you mean like the way I have been demonized in the conservative atheist group. I'm trying to find a end to this, but everybody thinks I'm trolling. The problem is preconceived notions about people, no matter what I say I'm a bleeding heart liberal idiot gun-hater that just wants to take everybody's guns and repeal the 2nd amendment. You just saw the fallout in the conservative atheist group about me and I was way more civil than some of them. Spike Talon and I were trying to smooth the waters, so to speak, between our groups. I have to say it made me a better person, I learned to listen to views that were opposite of mine and not ridicule them for it, and to present my views in a least offensive way so people can hear what I'm saying and not be pissed off by the way I said it. So I got the boot, but I'm a better person for it. Didn't come up with shit to better the cause though.

@MikeFlora I've seen some of the fallout, and replied to one of your comments, but honestly haven't seen enough of you to have an opinion if you're generally antagonistic or diplomatic.

I'll be laid up for several days wt much to do, so I'm happy to engage you on gun rights. I do have a few thoughts I very rarely hear of from either side.

A question that seems to stump, irritate (not my intention) and often shut gun control people down is, why is restrictive legislation, largely aimed at responsible people, the main or ONLY intervention for reducing gun violence???

I don't know of any other problem where we try to decrease something with that kind of extreme bias.

@MikeFlora I did one post in one of the gun control groups. One woman demanded I leave the group, then I spent several days responding to strawman attacks while people ignored everything I wrote.

There's gotta be a way to have an honest discussion here, but damned if I know how to do that w most people

@educatedredneck It's not personal, why do people think they have the right to own dangerous weapons that have no practical use. Nobody NEEDS military style weapons or bump stocks. All firearms are dangerous and way too many people in this country do not understand the awesome responsibility that comes with owning guns.

@MikeFlora Well, I can definitely see why you're hated among gun people. Starting a conversation with that type of premise doesn't give me much to work with other than points you've probably already heard. This literally sets us up to repeat the same discussions people have been having on gun violence for decades and the main result is both sides are becoming more rigid and less rational.

Every right is also a responsibility, although I don't think you'll find many Democrats or Republicans who are consistent with that concept.

At the risk of you and I going in circles like everyone else does on gun violence, owning a gun is a right in the USA. Do we ask people why they need to have an abortion, free speech, protection against illegal search and seizure? If someone said, it's not personal, you don't NEED an abortion if you're responsible...how would you respond?

Maybe start with a different premise and we'll be more productive.

BTW, "military style weapons" are already essentially banned for people in the USA. If you're referring to AR (stands for Armalite not Assault Rifle), people hunt with ARs and by simply swapping barrels, you can hunt anything from a raccoon to elk much more cost effectively than owning 5 different rifles. My AR has a 22LR barrel right now bc it's sooooo cheap to practive.

Would you like to take a shot (pun intended) at my one question, why is restrictive legislation that's usually aimed at responsible people the main or ONLY type of intervnetion the USA pushes for on gun violence.

@educatedredneck I will agree with you on that point, there are a lot of extremes on my side that would love to take every gun in this country. Spending one second talking about that is wasting time, there is no possible way that could ever happen. Trump and the NRA are pushing the idea that we all only want to take everybody's guns. There was a NRA ad I saw that said "join the NRA or lose your gun rights. Trump keeps saying he's not going to let anyone repeal the 2nd amendment.
I looked it up and to repeal a amendment a simple majority won't do, meaning it takes 66 senators, 285 congressmen and be ratified by 38 states. There is no way in hell you'll ever get that many people to agree on anything. I want to do other things besides banning assault weapons, but I discovered that trying more than 1 thing at the same time gets confusing, You'll never get anything done that way. I decided to go after assault weapons first because that is where the most innocent people are being hurt, plus kids in school. People are being harmed for no other reason than standing where they were standing. We have failed in allowing that to happen, and we need to make it right.

@MikeFlora I'm glad you're reasonable about repealing the 2A. I criticize both sides of every debate. I used to criticize gun people who said Obama was going to take guns away. Unfortunately, I can't give claim that will never happen when people keep pushing we adopt UK/OZ style laws, ban and even confiscate many weapons....

I'd encourage you to look up gun deaths bc I'm pretty sure handguns kill far more people than "assault rifles". The 1994 ban had limited efficacy, gun manufacturers had work arounds for the law before it was even passed. An AR series weapon just isn't much different from any semi-auto rifle. No matter how much the media and gun control people push the agenda, you'd almost have to ban all semi-auto rifles and again handguns kill more than "assault weapons".

2/3 of gun deaths are suicide. I think most gun people who talk about mental health use that as dismissive talking point and don't actually push for effective mental health. If the NRA and gun people united w gun control to focus on mental health, we might make good progress. It's impossible to unite with people who do keep pushing for us to have mimic UK/Oz's laws.

Again, would you like to answer why is restrictive legislation largely aimed at responsible people the main or ONLY focus to reduce gun incidents? Can you think of any other problem where we push to limit responsible people?

@educatedredneck That's what I'm trying to say your side are the ones saying that all we want to do not us we get drowned out by Trump and the NRA and that's the only thing people hear. They don't have a clue what we actually want, Trump and the NRA have everybody convinced that repealing the 2nd amendment and taking everybody's guns is what we want and if we say anything else we're lying, because secretly all we want to do is take all your guns and repeal the 2nd amendment

The pistol thing, most people don't use pistols to kill 59 people and wound 620 at a outdoor concert. The total deaths from a pistol may be higher, but per incident it's a lot less, and pistols don't use high velocity rounds that do way more damage. When high velocity rounds hit a organ it totally destroys it.

@educatedredneck The 2nd amendment will never be repealed. On a different note I'm starting another group for straight up debate. I'm calling it Guns or no guns an open debate where you can say whatever you want, you just can't attack another member directly as in you can say that's a dumb idea, you just can't say you're a dumbass. No labels(liberal, conservative) it's either for or against and sources are required, if you quote something from somewhere you have to show where you got it from. This is open debate not just hurling insults at one another.

@MikeFlora Again, man I gotta ask you to do more research. Pretty much every single rifle round is "high velocity" especially compared to pistol rounds. a 22LR is high velocity compared to a 44magnum!

When people condemn "high velocity ammo" it seems like they want to ban almost all rifle ammo. The M4 and M16 uses 5.56 ammo which is extremely similar to .223 and it's not even considered high powered when compared to other rifle ammo.

I've read the article by the gun control surgeon and rifle ammo doesn't destroy every organ it hits. Experts still disagree if velocity or mass of the ammo causes more damage. I'm probably one of the very few on this site that's seen wounds from 5.56 and 7.62 ammo and I'd prefer to get shot by the 5.56 or 223 over a 7.62 any day. I'm not saying mass is more important than velocity, but claiming velocity is the main cause of more damage isn't factual.

Pistols still kill a lot more people, so do you want fewer headlines or to have actually fewer deaths?

I'll join and discuss any group as long as it seems productive. I highly recommend you NOT call it guns or no guns bc that seems like you're putting sweeping bans and mass confiscation and repealing the 2A out there as an option.

Maybe it could be named Effective Gun Safety, Decreasing Violence....a lot of effective discourse is about semantics.

Not trying to be antagonistic on this, but I've asked you the same question three times now on two threads. Can you please answer why is restrictive legislation that limits responsible people is our main or ONLY intervention for decreasing gun violence please?

@MikeFlora BTW if enough gun control people fixate on sweeping bans, confiscation, UK, OK and repealing 2A it doesn't matter what the more moderate ones want.

A seried of one sided compromises where we give in just a little will add up to the USA mimicking UK or OZ.

Again, criticizing our own is essential. I don't like the your side v my side duoploy and many gun rights people dislike me and what I say...but "your side" is allowing rhetoric praising the UK/OZ and sweeping bans to define their talking points.

Just like I want gun rights people talking about how to be safer, if you want gun control to not be defined by your own extremes then you'll have to criticize your own people

@educatedredneck I know what a high velocity round is, I've shot them and seen the damage they can do. For fun I used to take milk jugs half full of water and sit them on fence posts at around 200 yd.s and shoot them with a 22-250 varmint rifle. You shoot them in the water and they go off like a bomb. You can't tell me that isn't going to serious damage to somebody's insides. I've owned and shot both rifles and pistols. I know what 5.56,7.62, and .223 calibers are, and here is my question to you. Why do you guys seem to think my side doesn't know anything about guns or ammo. You are doing it right now. Almost every pro gun person I talk to acts like they don't think I know which end of a bullet goes in first.

During the last so called assault weapons ban during Bill Clinton’s presidency rifles with pistol grips, including 22’s were banned. Now tell me how in the hell does a pistol grip make a gun more dangerous? You gun control libtards come up with some crazy idiotic laws. @Spiketalon, @NFAguy53

@MikeFlora Please, let's not go with your side and my side much. That's divisive and again many gun enthusiasts criticize me for a few of my ideas.

Bayonet mounts were also banned in 1994, are bayonets a serious threat??? That also demonstrates extreme ignorance on guns.

I can post lots of videos of politicians and other public figures who don't know crap about guns pushing their ignorant agenda. If enough gun control (GC) people keep saying ignorant things that taints the entire message.

Just like when gun rights (GR) people essentially dismiss 30k annual deaths, that starts to define the gun rights movement.

I'm glad you know the difference between 5.56, 7.62, if you're really knowledgeable on guns you'll know pretty much every rifle round has more velocity than all normal pistol rounds. A 22LR is very small, but has more velocity than 44 magnum ammo. Ask anyone who knows anything about guns which is more dangers a 22 or a 44. Heck shoot any critter w a 22 v a 44 and you'll immediately understand velocity isn't the defining factor in how much damage ammo will do to flesh. Velocity and mass play a role in how much damage each type of ammo does

So four times I've asked you the same question on two threads. Can you please answer why is restrictive legislation that limits responsible people is our main or ONLY intervention for decreasing gun violence please? Are you seriously going to just ignore my question? Fair warning if that's your attitude, I'll either just keep asking the same quesiton over and over and over again or just ignore you bc people who want a real discussion don't simply ignore questions they don't like. If your attitude in the con sites is to keep pushing your own points while ignoring things you don't like to answer, I absolutely understand why people there want you gone.

@SpikeTalon It's not only, the other stuff gets drowned out, I talk to people like me all the time about licensing, training, age limits, background checks, mandatory trigger guards, with Trump and the NRA pushing " All gun control people want is to take everybody's guns and repeal the 2nd amendment, and if we say anything else we're lying, because secretly that's all we want to do, which means talking about anything else is a waste of time. NRA ad "Join the NRA or lose your gun rights", Trump always talks about not letting the 2nd amendment get repealed. When you spend most of your time trying to convince people that's not what we want to do, doesn't leave much time to talk about anything else to people who aren't going to believe you in the first place, because secretly we just want to take all guns away and repeal the 2nd amendment. What would you do?

@SpikeTalon, @Trajan61 It doesn't you idiot, its helping to describe what the gun looks like.

@Trajan61, @SpikeTalon I forgot to write the last part, I was talking about bullets and shit and never made it back to do the last part.

@SpikeTalon I gave you a good answer, I think, now answer my question, Why do you people think we don't know anything about guns?

@MikeFlora ignorance among gun control people isn't pervasive and universal, but there are hundreds of clips on youtube, quotes by politicians....I bet I could post hours of video and quotes like this.

You claim to know the difference between 5.56 and .223 but I haven't seen your response to my point that pretty much all rifle rounds have more velocity than standard pistol rounds. 44magnum is on of the most powerful handgun rounds. 22LR is one of the weaker rifle rounds. 22LR has more velocity than a 44magnum. That's just a fact.

You didn't start the name calling on this thread, but you did perpetrate it and people who want genuine discourse just don't do that.

I also see you're declining to respond to my one simple questions, from here on out my ONLY response to you will be that question until you can give some type of answer.

Seriously dodging questions will NEVER lead to effective discussions. This makes it seem like you want to entirely dominate the discussion and just ignore points you dislike.

Can you please answer why is restrictive legislation that limits responsible people is our main or ONLY intervention for decreasing gun violence please?

@Trajan61 spoken like a true ammosexual

@educatedredneck I did answer your question this thread is getting so long I sent it to Spike Talon

@educatedredneck Try this
It's not only, the other stuff gets drowned out, I talk to people like me all the time about licensing, training, age limits, background checks, mandatory trigger guards, with Trump and the NRA pushing " All gun control people want is to take everybody's guns and repeal the 2nd amendment, and if we say anything else we're lying, because secretly that's all we want to do, which means talking about anything else is a waste of time. NRA ad "Join the NRA or lose your gun rights", Trump always talks about not letting the 2nd amendment get repealed. When you spend most of your time trying to convince people that's not what we want to do, doesn't leave much time to talk about anything else to people who aren't going to believe you in the first place, because secretly we just want to take all guns away and repeal the 2nd amendment. What would you do?

@MikeFlora ok, sorry I missed that let's dig into your suggestions a bit. What kind of training are you talking about?

Licensing and age restrictions would be restrictions for responsible people, that falls under my question. Do you see that?

Mandatory trigger guards are fine, I doubt you'll find many gun rights people who disagree with that. There'd have to be a grandfather clause but I think the vast majority of modern guns have trigger guards.

BTW most do support expanding background checks. I doubt that will have a significant impact on gun violence but I also support that.

I don't follow NRA news, but I haven't heard them complaining about prosecuting people who shouldn't get guns but apply to get a gun. That was a recent federal push and something we should have done decades ago.

I agree as a reasonable person, it's hard to shout down the extremists on your own side.

Gun rights people should absolutely push for effective interventions they support instead of using trite phrases to dismiss all concerns on gun violence. Enforcing existing law and mental health are excellent points and we should do those things, unfortunately most gun control people use those things to dismiss valid points and concerns. As someone who is more of a gun guy v a gun control guy, I have to deal with idiocy from gun rights people. Really all you can do is criticize your own side while making it clear you don't support the idiotic points.

Just curious, did you ever criticize Obama for saying, nobody will take your guns then immiedately spinning and giving unreserved praise to countries that banned and confiscated guns? "We won't take your guns, but lets praise and maybe mimic countries that took guns??????" That seems like obvious double speak IMO.

It is hard to wade through all the idiocy, especially when so many on both side aren't genuine. Gun control keeps claiming they don't want to take guns, but has always praised UK and OZ that confiscated guns. Now many do want to take AR series weapons.

Gun rights people talk about mental health, enforcing existing laws and good guys stopping shooters but those are dismissive tactics and they don't push anything to maximize those things

@MikeFlora many people, including a handful of retired politicians think most on both sides don't want real solutions for gun violence, abortion and immigration bc those are hot button cash cows that never end.

Since expanding background checks has enormous support from people on all sides, why wasn't there a bill that ONLY had expanded background checks? It seems obvious such a bill would pass, I doubt it would have a measurable impact on gun deaths but it's still something we should do....but again even when Obama was in office and he had a Democrat majority, nobody pushed a bill with only background checks.

That seems extraordinarily odd

@educatedredneck I don't think they know how to pass a bill that is "just" anything.
I'm going to have to answer you in parts right now, I can't write a long reply at the moment

I think estimate of gun owners is 30-50%, 30% is the low estimate. Some people with guns in the house will say they aren't gun owners and that's not entirely wrong. I have several weapons but my ex wife didn't even know where my gun safe was and definitely didn't know how to get into the safe if she did find it.

The NRA deserves some blame for gun problems, but they're not the universal, omnipotent boogie man that has a lock on congress that many on the left act like they are.

Many gun enthusiasts dislike the NRA for various reasons, including how political they've become.

As much as the NRA is demonized, they're still the biggest push for gun safety, gun training, safe storage in the USA. The fact so many gun control people don't know or ignore this is a problem

@educatedredneck I always knew about the gun safety programs through NRA. And yes, so much has changed with them. I never remember this being such a political group. When do you think the change occurred? Also thanks for your statistical info. But even if the highest estimate is 50% it still seems that it is certainly not more than half. I think my frustration is how can this group hold so much power? I certainly am not in favor of banning all guns but I am most definitely in favor of legislation that actually means something.

@AmelieMatisse I'm often pedantic, if you're asking how can the NRA have so much power, I don't think they have nearly as much power as gun control acts like they do. They aren't some omnipotent boogeyman. They donate to politicians but far less than other groups, like say unions. It's funny people who criticize the NRA for having political power rarely if ever talk about money from groups they support donating money. If you don't like corruption and money in politics, you have to be consistent and probably more outraged at unions than the NRA.

If you're asking how do gun owners have so much power, many people who don't own guns want others to have those freedoms. The USA simply does not want to mimic laws in the UK and Oz. The more gun control people keep fixating on those types of laws as the main our usually the only solution, the less effective they have been. Seriously, why would almost all federal legislation keep failing or even repealed like the 1994 Assault weapons ban? We don't want to have sweeping bans and confiscation.

The question I've asked for 3 years which keeps stumping gun control advocates, why is restrictive legislation aimed at responsible people the main or ONLY answer for gun problems? I can't think of any problem we try to decrease with that bias...please think carefully if you come up with something bc we have non restrictive interventions for everything from unwanted pregnancy, drunk driving, drugs, teen drinking, texting and driving, work accidents....we do have some legislative restrictions for some of those also but they're generally aimed at irresponsible behavior and most proposed gun control laws are aimed at all gun owners and often impact responsible people more than irresponsible people.

Just curious is your frustration the lack of effective legislation or the lack of effective interventions on decreasing innocent people who die from firearms?

I absolutely think we can significantly decrease the number of annual deaths if we start working together but that would mean gun control has to stop fixating on legislation as the only answer and gun rights people would have to stop dismissing 30k annual deaths

@educatedredneck Interesting points you make but I will never understand how you feel that it is somehow going to take the rights away from responsible gun owners. I could say that I should not have to have my car inspected every year at a cost of about $100.00 just for the sticker because I am a responsible car owner and I will always keep my car in good shape. Or why if I drop my vehicle insurance I must turn over my license. Or why do I have to sign a paper and show my license and be put in a database at the drug store, which by the way is a national database in order to buy certain types of cold medicines - I am a responsible person and I am not going to go home and try to make meth with my pills. Or, why I can no longer buy lawn darts even though I would be responsible and make sure no one played the game in such a way as to hurt themselves or others. But yet, in these instances and many more I must obey a law that is geared to everyone, it wasn't enacted just for my convenience, it was enacted for the common good of all. This is where you lose me.

@AmelieMatisse you ask good questions. People are pushing for legislation to ban and even confiscate many weapons. I don't see how a legislative ban and taking private property wouldn't be taking rights away.

Some people, although fewer than those wanting gun bans, are pushing to repeal the 2nd amendment entirely. Gun rights have been a reality in the USA for 250 years, I can't see how repealing that isn't removing rights.

Driving a car on public roads is not a right and we require licenses and insurance for those privileges. If someone only drives car only on private property they don't need license or insurance. Some farmers or people with a lot of property have trucks that never leave their property and don't insure those vehicles and people wt licenses drive those vehicles. I learned to drive on an unlicensed truck when I was 13.

I'm pretty sure the database for Rx drugs is state not federal and that's only for some Rx drugs, states don't monitor all Rx drugs. There's already a county database for firearms, some states expand that statewide.

Most of our driving laws restrict or consequence irresponsible behavior. It's dangerous to drive 100mph, stupid to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol....merely owning a gun isn't dangerous. We restrict driving 100mph, but we don't restrict owning a car that can go 200mph. In general most laws restrict irresponsible behavior and we try to maximize freedoms for responsible people. Millions of people safely have guns in the USA.

Unfortunately most gun control advocates want more restrictions on gun ownership than we have for cars or drugs. Most want ALL gun owners and all guns registered on a federal registry.

Finally, nothing you mentioned is a guaranteed right in the US Constitution. Gun rights are guaranteed in the BoR and the FF thought that was so important they listed it as the 2nd amendment in the BoR. I rarely discuss the BoR much, you can find legal scholars who criticize gun rights, 2A but SCOTUS has consistently held that gun rights are constitutional. If you want to dispute a SCOTUS ruling, you'll need a lot of legal credentials.

Again, I think we can and should focus on ways to maximize safety and gun rights. That won't happen as long as people continue fixating on restrictive legislation as the main or only way to be safer.

Fuck the second amendment and the ammo you ammosex with.

Now this is my group and I can say what I want. The 2nd amendment is never going to be repealed, ever. To repeal a amendment takes more than a simple majority, meaning 66 senators, 285 congressmen and be ratified by 38 states. You will never get that many people in this country to agree on anything. Trump is protecting nothing with nothing and the NRA is doing the same thing. If you don't believe me look it up for yourself. Trump and the NRA are playing you when it comes to the 2nd amendment. You will never lose your right to bare arms, only on what type of arms you can bare and when you look at community safety that is not wrong. The 2nd amendment does not say everybody can have as many guns as they want. If it did it would just say "the right of the people to bare arms shall not be infringed", saying anything beyond that means they had some limitations in mind, it would have been nice if they had told us what they had in mind, but they most definitely had limitations.

@GipsyOfNewSpain Lol! are you one of those ban guns that way only criminals children will accidentally shoot themselves in the face? Lol!

@Kojaksmom No, I will slap you with my dick in your face. That kind of guy I am.

@MikeFlora what you are saying makes a lot of sense and it has always wondered me if our founding fathers had even the slightest clue as to what our weaponry in the year 2020 would look like - my guess is no. Even Thomas Jefferson wrote that laws need to change as society changes; it is in great big letters carved in the Jefferson Memorial in DC.

@MikeFlora The biggest danger to gun rights is liberal judges who don’t even recognize the 2nd amendment as giving American citizens the right to have firearms.

@GipsyOfNewSpain lol! You're too much!

@Trajan61 Do you know what this country will be like in 250 years, I sure as hell don't. There is no way they could have known either. Any way you look at it, if they wanted everybody to have as many guns as they want, it would have just said "The right of the people to bare arms shall not be infringed", Saying any else but that, means they had some limitations in mind. It's just common sense.
If Abraham Lincoln knew it would take 100 years to get civil rights for blacks, I'll bet he would have pressed harder to get civil rights included when he wrote the emancipation proclamation.

I don't know the guy just said we were blaming the NRA for our gun problems

@MikeFlora nra is our gun problem.