Debate following rejection of the new gun legistation

The Senate rejected Obama's gun legislation. Here is the news:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/17/us-usa-guns-idUSBRE93F00D20130417

Now what? Will the senate and politicians dump the sole blame for the violence in the US in video games? What do you think?

At Obama's press conference following the decision, he was noticeably pissed. As he should be. Replacing the senate with literal chimpanzees might be a better choice at this point. At least they might accidentally get something done.

But... but... but the government wants so desperately to take our guns. We must fight them at every opportunity because God knows they are just drooling at the opportunity to take away all of our rights one tiny step at a time despite the fact that they've consistently and emphatically caved to the increasingly off-base NRA at every opportunity for that $$$.

Our politicians continue their trend of going from embarrassment to dangerously inept and corrupt.

@jeust: Now what? Nothing will change, and we'll continue to wonder why in blissful ignorance. This one was a shoe-in, if this can't pass, nothing will.

Freedom was preserved today.

well considering polling has consistantly shown that people supported better background checks... no?

"...the plan to extend background checks to online and gun-show sales..."

I've bought plenty of firearms from both these things and every time I've gone through a background check, I'm not sure how you can extend it to something that already requires it.

You cannot take away our guns. I don't own a gun or want to own a gun but there is no way guns will be tamed. I would not want there to be a background check for "something that is our constitutional right". (Is it really though)

The Virginia Tech shooter was declared mentally ill two years before he killed 32 people. He went through a background check and legally bought weapons. Clearly, the current system is working great. Good stuff.

Oh you Americans, you so crazy.

Fucking money-sucking hillbillies!

@bigjeffrey said:

You cannot take away our gun. I don't own a gun or want to own a gun but there is no way guns will be tamed. I would not want there to be a background check for "something that is our constitutional right". (Is it really though)

Yup, no matter the mental faculties of the person, or their criminal past, everyone should be able to buy as many guns as they want. Psychopaths? Why not? Rapists? Sure. Children? Mmmhmm. Mentally handicapped? Lock and load.

Oh, and this had nothing to do with "taking away your gun". So you must be a child, huh?

FUCK people are stupid. Everyone's panicking about the government trying to steal all of our weapons, and we can't even get background checks extended. Get the fuck over yourselves.

People need to understand these legislations weren't the magic solution to ending mass shootings, they were sloppily thrown together and rushed to a vote. I believe the issues with expanded background checks are valid, but this was the wrong way to go about it.

It's cool to want folks to go through background check. But I get annoyed when people act like any of those laws would've prevented any of the most prolific mass shootings that constantly get brought up.

Oh boy... this thread is gonna get fun.

I agree this is a problem, but the state of Virginia didn't submit the information to the background check system, so more background checks wouldn't help if the information that someone isn't allowed to own a gun isn't being shared.

Wait...

when you say "Your guns", you're NOT referring to your muscles?

Crazy Americans.

@thecreamfilling: @epicsteve: Just because this wouldn't "cure" mass shootings doesn't mean it isn't the right move. There is no "cure" for mass shootings. But we can make gun laws more effective and try to find ways to make it more difficult for the wrong people to have access to them. There was nothing in this law that I'm sure either of you opposed. So I don't see why you're not upset by this. Most people who oppose it oppose gun bans and restrictions. A hypothetical boogie man being spouted to deny any changes whatsoever.

I'm a liberal, and I would fight to the death to protect the citizen's right to own guns. I don't want a gun ban, and a gun ban won't happen. If we can't get this done, why do you think that's so likely?

Most people admit the system as is, is ineffective. But they fight any movement to fix it. I don't understand it.

I'm not angry. I'm disappointed. And I think many on the opposing sign are being willfully ignorant and fighting strawmen. (Not you two specifically, but you two might be able to enlighten me. I'd like to understand the other side.)

http://www.youtubemultiplier.com/516cde3d4e79a-sweet-american-baby-jesus.php

Word. Same feelings. To me it's just the folks pointing to Sandy Hook to promote this bill is a fallacy and is grossly exploitative. No proposed bill could have prevented that unless you wanted armed guards at school but that's unreasonable. I'm not the stereotypical liberal that wants to burn everything down to a BB Gun but despite being a Concealed Carry License holder I'm also not the stereotypical republican that wants to set Obama on fire for disarming the community so he can have his tyrannical rule.

Thanks. I got a little heated there, so I'm glad you didn't take offense. I wish we could just take each gun law on it's own, without worrying about "eventualities". Gun bans are ridiculous, but some gun laws aren't. That's like saying we can't have speed limits because eventually they won't let us drive at all.

I agree my side has been a little condescending and emotionally manipulative, and I agree it's a bit distasteful. Measures like that may be what's necessary to impassion a country as in love with guns as America, but that doesn't mean I approve of it.

What were the new laws they were trying to pass, exactly?

@bigjeffrey said:

You cannot take away our gun. I don't own a gun or want to own a gun but there is no way guns will be tamed. I would not want there to be a background check for "something that is our constitutional right". (Is it really though)

Yeah man, totally! Just because someones a serial child rapist doesn't mean they shouldn't own an instrument of death! It's his right as an AMURICEN.

Christ, people need to read up on their history before spewing nonsense.

This is relevant, and hilarious.

Quoted for truth.

Well, our Israeli President, Barack Saddam O'Bama, wants to make it illegal for people to say the word gun, so he can force us to pay fees called taxes for things like roads, and space exploration, and cleaning up the trash we throw out our windows when we drive. Next, once we're bankrupt by taxes and have no deer hunting rifles to shoot down the government's stealth bombers and tanks, he will force all of us to treat gays and women and children and blacks and jews and young people like full fledged five-fifth human beings, and reptiles will grow inside our bodies. I know this because I keep a keen eye on the REAL news, from Rupert Murdoch and that march8th2003 site.

@wrighteous86: It was a good first attempt, but I believe it wasn't thought out too well. If the universal background check had passed it would be illegal to leave your guns in your home for more than seven days if there's someone else living there and going shooting with a friend can be illegal if one of you borrow another's gun for the day. There's a bunch of stuff like that which criminalizes innocent people and it isn't right. I understand this bill was for the greater good, but I don't think you should allow stuff like that to slip by as well.

@epicsteve: How is Sandy Hook not relevant here? The shooting was done with a legally obtained assault rifle, with high capacity magazines and by a mentally ill person. All of that is directly related to what was voted on today.

There was no reason for this bill to be voted against besides simply, politics. All the Republicans voted against the bill, obviously, and every Democrat who voted against it (besides 1, I believe) were from red states and also up for re-election. It's a disgrace.

I find it more ridiculous that the US opted out the the UN resolution to not sell weapons to terrorists, WTF? It just shows where the US stands in foreign matters and it sure as hell isn't the bullshit message of freedom they spew.

@thecreamfilling: Fair point. I understand those complaints, though I might not necessarily agree with them. I'm extreme in that I'm of the mind that your gun is your responsibility no matter who uses it. I'm not sure how the laws work now, but if someone's kid happens to get their hands on their parent's weapons, or you lose your gun and it's used in a crime, you should be legally culpable as well (maybe not equally, but heavily).

I don't want a ban, but I think laws like that would make people MUCH more careful and responsible with how they treat their weapons. I know plenty of very responsible gun owners, and I know some who wave them around at parties and leave them unattended under their beds and out in the open. The latter scare the shit out of me.

Hey, they're not terrorists unless they kill Americans, right? Right?

@milkman: The point is he was never diagnosed with anything beyond autism. He could've been a raging lunatic that kept dead hookers in his basement, but for the law to work someone needs to take him to a doctor to be diagnosed. Even if he was diagnosed and forbidden to own weapons, he stole legally obtained weapons anyway.

Polling of only three states, that included New York and New Jersey. But please, continue using bullshit statistics to back your arguments. It make you look so open minded!

@epicsteve: An assault weapons ban and a ban of magazines of more than 10 rounds were also rejected today. It wasn't just background checks. Those weapons wouldn't have been legal for anyone with the bills proposed.

@wrighteous86: At least you understand my concerns. My true hatred is people that just hear "universal background check" and automatically think it's the best idea in the world without knowing what it actually entails whether they support it or not.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was an American weapons dealer selling weapons to the very people killing Americans. Gotta get that revenue from somewhere right, capitalism, bottom line, etc...

I'm glad it didn't pass.

If you actually bothered to read what the actual bill said, you'd understand why so many people (and the ACLU) was against it. The "universal Background Check" wouldn't do anything to stop anyone unless they were already a felon (and selling a gun to a felon is already illegal) and would make regular gun owners possibly felons due to it's clauses that would essentially require them to prove where they got their guns before the bill was passed (for example, like my great-grandfathers pistol he brought back from WW2 that was passed down to me) - if this bill passed, and I couldn't account for where I got that gun, I would be committing a felony under the new law.

As for the Assault Weapons Ban and the Magazine Ban, those were dead in the water before they were even voted on. Once again, if you actually read the bill, the wording was so broad that it could easily ban EVERYTHING if they wanted it to.

The "90% of the American People" line is bullshit too. It's wasn't "90% of the American People", it was 90% of the 900 people Gallup polled via phone calls.

@milkman: Yeah, we were all just talking about the whole background check thing. But it would've been great if that ban went into effect today. It would've made it perfectly impossible for anyone to obtain weapons. Don't really know how the government would've handled the millions of rifles in circulation right now.

@rollingzeppelin: That's us, only in pursuit of liberty and freedom as long as it doesn't hinder our ability to get DAT CHEDDAH

They would still be grandfathered in, just like the guns were that was used at Sandy Hook, so no. It wouldn't have made a difference either way.

Thank god i dont live in the states

@jimmyfenix: This whole debate is just overblown. No one sane walks out side in fear. School shootings don't happen daily.

@stonyman65: To be fair, the 90% of 900 is how all polling works, but polling (in general) is surprisingly accurate if done correctly (don't know the details of this one). I think they say about 1,000 people is all that's needed in terms of polling numbers, though.

@jackg100: Yeah I watched that about a week ago. If anything, it just proves how useless any sort of ban would be.

This pretty much sums it up for me. About 2:30 on, David Stockman--a conservative and former budget director under Reagan--shreds the ludicrous reasoning behind our current gun law madness.

@epicsteve: @stonyman65: Obviously there's not much you can do about the assault weapons that people already own. There's no easy solution to that. But does that mean that the ban shouldn't happen just because people already own them? The government isn't going to go around taking everyone's guns. But the bill is for the future, not just for the right now. Also, the bill would have set up a voluntary buy-back program, though admittedly I'm not sure how popular that would be.

@wrighteous86: Oh I know, i'm just saying don't say "90% of the American People" when that isn't even close to accurate. If they said "90% of the people polled", I wouldn't have a problem because that is the truth.

Just more political doublespeak bullshit.

@milkman: I understand what you are getting at, but my whole point is that it wouldn't make any difference either way so why take rights away?

We already had an Assault Weapons Ban before for 10 years and it did absolutely nothing, in fact some FBI statistics show that it made things worse in some cases.... So why do it again when it failed before?

@stonyman65: Dunno about that, 3D Printers aren't that common and they are pretty expensive atm. And most homeusable printers are going to be too small to print gunparts, at least in the near future. Peronally I am against firearms of all kinds, ban them all for personal use unless you are a licensed hunter. Ofc. that would never work in America since you already got guns in the system and people would still have their guns stashed away.

A nationwide battleroyale would solve a lot!

@stonyman65: I'm not trying to be a dick here, but are you insinuating that for a poll to be valid it must conducted on 100% of the people it references? I understand you may be making a point about cherry-picking demographics to poll, but it's not entirely clear and I think you're undermining the use of polling in predicting large scale opinion. Obviously it's not an exact science but surely you must ascribe some meaning to poll data.