You don't even understand the terminology. A clip is not a magazine. "Assault weapons" is made up liberal propaganda. I know this because I am an expert on guns and gun law. Why would you create a group and not open it to debate?

Then, why didn't you start a group that specifically advocates for a ban on assault rifles?

@jayneonacobb so you are saying I cannot find Paul Ryan, Donald Trump, etc etc doing interviews saying "assault weapon"? The right classifies it the same way everyone else does.

@jayneonacobb You have a better idea I'm all ears. AR- 15s have no civilian use. Neither do high volume magazines. I'm not ain't gun, and I don't want to take anything away from anybody, and I don't want to make any lists of what people have. I'm after military style weapons, high volume magazines, better background checks, more and better mandatory training to own a firearm, and some type of child proofing on handguns to keep little kids from finding a handgun and blowing away their little sister.

@DUCHESSA I'm after banning assault weapons, but there are problems that need work with owning firearms in general that I'd like to work on also.

@Darthpug Look I'm just doing what I think needs to be done. I'm tired of seeing innocent people being blown away by some lunatic with rapid fire guns. Call it what you want to. I'm tired of reading stories like the one a few weeks ago where a small child found a gun in grandma's pocketbook and killed his 3 year old sister. I don't think people take gun ownership seriously and it's getting people killed.

@Darthpug jayneonacobb said I wasn't using the right terminology and did not know what I was talking about. I want to make it clear exactly what I intend to do.

@MikeFlora my response was to jayneonacobb's comment on liberal propaganda. I wasn't aiming the comment to you.

@MikeFlora Fire, then start a second group....otherwise sounds like you are mixing apples and bananas.

@MikeFlora *high capacity magazines. The civilian uses are many and varied. Your desire to cripple peoples gun rights is based on liberal propaganda. Training is easy and free. A well trained operator doesn't care about full auto and high cap mags are only a convenience, not a requirement to eliminate threats. Assault rifles don't exist. Thats a piece of liberal propaganda. Learn about guns before you try to debate about them. Youre basically trying to debate a doctor on vaccinations when you debate me about guns. You might think your right, but you're not.

@jayneonacobb because HE...NOT YOU, wanted to start a group against guns! LOL. Son start your own group THAT SUPPORTS GUN OWNERSHIP!

@Freedompath it's intellectually dishonest and will only breed ignorance and contempt if not open to debate.

@jayneonacobb HELLO...YOU DON'T run the world! Are YOU aware that all these things that you are saying about other people...is what you think about your SELF...that is how it works! You are putting it out ON us, but this is WHO you are!!!

@Freedompath quit your whining. You just refuse to accept the fact that your world view is wrong, so you're trying to hide away in a safe space. Grow up and get over your selves. If you can't be open to others opinions you shouldn't espouse your own. You have no evidence to support that opinion. You don't rule the world either, you also don't understand academia and debate.

@jayneonacobb Sounds like you start a group that advocates for guns.

@RavenCT I don't want to further exastorbate this rift in our society. I do what I do because I believe education is paramount to understanding.

And when they finish... they can do seconds for me too. Guns always been the weapon of choice of the "coward". And in america they are organized into an association. Speaking of Brainwash.

Just playing devil's advocate, what if you don't have time to call the cops?

It's 100% correct that guns are tools for the weak, it levels the playing field for a 125 pound female against a 250 pound male.

Does everyone need to own an AK or AR? I don't think so, but banning every gun in private ownership is too extreme as well.

The cops always come AFTER you are dead. Take responsibility for yourself or suffer the consequences.

I agree, my right to self defense should supersede all others.

@Atheistman He didn't have a beef with the police. He was not kicked out of a police academy. There been mass shooting attacks on military bases with armed guards... so... question is what is wrong with guns. STAY ON THE LANE.

@jayneonacobb NOW, you are just getting redictulous...if you are this fearful of your safety and freedom...I think it is time to see a shrink! You keep presenting yourself...as in some kind of known and unknown danger!

I have a feeling that the "copy cat" syndrome may be a major factor of these situations. How else does a person gain national, and even world-wide, attention so quickly than by carrying off the challenge of doing away with a bunch of helpless and unarmed kids in gun-free schools? It seems that many of these types try to carry out the goal of doing away of the most by the biggest (semi-automatics with the biggest magazines). One of the knee-jerk reactions just happened, the media source dropping everything - then exclusively to everything else that may be happening, and examining every factor of "the killer" for days and weeks on end Most culprits, of course, take themselves out of the picture - and never stick around to enjoy the "after the fact" reward of notoriety. This one, for whatever reason, decided to remain alive - to now enjoy the results of his labor. Maybe what the media ought to do is to minimize its coverage and not make these happenings so "front page!" This feeding of possible super egos somehow needs to be stopped!

@mkeaman Mixed feelings on this. Because even with media saturation - nothing has been done.

This was a known nut job and he could have been prevented from doing the deed. Most of these types are well known to authorities. Back in the day, they would have been put away long before they committed heinous crimes.

The American mental health system is broken. We emptied the institutions, but then failed to provide adequate help. Further, parents try to get help they typically can’t. In this country it is easier to get a gun, than get mental health help. And not cool calling someone a nut job, he has a mental health issue.

I concur! Our nation's heart breaks every month it seems because of some maniac with a gun.

Pretty much exactly what I think as well. I am yet to hear a good reason to legalise guns (or keep them legal)

It is NOT a "priviledge" to live. It is a right and we will do whatever is necessary to maintain that right. You have no weapon, you are at a massive disadvantage since everybody else in your town has one. Controlling guns is way the hell off the reservation at this point. There are far, far too many of them. Answer to the problem? Buy all the ammo you can afford and be prepared in the event the crap hits the fan. Nobody else is gonna take care of you and yours, except you!!!

@Jim222bo Why not try imagining that it is ilegal to own guns in the US. now imagine that it is extremely difficult to get your hands on a gun. I am sure you would except that there would be far less gun crime, not to mention the mass shooting sprees. Also, if there is a lot of these things happening, I could be wrong, but surely, more guns is not the answer.

Too late!!! You can imagine until the bovines come home and it will not negate the fact that there are more guns than people in America. We are armed and dangerous.

The answer is that if you don't live here, you don't get a say.

@jayneonacobb so, you count New Mexico as Mexico? Not "here"? Tell that to trump to adjust where to put the wall. It was Mexico, once ...just like Texas.

@ZebZaman I'm sorry, I want saying that about you, just a general statement of facts although your assumption is very telling.

Not a brilliant "question".

@jayneonacobb Why would someone outside of the US not be allowed an opinion. I would say that everything is up for debate, and I don't see any reason not to ask this question. It seems like a fair and open question.

@RobH86 you can have your opinion, it's just moot if you have no legal recourse in enforcing or voicing it effectively. Which means being a voting, legal us citizen.

@jayneonacobb I am not looking to make any legal changes in your country, and I am not yet decided about how I feel about the gun laws in the US. I am just looking to get some feedback on what people think and how they think. To some it seems as though the constitution is like a religion. To others they rationalise their views on gun laws in different ways. I would say that although I am yet to make my mind up it shocks me that it is very easy to attain a gun, and I am sure that the majority of people would like to see some sort of criteria for people to be able to hold a weapon like this

@RobH86
@AtheistLatina55 the national guard is not a militia, my E-6 friend will attest to that. They are an auxiliary force scantioned and encompassed by the US army. He is not a full fledged citizen because of it. One of my roommates was in the air reserves as an E-5. He's out and working in the private sector as an airplane mechanic. He still doesn't have the right to sue the government for damages he suffered while in the military. That means he is also not a full citizen because his right to sue the government has been perminantly revoked.

The definition of a militia is an armed citizenry. Those soldiers, good friends of mine, will never again have full fledged citizen because of their service to you and your rights. They are eligible for a militia, but prior service is not required. Technically, by old laws that still exist every person eligeable for the draft or voluntary service is a member of the militia. Thusly granting them, the people, access to arms. Arms means all weapons and armaments.

The founding fathers knew weapons technology would advance. They heard of mythical weapons of immense power from religion and other fiction. They could easily comprehend wielding the power of 1000 Sun's.

The bill of rights was established expressly to limit government. You can not remove an amendment unless it conflicts with a pre-existing one. As was the case with the 21st and 18TH amendments.

The bill of rights aknowldeges certain human rights. It does not grant them. A right is an inalienable and unabridgable need of a person.

@jayneonacobb Rationalisations are when we start from a point of what we want the truth to be and then try every which way possible to assume all else is incorrect. The most rational question that could be asked is this. Is allowing people (overwhelming majority of people) access to guns a good thing or a bad thing. Now in the case of the US as it already finds itself in a situation where everyone (most people) can or could have a gun pretty easily, you need to ask the question 'is this a good thing or a bad thing'? I am yet to be convinced it is a good thing. Also, the constitution was formed well over 200 years ago, with the idea of how the country would be governed. Its my opinion that all ideas should be subjected to scrutiny (ideas that stand up to scrutiny are the good ideas by the way). One part of the constitution that you read is with religious connotation.

'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights..'

We are not all created equally. In fact we are not even created. We all evolved. Not only that, but we didn't even evolve equally, rather, we evolved differently. The idea that owning a gun is an unalienable right because a few fellows over 200 years ago said that this is the case (regardless of how great these people were) does not stand up to scrutiny.

@RobH86 I started opposed to guns. I looked at the evidence and since then I have become an expert on the subject.
You can't move a mountain of evidence with hot air. You really think that the bill of rights was established to empower the government that it explicitly sought to limit?

@jayneonacobb I don't see how anything you have said relates to you being an expert but I could be wrong. I am yet to see any evidence that having easy access to a gun is a good thing

@RobH86 I don't have to prove that I have a degree to you. The fact of the matter is the second amendment exists so that private citizens can have access to arms for the purpose to provide an avenue of action against tyranny. Believe it if you want, or dont, I honestly don't care about your feelings based argument.

@jayneonacobb I would agree that a feelings based argument never good. I am just yet to see any evidence that a constitution which has already been amended well over 20 times will stand up to scrutiny on this matter. the most rational question that you can ask is 'what is better/safer/healthier for society, easy access to guns, or difficult access to guns? People's rights should be determined after questions like this have been put through the rigours of scrutiny. The Constitution for you, seems almost like a religious argument.

@jayneonacobb I would agree that a feelings based argument never good. I am just yet to see any evidence that a constitution which has already been amended well over 20 times will stand up to scrutiny on this matter. the most rational question that you can ask is 'what is better/safer/healthier for society, easy access to guns, or difficult access to guns? People's rights should be determined after questions like this have been put through the rigours of scrutiny. The Constitution for you, seems almost like a religious argument.

@RobH86 no right has ever been revoked that has been outlined by the bill of rights. Well, no, its a political argument as it is politics, not religion that is being discussed. Liberal politics are a religion. Liberalism is heavily based on exclusion of opposing views and data, that's a religious stance.

@jayneonacobb I asked this question with an open mind, but despite your efforts still not entirely convinced that easy access to guns for the majority is the right way to keep the peace.

@RobH86 80 times more often guns were used in defense compared to them being used in Crime before 2016. The FBI's website will corroborate that with all the gun data from the previous year.

@jayneonacobb Well done sir, you finally decided to back your argument up with some actual evidence, It took long enough mind. Still don't think this evidence is compelling enough to convince me that easy access to guns is a good thing, but at least you offered something this time round

@RobH86 We are given an education on how to exercise other rights with tools like language. Why not teach other basic tools for other rights, like firearms safety. Then every one will have an education on the subject. That tends to make people smarter.

@jayneonacobb you crack me up

Well japan had a Higher suicide rate among schoolers than any other country. Age 10-19 is the leading cause of death. So, do yo want to use another example besides Australia... because japan ain't working as a happy place for students.

Somehow I doubt kids in Japan are offing themselves because they can't buy handguns. The Japanese suicide numbers are a problem, but they have nothing to do with the topic at hand. When it comes to Japan's gun laws in particular, I think they're worth copying.

seems as though this is an emotive issue for you, and one that you are very well educated on. Thanks for this post

Not everyone might be as responsible as you. At what point do you say enough is enough, not everybody should have the right to own a gun, as shooting sprees happen all too often.

Well to answer the first issue you raised, people would willingly offer to hand their guns in. In the UK we had a specific time frame where people could just hand in any firearms they wished no questions asked. This was a success by all accounts. secondly it would be the law. Anyone found guilty of owning a gun would face the appropriate punishment.

@RobH86 I apologize if this comes off sounding rude. But you are incredibly naive. Americans don’t have the same values as people in the U.K. Our country was defined on the very idea that freedom is not something you give up willingly. To many Americans that includes the right to bear arms. So giving up their guns for those Americans, means giving up their freedom. That means their will still be a large majority who would rather break that law than turn over something that represents freedom to them. Additionally, we can’t make criminals out of anyone unwilling to give up their guns. Our prisons are already overcrowded and there simply is not enough space to hold everyone that would be unwilling to give them up.

I like your point, and I wish it were that simple. It may work in the U.K. But it will never work in the USA.

@ChrisJones I think your are correct in your assessment. So whatever is done needs to be done suiting the US character of people. In Australia, they had this mainly volunteer gun buyback after the Tasmanian massacre in 1996. Millions of guns were taken out of circulation, gun death went down dramatically. That was organized very quickly by a conservative government. I hear the 75 % of US citizens actually would like better gun control. So it must be possible to do something. Demand it of the people you vote into house and congress, and make PUBLIC how much money (if any) each of these have received from the NRL.

@ChrisJones The idea that freedom is represented by allowing pretty much anyone to have guns is not rational. What about the freedom to not have your neighbours in posession of something that kill you so easily. It is almost like the constitution is like a religion in itself. Surely, just like religion, these ideas need to be questioned and scrutinised

@RobH86, I agree with you. I’ve never understood why many of the American people think that giving up guns takes away freedom. Unfortunately, that is the way many of them see it. It happens every election cycle where a Democrat takes office. When President Obama took office, many Americans were afraid that the democrats would take their guns away. It’s not rational, but it is what a lot of Americans believe. I don’t like it. But as @ZebZaman stated, we have to fight to get it fixed by voting in those who want to make real change with gun laws. In any case, I hear you and I wish the rest of my country would see this as ha realistic solution.

Your facts aren't facts. Where are you getting these absurd and blatantly false stats, California?

@jayneonacobb Just Google Death Rate from Guns - here's just Wikipedia for one:

[en.wikipedia.org]

@TerriCity i prefer real facts, like these. [gunowners.org]

@TerriCity yeah your facts are incorrect. It is actually millions of dollars that are donated across the board to politicians from a supposed non-profit company. Donald Trump received 21 million to support his campaign in 2016.

@jayneonacobb Your source is altering and spiking the punch so to speak and I am a gun owner and a former police officer. They are not a reliable source.

@noworry28 you're saying that the FBI isn't a reliable source of crime statistics?

@jayneonacobb Facts are to be found on any statistic you can google. All of them. here is an easy one, i could find dozens of others supprting the same basic point. [facebook.com]

@ZebZaman are you familiar with how data is collected? It doesn't seem like you understand that you need to first collect and compile data before it can be analyzed. The FBI is the source of the raw data. That's called a primary source.

Where I live everyone has at least one gun and most have several. That arrogant left wing liberal gun control nut Obama scared the hell out of a lot of people and during the 8 years he was in office gun sales and NRA membership soared.

@ZebZaman Gun owners of America is not the FBI and they pick certain parts of the report to post in their publications. It is misleading.

@TerriCity, your statement contains a few errors. First and foremost, the second amendment to the constitution is not from 1776. The Constitution of the Unites States was ratified in 1789. The country had operated under the Articles of Confederation prior to that.

Secondly, the second amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, which in total includes 10 amendments. The Bill of Rights was ratified and became law in 1791.

Thank you for the corrections on the amendments. I was thinking of the US Constitution of the country as starting at the time of the our beginning as a country in 1776. In any case, 1791 was 227 years ago. The founding fathers surely never envisioned schoolchildren being mowed down with automatic rapid-fire weapons when they wrote the second amendment.

Apparently owning a gun is a freedom, because in the late 17 hundreds it was decided this was the case, and is an idea that apprently should never be questioned.

@RobH86 To be fair to the Founding Fathers, they had just fought a war of independence, upon which one of the grievances was the presence (often in their own homes) of armed British soldiers. Similarly, colonists were still encountering Native Americans on whose land they had decided to settle. But we live in the 21st, not the 18th century, and no idea is beyond questioning, would you agree? We are, after all, a democracy.

@pnullifidian I think you read the subtext of my last post well

The point is, if it is against the law to own a gun, and is very difficult to get hold of one, you won't need a gun. Also if there is lots of gun crime, surely the answer is not more guns. By the way I am nuetral in this debate, just trying to offer a different point of veiw, maybe you have better arguments than this, if so I would like to hear them

Your notion is way gone. Over 300 million guns out here. The time for not needing a gun is long past. We got 'em, and we are gonna keep 'em. Period!!!!

@Jim222bo So, the answer is more guns? More guns will not stop the violence. The only thing that will stop violence is a change of the collective thinking that we all need to bear arms, be stronger than the "other" who is after what we own/want. And maybe if we all get out and just make friends with strangers. Get to know the other whom we fear. Fear and guns and hate will only lead to violence. How many little kids end up dead because they find their parents' gun and try it out? Guns are the 3rd leading death of children in the US. Is this how we de-evolve? [newsweek.com]

The only answer to guns is to deal with them the way they are. We are not going to "make friends with everybody". Guns are here to stay. Ammo? Not so sure about that. It is IMPOSSIBLE to confiscate guns. Mental cases need to be dealt with as soon as we become aware of their mental status. Just about every mass shooting had already sent up beaucoup red flags and nothing was done about anything. One guy just shot up a school. On that day 330 million people in the USA did NOT shoot up a school. Not nearly as bad as you may imagine.

Reasonable point well made.

Agreed. It should not be the case that just anyone can get a gun