Mass shooting at Oregon college: 15+ dead...

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I think you're right on this one, my experience on WP over the years has included a lot of Brits and Aussies in particular who seem to think that life in America is some sort of post-apocalyptic horror show rather than the rather pedestrian experience it actually is, and cannot be dissuaded from this view. As to what the average American knows about the rest of the world, I put most of that down to knowledge prioritization, as a lot of that info just isn't relevant to day to day life, and if it suddenly pops up, Google is but a smartphone away.

Dox47
Don't worry about the anti-gun people they are on the fringe. The majority as I said are not anti-gun they just support certain regulations. Talk to them. This is why I don't usually participate in these conversations. It always comes back to "the anti-gun people" or "they're going to take are guns." It's repetitive.

Alex already pointed out the contradiction concerning "assault weapons", which are just modern looking semi-auto rifles that are very seldom used in crime, but the other stuff is questionable at best too, as a negligible number of criminals get their weapons at gun shows, and extended magazines rarely factor into crime. To me, these are just further examples of the anti-gun people being ignorant about guns and refusing to educate themselves, and that's the charitable explanation that assumes they're acting in good faith and not deliberately trying to ease the country into much more restrictive laws.



Ahh, but the devil is in the details, as many of these people, when pressed, will clarify that when they say people have a right to own guns, they mean hunting rifles and such, not pistols or modern rifles or other commonly owned firearms.



And you know this because? You read it somewhere? I have actual firsthand experience with these groups, they're driven by the interests of their members, not some cabal of firearms manufacturers, who incidentally are not exactly rolling in cash. You know how the NRA twists arms? It's not with money, they don't actually spend all that much, but rather with their influence in the gun owning community, influence that extends beyond their membership rolls. Other lobbyists can cajole with money, the NRA uses the massive number of votes it can swing by getting the word out about a candidates pro or anti gun views, which is how politics is supposed to work, right?



You know that quote about those not knowing history being doomed to repeat it? Gun owners know it very well, and we know our history very well too; we're still trying to undo the damage of decades of appeasing the anti-gun people, and that's not a lesson we're going unlearn.



You know what the majority of the people are? Uninformed and prone to flights of emotion, which is why the Founders out certain rights beyond their reach barring incredible amounts of effort, gun rights being one of those things.

You assume I don't talk to those people? I live in Seattle, I used to be one of those people who supported "reasonable" restrictions on firearms, until I actually educated myself on the subject and realized how much of what I knew about guns was wrong. Like I said, most people are completely ignorant on firearms, and most of their ideas about regulating them are complete rubbish when examined critically; what does it matter if they explicitly identify as anti gun or not if their ideas are wrong?

How is being anti-gun on the fringe?
The literature is fairly clear that gun culture is associated with aggression and people who use guns are more likely to be aggressive or violent
http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavio ... -with-guns



On the flip side the gun lobby seem to conveniently ignore the data...

How many gun owners have you actually known?


You ignore ours and we ignore yours.

I am the devil.

Cyberdad
Because abolishing the individual right to own a gun is unrealistic and the majority of the U.S. population support an individual's right to bear arms. I'm only referring to people who want an outright ban on guns. From what I've seen when people call someone "anti-gun" typically they are referring to this group. That's just an opinion though.

And Dox47 just let it go, we're not going to change each others minds. We have a fundamentally different of of the nature of people. So let's just agree to disagree.

Anti-gun people take an incrementalist approach, none of their proposals ever would prevent the tragedies these people work up crocodile tear's for. It's like clockwork every time, Dox should just write a book considering the amount of time he has taken trying to educate people on this subject. You can't give an inch, there is no room to be reasonable or compromise because we already have plenty. If we were true to the actual word and intent of the 2nd amendment, we would have access to all weapons that are in common use meaning everything that the military and police have access too because the entire point was to be able to form militias to overthrow a tyrannical government. I look at our government right now and think they're pretty tyrannical so imagine how they would treat us if we weren't armed to the teeth. I can't imagine there are too many students of history that support gun control.

We didn't 'grow' out of 13 colonies. Our ancestors threw out the English; the English didn't let them go. So we are not like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, etc. We are unique in all the world.

Those other countries pretty much patiently waited to be given their independence.
The 13 colonies basically told King George to stick his crown up his ass and became independent by force of arms.
That general mentality seems to exist to this day and therein lies one of the significant differences between the people of the United States and those of the commonwealth nations.
It is a distinction that I'm rather proud of.

Damn straight!

While it's good that you guys have a healthy pride in the USA,and you do have a lot to be proud of,it's also good to retain a healthy respect for other countries as many of them can claim similar worthy attributes,e.g.
Mexico forcibly ejected the Spanish
Switzerland has never been subjugated by anyone and gave the world the Red Cross and Geneva Convention.

It's funny, as the 13 independent colonies existed as sovereign states until the Constitution signed in 1789. So yes, you literally were formed from noinally independent states unifying - which all kept the socio-politicial norms of the British they rebelled against.

LOL, Zimbabwe fought a *bloody war* of independence against the white imperialists which ran Rhodesia. Also, Ireland fought oh look, another bloody war of independence against British Imperialism and then had ethnic tensions in N. Ireland between the "Irish" left behind in majority-ethnically British areas.

Come off it, mate

We haven't had anyone from Zimbabwe and only one from Ireland whining about OUR gun laws. It's been more Australians, New Zealanders, and a few Canadians. That's what I was talking about, mate.

The right to bear arms is inherited from a bygone era. I'm hoping when Americans start colonies on Mars that guns are banned there at least. Would be rather foolish to accidentally blow a hole in the wall.