In b4 the usual accusations of "your dancing in the blood of the dead!" from the folks who dance in the blood of the dead to argue against gun regulation. Maybe it's time we all stopped dancing and had a serious discussion about gun violence.
Hey, remember, they told us that we're not allowed to have those conversations just after a mass shooting, so now is the perfect time, right? Right?
What regulations shall we start with? And is the proper and judicious prosecution of firearms possession charges and mandatory sentences for violent crimes included, or are those separate issues that certainly will be discussed after more gun control regulations are enacted?
I'm open to suggestions, and I say that as someone who's pretty strongly pro-private gun ownership.
But it seems like every time the matter of gun violence in this country is brought up, it's usually after another incident that shows where the failure in how we address mental health issues runs up against our failure to reign in our insane obsession with the cult of the gun as a symbol of manhood and power.
What's required are deep cultural changes, but those take longer than the average legislative term, meaning they don't display short-term successes that can be touted in a re-election campaign, meaning they're not likely to happen.
But since a mass shooting hasn't happened in the last few whenevers, maybe it's finally time to have that conversation people keep saying that they're willing to have, but only later, when it's not so tactless, so soon after a tragedy.
meaning they don't display short-term successes that can be touted in a re-election campaign, meaning they're not likely to happen
An excellent point, and one that both the Left and the Right can take equal advantage of. If the Left manages to get even one little law through, they claim victory to their supporters and the Right starts screaming about how bad the Left is to theirs. And of course every time such a law gets defeated, the Right gets to crow about their moral victory and the Left gets to point fingers and say that proves how bad those other people are.
Me? I would just like to see some laws that might actually curb gun violence by targeting the main instigators of gun violence first, as opposed to the millions of gun owners who never break a law.
It would be fair to show the inverse argument demonstrated similarly: the man who expressed anti-government sentiments barricading his family in his home as Orwellian government agents try to confiscate the last firearm he was able to smuggle, a nightmare scenario surely as reasonable an anxiety for Americans as what's depicted above, right?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-12-04 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-04 06:06 pm (UTC)Hey, remember, they told us that we're not allowed to have those conversations just after a mass shooting, so now is the perfect time, right? Right?
no subject
Date: 2013-12-05 12:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-05 03:20 am (UTC)But it seems like every time the matter of gun violence in this country is brought up, it's usually after another incident that shows where the failure in how we address mental health issues runs up against our failure to reign in our insane obsession with the cult of the gun as a symbol of manhood and power.
What's required are deep cultural changes, but those take longer than the average legislative term, meaning they don't display short-term successes that can be touted in a re-election campaign, meaning they're not likely to happen.
But since a mass shooting hasn't happened in the last few whenevers, maybe it's finally time to have that conversation people keep saying that they're willing to have, but only later, when it's not so tactless, so soon after a tragedy.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-05 04:17 am (UTC)An excellent point, and one that both the Left and the Right can take equal advantage of. If the Left manages to get even one little law through, they claim victory to their supporters and the Right starts screaming about how bad the Left is to theirs. And of course every time such a law gets defeated, the Right gets to crow about their moral victory and the Left gets to point fingers and say that proves how bad those other people are.
Me? I would just like to see some laws that might actually curb gun violence by targeting the main instigators of gun violence first, as opposed to the millions of gun owners who never break a law.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-05 05:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-06 02:27 am (UTC)