Background checks on ammo purchases.

[LopeHunter]

I feel safer with the dems coming after my guns than I do the GOP coming after my clean air, water, public lands & wildlife (and my healthcare, retirement investments, etc). But yeah, let's play identity politics rather than look at the actual chances of something like this passing, even if the Dems take the House.



Clearly, if we do one thing, it will lead to enactment of things so horrific that only hyperbole can answer our questions.

Gun owners should be at the forefront of this debate, and not just sharing silly memes trying to shame other people from their beliefs. We shouldn't be harassing and attacking kids who survive school shootings, and we shouldn't be swinging dick around to make ourselves feel better about our love of guns.

These are our countrymen & women who are looking for answers. We could be helpful in giving them something that would actually work. The right has correctly diagnosed some of the biggest issues related to gun violence, yet they refuse to actually look at ways to limit that violence. The left has misdiagnosed the problem and thinks that only gun control can solve the issue. Both sides continue to only see half of the problem.

Gun violence is absolutely a cultural problem. If you want to fix the culture, then empower those who are most at risk (poor kids - urban and rural, black, white and brown) to find their path to prosperity. Offer free vocational training & community college, even offer free tuition to land grant colleges - give kids an opportunity to succeed rather than simply tell them to do it on their own. Same goes for healthcare - if you want to honestly look at ways to better how we treat mentally ill, then you have to consider single payer. A nation that invests in it's people is a nation that thrives. It worked in the last century and built the middle class. We've abandoned those principles in favor of policy that rewards selfishness and greed.

Gun control is addressing a symptom, not the disease. Yet even with that acknowledgement, gun owners could be leading the way in finding real solutions to a cultural problem that no other industrialized nation suffers from, but instead we choose division, derision and inaction. That is how we truly lose our freedoms.

This bill has no chance of passing. Yet we do know that people like James Holmes ordered thousands of rounds off the internet, same with the LV shooter (stockpiled rounds). Same with the guy who shot up a Planned Parenthood. Hell, I have about 8-10K rounds right now in my ammo locker. If I want to purchase that many rounds, I don't have a problem going through a background check similar to buying a gun. It's not an abrogation of rights, since I can still buy them - it's a regulation of a right, just as all rights have regulation.

Lifetime NRA member here and I am more in line with Ben than ever on this. Why? A solution will be crafted. Responsible gun owners can either be at that table or outside screaming. A solution is going to happen. Will also be a solution on illegals here and those that head here in the future. The "never give an inch" when matters have become social issues puts you on the wrong side of history. My 2 cents after watching society evolve and the definition of a conservative shift to what was a moderate 30 years ago. Change happens. Don't have to like it and don't have to participate. Change doesn't care. Not in a democracy, anyway.

 

[belly-deep]

My good reactionary friend,

No system is perfect. Yet Canadians approve of their system. Even in polls that skew more conservative, support for single payer in Canada & Great Britian is still well over 50%. I have no doubts your friends had issues, but it appears they are the outlier and not the norm. What Americans have now is not sustainable, and it leads to economic disparity that helps ensure future gun violence and poverty. If we truly want to solve the issue of gun violence, then again I say, let's look at the root cause and fix our society so it can once again prosper.

Wages have been unable to keep up with the cost of living, and our politicians strive for less protection of the working class in order to make the bosses richer.

Healthcare costs are skyrocketing, and our congress works to make it more expensive creating financial crisis's when people get easily curable diseases.

We need tradespeople, but we don't want to be funding their education and helping lift them out of poverty and bringing them up in to the middle class.

I've owned my own S Corp for 6 years now. I pay wages, taxes and have my overhead. I love profit. I want more of it. Moving to single payer helps address all of the above, but it also means we have to be willing to find the best way forward to put it in place. I pay $650 a month for rock bottom coverage for my 2 employees. I'd rather pay an extra $500 a month and cut out that insurance payment. At the end of the year, I have enough for a snooty 16 gauge. That's extra profit.

Hmm. I’ve lived in to areas of Montana that have large (for MT standards) hospitals in them. I also have two family members who work in said hospitals.

The Canadians, and there are quite a few, who come down and pay out of pocket to receive our superior medical treatment sure don’t fall into that statistic supporting the single payer system. They seem to really hate it.

 

[belly-deep]

And Ben, when you mention gun violence, you do concede that the mass shootings which spark these debates are largely committed by white middle class individuals?

And do you deny that GB has poverty issues?

If you’re blaming gun violence on lack of healthcare, I think that’s quite the stretch.

 

[Tradewind]

No, I am not being obtuse. It’s quite arrogant and ignorant of you to assign motives to my questions.

I asked because I wanted to know his thoughts. Please refrain from telling me what my intentions are. Speaking solely for myself, if I made a definitive statement and when asked to explain it I referred someone to a 30 page thread and told them they would find their answers there, it would indicate I really didn’t know what I’m talking about and/or I had no idea how to articulate my thoughts in relation to the question.

Obviously some people are not mature enough to handle anything more than superficial conversation.

Peace out.

JLS:
I engaged in that 30 page pissing match, for a while. Not interested in revisting. It got no where which easily explains to me why we still ahve school shootings. My reference to politically correct obviously hit a nerve. We could go another 30 pages probably, and while this thread is derivative of Lawnboy's to some extent, it deserves it's own thread.
Besides, I would much rather engage in 2 pages of verbal intercourse with my liberal bff and politely insult each other whilst hitting the salient points of the arguement.
While I don't agree with him I do see his point. Almost makes we want to become a snooty 16 guage owner :hump:

 

[JLS]

JLS:
My reference to politically correct obviously hit a nerve.

No, it certainly didn’t.

 

[MTGomer]

The Canadian healthcare system works better than ours if you were a person that if you were in the US doesn’t have a real job/can’t afford insurance and get cancer or if you need an rare or experimental drug, an organ transplant etc

If you want something somewhat elective to benefit your quality of life like Lasic or you’re a young athlete that needs some knee work, good luck.

There’s a reason Spokane, Great Falls, Minot etc hospital parking lots are packed with Canadians.


Government involvement and regulation in our healthcare system is what makes it expensive. Obama care literally outlawed simple, cheap, catastrophic coverage.
Healthcare is far too important to leave in the incompetent hands of the parasite sector. Look at the VA.

I’ve never went a day without having good insurance. My parents had good jobs and now I have one. People unhappy with their healthcare situation should give that method a try. Real job.

 

[Ben Lamb]

And Ben, when you mention gun violence, you do concede that the mass shootings which spark these debates are largely committed by white middle class individuals?

And do you deny that GB has poverty issues?

If you’re blaming gun violence on lack of healthcare, I think that’s quite the stretch.

I concede all points.

Do you concede that the vast majority of gun violence is committed by people of a lower economic background regardless of race or location and that handguns are the primary tool used in those incidents?

I'm blaming economic insecurity on gun violence, and one way to address that is to have healthcare provided so you don't ignore issues like early onset diabetes, tooth decay, etc. Preventative medicine is proven to lower healthcare costs, yet the poorest Americans are rationing healthcare because they can't afford it, which in turn causes greater stress on people, leading to a higher liklihood of committing crime, use drugs, etc.

We've beat up on the healthcre idea, yet we've not discussed the other issue at hand - free post-secondary education. If you give a kid in a trailer park the ability to weld, you're helping them find a path out of poverty and a middle class life. That, more than the healthcare issue, is how I think we start to solve some of these issues.

There's been a ton of good stuff written lately about how society has abandoned our kids, increase in fatherless households, etc, and they're all correct. The fabric of the home has been changed from linen to cheesecloth, and we want to argue about the place settings.

 

[belly-deep]

I concede all points.

Do you concede that the vast majority of gun violence is committed by people of a lower economic background regardless of race or location and that handguns are the primary tool used in those incidents?

I'm blaming economic insecurity on gun violence, and one way to address that is to have healthcare provided so you don't ignore issues like early onset diabetes, tooth decay, etc. Preventative medicine is proven to lower healthcare costs, yet the poorest Americans are rationing healthcare because they can't afford it, which in turn causes greater stress on people, leading to a higher liklihood of committing crime, use drugs, etc.

We've beat up on the healthcre idea, yet we've not discussed the other issue at hand - free post-secondary education. If you give a kid in a trailer park the ability to weld, you're helping them find a path out of poverty and a middle class life. That, more than the healthcare issue, is how I think we start to solve some of these issues.

There's been a ton of good stuff written lately about how society has abandoned our kids, increase in fatherless households, etc, and they're all correct. The fabric of the home has been changed from linen to cheesecloth, and we want to argue about the place settings.

I will concede your points on the majority of gun violence.

Not sure about the free college though. The problem is that we’ve relaxed our standards with a HS education so much that all you have to do is show up to get a degree. Consequently, HS educated students don’t necessarily have the skills they need when they graduate. College is moving in that direction. If you make it free, I anticipate the problem to get worse. Further, a college education will have diminished value when more people get them and the good jobs will start requiring another degree on top of that. The goal posts will get moved out and the problem will resurface. It’s supply and demand.

I really don’t think there’s a way to get rid of poverty. History has taught that attempts to equalize eventually wind up putting everyone in poverty.

The American meritocracy still works if people are willing to work at it. All sorts of immigrant groups come in penniless and get after it. Eastern Indians seem to be the best example right now. I don’t think the system is broken, just that the will to participate is lacking.

 

[Sytes]

Community College trade school options are... Dirt cheap.
Is it the lack of continuing education counselors, community driven PR?
Free is a hand out. Place a slight financial burden upon a student and a internal factor encourages a student to apply him/herself.

 

[VikingsGuy]

And charge a premium for it.

We are bankrupting families with our healthcare system, putting them in distress. We ration healthcare in a variety of forms, mine was a simple one. Insurance companies ration healthcare based on cost & liklihood of success. Hospitals ration based on ability to pay, etc. We fool ourselves to think emergency services are different here than any where else.

And none of this goes back to the original point that giving people a better chance to get the meds they need and de-stigmatize mental health would help end violence like we've seen recently.

Certainly mental health is part of the problem, and I am not expert, but it seems like disaffection is the originating problem. Seems like these shooters come from broken homes, no friends, no ties to school, community, church -- this isolation likely leads to diagnoses, but I don't think medication alone fixes the problem. We have to find a way to make these kids fit in the larger world around them -- develop self-worth and empathy -- whether it be a loner suburban who plots a school shooting, or an urban kid who sees the local gang as the only "family" they can ever have.

 

[noharleyyet]

Ben Lamb...Ezekiel Bulver gives you a like.....

 

[Tradewind]

Ben Lamb...Ezekiel Bulver gives you a like.....

Who??

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Who??

Character of a CS Lewis essay....

"In other words, you must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became to be so silly."

 

[noharleyyet]

Who??

Ben's mentor.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Ben Lamb...Ezekiel Bulver gives you a like.....

Leave it to a Texan to think a complex issue has a simple solution.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I will concede your points on the majority of gun violence.

Not sure about the free college though. The problem is that we’ve relaxed our standards with a HS education so much that all you have to do is show up to get a degree. Consequently, HS educated students don’t necessarily have the skills they need when they graduate. College is moving in that direction. If you make it free, I anticipate the problem to get worse. Further, a college education will have diminished value when more people get them and the good jobs will start requiring another degree on top of that. The goal posts will get moved out and the problem will resurface. It’s supply and demand.

I really don’t think there’s a way to get rid of poverty. History has taught that attempts to equalize eventually wind up putting everyone in poverty.

The American meritocracy still works if people are willing to work at it. All sorts of immigrant groups come in penniless and get after it. Eastern Indians seem to be the best example right now. I don’t think the system is broken, just that the will to participate is lacking.

I can agree with a lot of this. However, I don't see the failure of our current gov't as a reason to abandon the principle that gov't should exist for the betterment of the people. I'm also not saying that we should be sending kids to college for liberal arts degrees. I see constantly that this nation is in need of tradespeople, and often times, community colleges offer the best way to get the training necessary to fill those jobs, as do mentorship programs set up by many states.

We will never erase completely poverty, crime or other bad things, but to not try and use the weight of our collective resources mean we submit to those conditions and expect their growth.

Rather than free, how about compensatory service? We could strengthen the GI bill, increase opportunity for volunteerism post-school, etc. Right now, we view post-secondary as a cash cow for lenders rather than a way to elevate our nation.

 

[noharleyyet]

Leave it to a Texan to think a complex issue has a simple solution.

Leave it to a transplanted Texan to think a simple issue has a complex solution.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Leave it to a transplanted Texan to think a simple issue has a complex solution.

My good friend,

Your state is proud to have legalized open carry of swords.

That's some amazingly simplistic thinking right there.

 

[Irrelevant]

I can get on board with free college if everyone has to complete two years of national service after high school. Not necessarily the military but some form of service.

And yes, high school needs to get a lot harder. Let's get away from evaluating schools on how many student can graduate.

 

[noharleyyet]

My good friend,

Your state is proud to have legalized open carry of swords.

That's some amazingly simplistic thinking right there.

Kudos on the proud mention.