Quote:
Originally Posted by Pedestrian
I won't claim any expertise on the matter, so please stop me where I'm wrong, but this is how I currently see the situation.
A) No other equivalent country has the same problem with firearms.
B) The banning of firearms has been successful for other countries in which they were once prevalent (see: Australia after the Port Arthur Massacre).
C) The biggest barrier to change to me looks like the nation's attitude towards
- personal rights
- personal responsibility
It seems to me that those two things clash with one another and create an environment in which these sorts of incidents are bound to happen. If we want to blame the guns, we have to take responsibility for the lax laws and the culture surrounding them. If we want to blame the person, then we have to take responsibility for a system that fails to take care of its citizens who need it. In either case, some kind of sacrifice needs to be made that most people don't seem willing to undertake for a greater cause. |
Nope, I think that's completely accurate.
The problem lies in correcting the person is MUCH more difficult than correcting the gun laws.
Now two different approaches exist for this. People like myself say tighten gun control because pacifying people is a very difficult and, arguably, too personally intrusive a process. I'm not saying steps shouldn't be taken to help these people, just that as it stands it wouldn't eradicate the issue at hand. And others say, the people are the problem, 'America is the land of the free and I have the right to bear arms.'
Personally, I'm willing to sacrifice freedom if it benefits standard of living. Not all are willing to make that compromise.