3 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

KC MO or KC KS? Anybody with a brain stays out of places where they aren't wanted.

Anyone rich enough

To me, it seems that kids wanting to shoot up schools is a bigger problem than guns.

51 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

To me, it seems that kids wanting to shoot up schools is a bigger problem than guns.

...when they have access to guns.

"I agree rights aren't unlimited. The question is where the line is drawn."

I don't think anyone is arguing that constitutional rights are unlimited.

You're right that we don't allow threats, fraud, libel, or incitement under the First Amendment. But that's not the same as saying the government can ban the primary means by which people exercise that right.

We don't respond to misinformation by banning the internet. We don't respond to offensive speech by banning printing presses. We punish misuse while preserving the underlying right.

The same principle applies to the Second Amendment.

The question isn't whether some regulations are constitutional. The question is whether restrictions go so far that they effectively undermine the right itself.

You say the Second Amendment was written for a world of muskets. The First Amendment was written for a world of hand-operated printing presses, yet it still protects communication technologies the founders could never have imagined. Constitutional rights are generally understood to protect modern equivalents of the tools necessary to exercise those rights.

If rights evolve with technology, that cuts both ways.

More importantly, the purpose of the Second Amendment wasn't hunting. It was ensuring that ordinary citizens retained the ability to defend themselves and act as a check against concentrated power. Whether that purpose is still relevant today is a separate debate, but the existence of modern firearms doesn't automatically make the principle obsolete.

So I agree rights have limits. I just don't agree that "technology changed" is, by itself, a sufficient reason to dramatically narrow a constitutional right.

This keeps you on solid ground. It avoids getting dragged into "citizens need tanks to fight the government" arguments and keeps the focus on constitutional principles, which is where his analogy started.

3 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

To me, it seems that kids wanting to shoot up schools is a bigger problem than guns.

Of course it's a bigger problem.

Nobody is arguing that guns create the desire to commit mass murder.

The issue is that deeply troubled, violent or unstable people exist in every developed country. What differs is their access to highly effective means of carrying out that violence.

The UK has mentally ill teenagers. France has mentally ill teenagers. Australia has mentally ill teenagers.

Yet school shootings remain extraordinarily rare in those countries.

So yes, the person is the root cause. But access to firearms has a significant influence on the scale of the outcome.

45 minutes ago, ericthai said:

I don't think anyone is arguing that constitutional rights are unlimited.

You're right that we don't allow threats, fraud, libel, or incitement under the First Amendment. But that's not the same as saying the government can ban the primary means by which people exercise that right.

We don't respond to misinformation by banning the internet. We don't respond to offensive speech by banning printing presses. We punish misuse while preserving the underlying right.

The same principle applies to the Second Amendment.

The question isn't whether some regulations are constitutional. The question is whether restrictions go so far that they effectively undermine the right itself.

You say the Second Amendment was written for a world of muskets. The First Amendment was written for a world of hand-operated printing presses, yet it still protects communication technologies the founders could never have imagined. Constitutional rights are generally understood to protect modern equivalents of the tools necessary to exercise those rights.

If rights evolve with technology, that cuts both ways.

More importantly, the purpose of the Second Amendment wasn't hunting. It was ensuring that ordinary citizens retained the ability to defend themselves and act as a check against concentrated power. Whether that purpose is still relevant today is a separate debate, but the existence of modern firearms doesn't automatically make the principle obsolete.

So I agree rights have limits. I just don't agree that "technology changed" is, by itself, a sufficient reason to dramatically narrow a constitutional right.

This keeps you on solid ground. It avoids getting dragged into "citizens need tanks to fight the government" arguments and keeps the focus on constitutional principles, which is where his analogy started.

I don't think anyone is arguing that "technology changed" is, by itself, sufficient reason to narrow a constitutional right.

The argument is that technology changed, society changed, population density changed, policing changed, and the observable outcomes changed.

The First Amendment is actually a poor analogy because it does not routinely produce tens of thousands of deaths per year. When speech causes direct harm - threats, fraud, libel, incitement - we regulate the misuse. We don't simply shrug and say "it's a right".

Likewise, nobody is proposing abolishing the Second Amendment because technology advanced. The discussion is whether a right written in 1791 should be interpreted without regard to the consequences it produces in 2026.

And this is where the argument often becomes circular.

- The Second Amendment exists because it exists.

- The right should remain unchanged because it's a right.

- The outcomes don't matter because it's a right.

At some point constitutional principles have to be weighed against real-world results, otherwise no amendment could ever be questioned, modified or reinterpreted.

The uncomfortable reality is that every other developed democracy has access to the same modern technology, the same internet, the same social media, the same mental health challenges and the same human failings.

What they generally don't have is America's firearm mortality rate.

That's why the outcomes keep coming back into the discussion. Not because rights don't matter, but because outcomes matter too.

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

I don't think anyone is arguing that "technology changed" is, by itself, sufficient reason to narrow a constitutional right.

The argument is that technology changed, society changed, population density changed, policing changed, and the observable outcomes changed.

The First Amendment is actually a poor analogy because it does not routinely produce tens of thousands of deaths per year. When speech causes direct harm - threats, fraud, libel, incitement - we regulate the misuse. We don't simply shrug and say "it's a right".

Likewise, nobody is proposing abolishing the Second Amendment because technology advanced. The discussion is whether a right written in 1791 should be interpreted without regard to the consequences it produces in 2026.

And this is where the argument often becomes circular.

- The Second Amendment exists because it exists.

- The right should remain unchanged because it's a right.

- The outcomes don't matter because it's a right.

At some point constitutional principles have to be weighed against real-world results, otherwise no amendment could ever be questioned, modified or reinterpreted.

The uncomfortable reality is that every other developed democracy has access to the same modern technology, the same internet, the same social media, the same mental health challenges and the same human failings.

What they generally don't have is America's firearm mortality rate.

That's why the outcomes keep coming back into the discussion. Not because rights don't matter, but because outcomes matter too.

I agree outcomes matter.

What I don't agree with is the assumption that guns are automatically the primary cause of those outcomes.

America absolutely has a gun violence problem. But America also has a gang problem, a drug problem, a mental health problem, a family breakdown problem and a culture problem in some communities where young people are taught to glorify violence, crime, and carrying a gun.

When I look at a lot of these shootings, I don't see ordinary law-abiding gun owners suddenly snapping. I see gang activity, drug disputes, repeat offenders, broken homes and people who were already on a path toward violence. That's why I'm skeptical when people point to gun ownership alone as the explanation.

You mention other developed countries. Fair enough. But those countries aren't America. They have different cultures, different demographics, different immigration policies, different crime patterns, different levels of gang activity and different social structures.

And if gun ownership by itself was the determining factor, then every place with relatively high gun ownership would have similar violence rates. They don't.

To me, that suggests the gun is only one variable in a much larger equation.

The reason I keep coming back to rights is because constitutional rights are supposed to protect important freedoms even when there are costs associated with them. Free speech has costs. Due process has costs. Privacy has costs. We don't judge those rights solely by counting negative outcomes.

That doesn't mean there can't be reasonable regulations. It means we should be careful about assuming that restricting a right will solve a problem when many of the root causes may have very little to do with the right itself.

If we're serious about reducing violence, I'd rather spend more time talking about gangs, repeat violent offenders, drugs, mental health and the culture that glorifies violence than pretending the firearm itself is the root cause of everything.

2 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Of course it's a bigger problem.

Nobody is arguing that guns create the desire to commit mass murder.

The issue is that deeply troubled, violent or unstable people exist in every developed country. What differs is their access to highly effective means of carrying out that violence.

The UK has mentally ill teenagers. France has mentally ill teenagers. Australia has mentally ill teenagers.

Yet school shootings remain extraordinarily rare in those countries.

So yes, the person is the root cause. But access to firearms has a significant influence on the scale of the outcome.

I don't think anyone would argue that a firearm can make an attack more deadly.

The question is whether focusing on the weapon is addressing the root problem or just the method.

You mention that other countries have mentally ill teenagers too. That's true. But I don't think we've done a very good job asking why America seems to be producing so many more young people who are angry, isolated, suicidal, violent, or looking for notoriety.

When I was growing up, we had guns, hunting rifles in our trucks and shooting sports. We didn't have kids livestreaming violence, chasing internet fame, spending all day online, or being bombarded with social media 24/7. It seems to me that something deeper has changed culturally and socially.

If a teenager wants to commit mass murder, I want to know why we've created so many people who feel that way in the first place. That's the part that worries me.

Because even if you could magically remove every firearm tomorrow, you'd still have the mental health crisis, the social isolation, the glorification of violence, the copycat effect, and people determined to hurt others.

To me, the fact that we're even having conversations about kids wanting to shoot up schools is evidence that the bigger problem is what is happening to the kids, not just what tool they choose to use.

3 hours ago, ericthai said:

I don't think anyone is arguing that constitutional rights are unlimited.

You're right that we don't allow threats, fraud, libel, or incitement under the First Amendment. But that's not the same as saying the government can ban the primary means by which people exercise that right.

We don't respond to misinformation by banning the internet. We don't respond to offensive speech by banning printing presses. We punish misuse while preserving the underlying right.

The same principle applies to the Second Amendment.

The question isn't whether some regulations are constitutional. The question is whether restrictions go so far that they effectively undermine the right itself.

You say the Second Amendment was written for a world of muskets. The First Amendment was written for a world of hand-operated printing presses, yet it still protects communication technologies the founders could never have imagined. Constitutional rights are generally understood to protect modern equivalents of the tools necessary to exercise those rights.

If rights evolve with technology, that cuts both ways.

More importantly, the purpose of the Second Amendment wasn't hunting. It was ensuring that ordinary citizens retained the ability to defend themselves and act as a check against concentrated power. Whether that purpose is still relevant today is a separate debate, but the existence of modern firearms doesn't automatically make the principle obsolete.

So I agree rights have limits. I just don't agree that "technology changed" is, by itself, a sufficient reason to dramatically narrow a constitutional right.

This keeps you on solid ground. It avoids getting dragged into "citizens need tanks to fight the government" arguments and keeps the focus on constitutional principles, which is where his analogy started.

None of those you mention, Eric, has the ability to kill people. If the Amendment were to support a miliyia to rise up against the govt, don't you think it would have happened by now???

1 hour ago, ericthai said:

I agree outcomes matter.

What I don't agree with is the assumption that guns are automatically the primary cause of those outcomes.

America absolutely has a gun violence problem. But America also has a gang problem, a drug problem, a mental health problem, a family breakdown problem and a culture problem in some communities where young people are taught to glorify violence, crime, and carrying a gun.

When I look at a lot of these shootings, I don't see ordinary law-abiding gun owners suddenly snapping. I see gang activity, drug disputes, repeat offenders, broken homes and people who were already on a path toward violence. That's why I'm skeptical when people point to gun ownership alone as the explanation.

You mention other developed countries. Fair enough. But those countries aren't America. They have different cultures, different demographics, different immigration policies, different crime patterns, different levels of gang activity and different social structures.

And if gun ownership by itself was the determining factor, then every place with relatively high gun ownership would have similar violence rates. They don't.

To me, that suggests the gun is only one variable in a much larger equation.

The reason I keep coming back to rights is because constitutional rights are supposed to protect important freedoms even when there are costs associated with them. Free speech has costs. Due process has costs. Privacy has costs. We don't judge those rights solely by counting negative outcomes.

That doesn't mean there can't be reasonable regulations. It means we should be careful about assuming that restricting a right will solve a problem when many of the root causes may have very little to do with the right itself.

If we're serious about reducing violence, I'd rather spend more time talking about gangs, repeat violent offenders, drugs, mental health and the culture that glorifies violence than pretending the firearm itself is the root cause of everything.

Unfortunately, in the US, glorifying violence comes out of the barrel of a gun. Govt is doing ZIPPO to combat those important social problems. It would rather spend our money on more...guns.

1 hour ago, ericthai said:

I don't think anyone would argue that a firearm can make an attack more deadly.

The question is whether focusing on the weapon is addressing the root problem or just the method.

You mention that other countries have mentally ill teenagers too. That's true. But I don't think we've done a very good job asking why America seems to be producing so many more young people who are angry, isolated, suicidal, violent, or looking for notoriety.

When I was growing up, we had guns, hunting rifles in our trucks and shooting sports. We didn't have kids livestreaming violence, chasing internet fame, spending all day online, or being bombarded with social media 24/7. It seems to me that something deeper has changed culturally and socially.

If a teenager wants to commit mass murder, I want to know why we've created so many people who feel that way in the first place. That's the part that worries me.

Because even if you could magically remove every firearm tomorrow, you'd still have the mental health crisis, the social isolation, the glorification of violence, the copycat effect, and people determined to hurt others.

To me, the fact that we're even having conversations about kids wanting to shoot up schools is evidence that the bigger problem is what is happening to the kids, not just what tool they choose to use.

When you were a kid, ordinary people weren't packing handguns, there were none of the heavy hardware one sees at gun shows. Along the way, something (the NRA?) grabbed America by the nuts and put us on this destructive path.

1 hour ago, ericthai said:

And if gun ownership by itself was the determining factor, then every place with relatively high gun ownership would have similar violence rates. They don't.

To me, that suggests the gun is only one variable in a much larger equation.

Switzerland, Finland and Norway are often cited as examples of high gun ownership with low gun violence. What is usually omitted is that the US has roughly 120 firearms per 100 people, compared with around 25-35 in those countries. The US isn't just a little different. It's an extreme outlier.

1 hour ago, richard_smith237 said:

Switzerland, Finland and Norway are often cited as examples of high gun ownership with low gun violence. What is usually omitted is that the US has roughly 120 firearms per 100 people, compared with around 25-35 in those countries. The US isn't just a little different. It's an extreme outlier.

I think you're putting way too much emphasis on the number of guns and not enough on the people using them.

If a law-abiding gun owner has 2 guns, 10 guns or 50 guns what difference does that make to public safety if they're never going to use them criminally?

The fact that America has 120 guns per 100 people sounds shocking until you realize that doesn't mean 120 different people each have a gun. It means a lot of gun owners own multiple firearms.

To me, that's like saying someone with 20 cars is 20 times more likely to drive drunk. The number of cars isn't the issue. The behavior is.

What I keep hearing is statistics about the number of guns. What I don't hear is an explanation for why some people choose to commit violence while millions of other gun owners never hurt anyone.

That's why I keep coming back to gangs, drugs, mental health, broken homes, repeat offenders and a culture that increasingly glorifies violence.

If the number of guns was the main factor, then simply counting guns should predict violence rates pretty accurately. It doesn't.

The gun is a tool. The harder question is why we're producing so many people who want to use that tool to hurt others.

1 hour ago, unblocktheplanet said:

When you were a kid, ordinary people weren't packing handguns, there were none of the heavy hardware one sees at gun shows. Along the way, something (the NRA?) grabbed America by the nuts and put us on this destructive path.

I think you're missing the point.

Where I grew up in the south in farm country, guns were everywhere. We hunted, shot targets and yes, some people had handguns too. Guns weren't new.

What we didn't have were kids wanting to shoot up schools. That's the part people keep skipping over.

If guns alone caused this, then rural areas should have had this problem a long time ago. They didn't.

Something changed with the kids, the culture, mental health, broken homes, gangs, social media and people wanting attention.

I'm not saying guns don't make an attack worse. Of course they can. But the gun doesn't wake up one day and decide to hurt people. A person does.

So maybe we should spend more time asking why so many people are getting to that point instead of acting like the gun is the whole problem.

Apparently, they had to use hurling sticks in this situation.

That's not a joke. They actually had to resort to using a hurling stick against this guy

11 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Unfortunately, in the US, glorifying violence comes out of the barrel of a gun. Govt is doing ZIPPO to combat those important social problems. It would rather spend our money on more...guns.

The government isn't spending money on citizens guns but the military's. People buy their own guns. As has been mentioned many times, the problem lies in how these children are raised, to glorify violence, and it's still a small fraction of our citizens that are doing this. Of course we have more people than smaller countries, which does mean more crimes will be committed, but yes. per capita it's still high.

The breakdown of families is where this comes from.

There are mass shootings in Thailand but no one hears about most of them.

Access by mentally ill people to guns is the problem, but there aren't any ways to completely eliminate that, even if the ones I suggested were implemented immediately. There will always be people who can get their hands on guns for crimes. We can curb much of them but not eliminate all.

11 hours ago, ericthai said:

I think you're putting way too much emphasis on the number of guns and not enough on the people using them.

If a law-abiding gun owner has 2 guns, 10 guns or 50 guns what difference does that make to public safety if they're never going to use them criminally?

The fact that America has 120 guns per 100 people sounds shocking until you realize that doesn't mean 120 different people each have a gun. It means a lot of gun owners own multiple firearms.

To me, that's like saying someone with 20 cars is 20 times more likely to drive drunk. The number of cars isn't the issue. The behavior is.

What I keep hearing is statistics about the number of guns. What I don't hear is an explanation for why some people choose to commit violence while millions of other gun owners never hurt anyone.

That's why I keep coming back to gangs, drugs, mental health, broken homes, repeat offenders and a culture that increasingly glorifies violence.

If the number of guns was the main factor, then simply counting guns should predict violence rates pretty accurately. It doesn't.

The gun is a tool. The harder question is why we're producing so many people who want to use that tool to hurt others.

Simple: No guns, no shootings.

11 hours ago, ericthai said:

I think you're missing the point.

Where I grew up in the south in farm country, guns were everywhere. We hunted, shot targets and yes, some people had handguns too. Guns weren't new.

What we didn't have were kids wanting to shoot up schools. That's the part people keep skipping over.

If guns alone caused this, then rural areas should have had this problem a long time ago. They didn't.

Something changed with the kids, the culture, mental health, broken homes, gangs, social media and people wanting attention.

I'm not saying guns don't make an attack worse. Of course they can. But the gun doesn't wake up one day and decide to hurt people. A person does.

So maybe we should spend more time asking why so many people are getting to that point instead of acting like the gun is the whole problem.

Worse? Ya mean killed! How many people had handguns when you were a kid? Only cops.

10 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Simple: No guns, no shootings.

But no guns, then criminals have them. Stop hunting, which would allow severe overpopulation of certain animals, depreciating the flora, causing more accidents and deaths, spreading diseases among them. It will never be a simple thing, as there has to be a place where most everyone is safe and happy. That only is when the disturbed cannot get their hands on guns, but how can you stop all of that, and allow legitimate gun owners their guns?

14 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Worse? Ya mean killed! How many people had handguns when you were a kid? Only cops.

Cops, criminals, the mafia, my uncle, and a few friends dads.

48 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

But no guns, then criminals have them. Stop hunting, which would allow severe overpopulation of certain animals, depreciating the flora, causing more accidents and deaths, spreading diseases among them. It will never be a simple thing, as there has to be a place where most everyone is safe and happy. That only is when the disturbed cannot get their hands on guns, but how can you stop all of that, and allow legitimate gun owners their guns?

48 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

But no guns, then criminals have them. Stop hunting, which would allow severe overpopulation of certain animals, depreciating the flora, causing more accidents and deaths, spreading diseases among them. It will never be a simple thing, as there has to be a place where most everyone is safe and happy. That only is when the disturbed cannot get their hands on guns, but how can you stop all of that, and allow legitimate gun owners their guns?

Okay. NO handguns, NO semis, NO automatics, NO machine guns, NO silencers.

Criminals, in general, don't use guns against ordinary people. They use them against each other, for dope and turf.

47 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Cops, criminals, the mafia, my uncle, and a few friends dads.

And the criminals and mafia used them against each other. Did your uncle and friends' dads have a shootout? WHAT did they need handguns for, exactly?

53 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

But no guns, then criminals have them. Stop hunting, which would allow severe overpopulation of certain animals, depreciating the flora, causing more accidents and deaths, spreading diseases among them. It will never be a simple thing, as there has to be a place where most everyone is safe and happy. That only is when the disturbed cannot get their hands on guns, but how can you stop all of that, and allow legitimate gun owners their guns?

That's precisely the reason to ban at least those classes of guns I mentioned.

2 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Okay. NO handguns, NO semis, NO automatics, NO machine guns, NO silencers.

Criminals, in general, don't use guns against ordinary people. They use them against each other, for dope and turf.

Silencers aren't a problem, as they're usually used by hunters and target shooters for ear protection and to not spook game, especially shooting a number of hogs in one spot. handguns are also used for hunting, although most are for self defense. Semis with a max magazine of 5 aren't a problem, as the AR-15 style and regular rifles are the same in that aspect. Very few own automatics, and none who use them in illegal activity. Yes, most shootings are gang related and suicides.

4 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

And the criminals and mafia used them against each other. Did your uncle and friends' dads have a shootout? WHAT did they need handguns for, exactly?

Living around those types in Queens and Brooklyn. Never used them as far as I know. My uncle had a few friends that were involved. Yes, his name was Tony.

Edited June 10Jun 10 by fredwiggy

2 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Silencers aren't a problem, as they're usually used by hunters and target shooters for ear protection and to not spook game, especially shooting a number of hogs in one spot. handguns are also used for hunting, although most are for self defense. Semis with a max magazine of 5 aren't a problem, as the AR-15 style and regular rifles are the same in that aspect. Very few own automatics, and none who use them in illegal activity. Yes, most shootings are gang related and suicides.

Rubbish. Show some links to silencers for hunting rifles.

Just now, gargamon said:

Rubbish. Show some links to silencers for hunting rifles.

You can get them and adapt most rifles. I will buy one but they're not cheap. need a background check also. I had a FFL license before I moved here, with a clean record, so it would be easy for me. Just one link................https://www.recoilweb.com/silencer-buyers-guide-for-hunting-140932.html.

8 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

You can get them and adapt most rifles. I will buy one but they're not cheap. need a background check also. I had a FFL license before I moved here, with a clean record, so it would be easy for me. Just one link................https://www.recoilweb.com/silencer-buyers-guide-for-hunting-140932.html.

You can also make them almost for free.

You said the US glorifies violence, do you have examples?

2 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

You can also make them almost for free.

You said the US glorifies violence, do you have examples?

I believe that was another member I answered to.

1 minute ago, fredwiggy said:

I believe that was another member I answered to.

sorry