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Originally Posted by Rjinn
The right one seems to ensure another tragedy.
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I'm not sure you actually understand what's being represented by those two signs being side by side...
The left sign implies that people who follow laws will not bring guns to the area, meaning that those who don't, if they choose to, will meet no resistance, as was readily apparent at Sandy Hook.
The right sign implies that if someone was there legally carrying a firearm and able to use it effectively and responsibly, may provide either a deterrent or the resistance necessary to save lives until the police finally roll in.
I'm astounded that this isn't simple logic understood by all. It's not making a case that little kids should be walking around kindergarten with guns all willy-nilly... It's making a case that trained, responsible individuals should be allowed to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Why does everyone think the argument is about just saying "Oh yea, no problem, everyone bring guns to school! More guns equals more protection no matter who is carrying them!!!!".
It's not and never has been about that.
If you're OK with police having guns for the protection of the public, you should be ok with them, or civilian equivalents, standing guard for the safety of them in schools as well. Not agreeing with that makes even less sense than what you're insinuating.
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Originally Posted by Tuna
See gun accessibility relies on the notion that the average person is responsible and will take appropriate precautions. but as we've learned, when that's not the case the results can be disastrous as with the case of Sandy Hook
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Gun inaccessibility positions also rely on the notion that there are far more irresponsible gun owners than there are responsible ones, which is clearly evident as a false position based on the legal gun ownership statistics in the U.S., versus how many instances we have in cases like Sandy Hook where the mother was clearly not a responsible gun owner if her kids had access to those weapons. While it's tempting to restrict the good for the sake of the bad, the unintended side-effect of that may be even worse than the problem itself.
Again, I'm not against restrictions, but I think the line should be drawn somewhere before restricting availability completely.
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All I'm saying is that the positives will outweight the negatives. Yes, some criminals will continue to get access to guns, a fullscale prohibition is impossible and unrealistic. I'm saying that having guns in the hands of a select few criminals solely is more safe than citizens, believe it or not. Since most criminals don't shoot to kill for the sake of it, it would mean a lot more routine robberies with no one getting harmed, only valuables taken and the appropriate reports being filed to the police.
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I'm not sure where you're getting your statistics from, but if you come up with a majority of gun crime happening outside the scope of criminal activity, then I would really like to see that. The type of crime we saw with Sandy Hook represents a FAR lesser overall threat than other gun violence, and though I don't mean to trivialize it or place it at a lesser importance, if we're using human life in general as a basis for this discussion, then you'd have to be the most ignorant person in the states to think that regulating against the common citizen would have a positive effect on anything but an emotional placation.
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That said, I don't think most criminals on the street (who make up the majority of the murders) would have as easy access to guns when they're exclusively on the black market. But it's true that most Mexican criminals get their guns from the U.S. So it's not unreasonable to assume that outlawing guns would make it more difficult for criminals to bear arms as well.
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Ah, you even said what I was saying up there. So you agree that street criminals make up the majority of gun violence? Got it. But then you're assuming that Washington telling all the law-abiding citizens to turn in their guns would somehow make all these current and circulating weapons magically disappear. Criminals already get their guns on the black market. People with felonies can't just go to the pawn shop and buy them. (or at least any pawn shop that actually does background checks, which is most of them, as it's mandated by law... but hey, if they don't, then I guess laws don't really work all the time...)
Guns are illegally obtained by criminals all the time. They're not all breaking into houses and stealing legitimately owned guns to commit their crimes. This notion that preventing clean citizens from owning firearms will somehow make a difference in the criminal world is wildly misguided, and wouldn't actually solve any problem for the criminal element.
Yea, it might make it harder for the next Lanza to do what he did, but if we're putting this on the basis of human life and violent acts in general, then no. Not gonna change much. And since we're intelligent, thoughtful people here, we don't just take the ability away for decent people to protect themselves while simultaneously preventing those same people from protecting school children simply to make the next Lanza have to resort to other means, and simultaneously not do anything about criminal violence.