More good people who are known to be armed. Why? Because it is proven to work.
I understand why rich democrats and rich media talking heads - who live in gun-protected communities and have armed security for themselves in public - want everyone else to be unarmed and defenseless. Why would they care how many more millions of victims of violence there are among the peasants? The curious question is why do ordinary Democrats who don't live in security housing with personal armed security agree and join in demanding that it be made a criminal offense for them to be able to defend their family and themselves? "PLEASE PASS LAWS SO EVERY CRIMINAL IS GUARANTEED MY FAMILY AND I ARE DEFENSELESS AGAINST MURDER, RAPE AND ASSAULT! PLEASE SEND ME TO PRISON IF I EVEN TRY!'' That level of irrationality and BEGGING to be defense sheep trapped in a pen hoping somehow it is other sheep's throat that is slit is mindboggling to me. BEGGING to be forced under threat of imprisonment to being defenseless pesants.
Thanks for the replies everyone. I truly don't know what democrats want, I can only speak for myself. What I want is effective gun control laws that inhibit the "bad" people from getting guns but do not inhibit the "good" people from getting guns. After reading all the responses, I don't know if this is possible. I am not against a citizen's right to bear arms. I have rarely seen a civilian carrying a gun, but I do hold it as his/her right. I admit that although I'm very inexperienced in politics, my natural inclination is to lean towards the democratic theory, and I bet it showed in my responses. In my mind, it makes sense that more gun control will prevent more gun crimes. But I see now that this may not be the case. After looking at statistics on homicide rate from this site: http://www.factcheck.org/2015/10/gun-laws-deaths-and-crimes/, there was no correlation between more gun control and less homicides. States with the lowest and highest homicide rates both had low gun control scores. So ultimately I am at a loss in this particular subject over which side to favor: democrats or republicans. I will have to see specifically what each candidate proposes as a method to dealing with gun violence.
Thanks for being open to listening and being objective about this issue. Most on this forum have make up their minds and have no intention of trying objectivity. I can tell you what the candidates will propose on this issue because it will be just more of the same. Republicans will not introduce legislation. We are not interested in getting into the slippery slope debate. Democrats will try to convince you that we need expanded background checks, and bans on what they will refer to as "assault weapons", but we all know they only cosmetically appear to be military rifles, they don't function like military rifles. The expanded background check argument is really an effort to create a gun registration database. They all know that transfers between private parties can not be tracked and background checks cannot be enforced without a database of registered guns. There are already background checks in place for all new guns sales from licensed firearm dealers. Criminals and people that are not allowed by law to posses guns won't be registering them, so again, its a useless political tactic.
