What is a March gonna do? Nothing! So we make stricter gun laws, so what! If a man is willing to prime the gun, aim at another human being, and pull the trigger… what makes you think they’re are gonna follow the law?!…. The government doesn’t give two shits about us! And they never will! The moment you get that through your skull, the easier it is to swallow the pill.
I’m not saying I like the threat of possibly being shot the next time I go to school. I’m not saying I’m not sad about those who have already died. I’m not saying that the law shouldn’t be stricter….. what I am saying is there’s no point in making posters and t-shirts and body paint, cause whether you do or don’t, the laws not gonna change and the government is gonna do whatever the fuck they want.
So go ahead with your signs and t-shirts as you March…. and if something is changed, get back to me!
1. We should reinstate the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (which expired in 2004.)
Now, studies have shown that this ban didn’t have much impact on overall gun deaths (since gun deaths that only impact 1 or 2 people are so so common.) However, there is evidence that it helped prevent mass shooting events.
A 2019 DiMaggio et al. study looked at mass shooting data for 1981 to 2017 and found that mass-shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur during the 1994 to 2004 federal ban period. This didn’t stop all mass shooting events, obviously (the spike you see in 1999 is Columbine.) But it is an improvement. You don’t get to own a grenade launcher or a tank. Maybe its time we took AR 15s and the like off the table. (For cops too, for the record.)
2. Universal background checks.
In 2015, a national Public Policy Polling survey of gun owners found overwhelming support (83%) for background checks, a 2018 Gallup poll found that 95% of people supported “requiring background checks for all gun sales,” and in 2019, a Quinnipiac University poll from 2019 found that 94% of American voters supported universal background checks.
These are popular and obvious steps forward.
3. No more permitless carry.
Texas has a permitless carry law. This legislation allows individuals 21 and older to carry open or concealed handguns without a permit. This means that most Texans no longer have to undergo a background check or complete training in order to carry a handgun in public.
This is, obviously, fucking lunacy. You have to pass a test to get a driver’s license. You even have to pass different tests to drive different kinds of vehicles.
The same should *obviously* apply to firearms. Just. Obviously. A test for rifles, a test for hand guns, a background check for either, you only get to buy what you have a license for.
4. Inspections
Ok, so this is the most logistically and legally complicated, so it would be the one that we would need to work up to. Yeah? But I know Japan has a similar system, and yes. We are much bigger and own a lot more guns than Japan, so I know I know. But let’s talk about it.
I have to get my car inspected every year. Make sure the brakes work and the engine won’t explode. Yeah? For public safety.
So, let’s say every year (3 years? 5 years? I don’t know the logistics here) someone from the county comes out, checks that your guns are in good working order, that your gun safe is in good repair (that you aren’t stockpiling a bunch of illegal ground to air missiles and land mines)- that everything is on the up and up and safe.
5. Gun buybacks.
Gun buybacks are straight forward systems to help get excess guns out of a community in a safe and legal way. A robust and generous federal buyback, like what Australia did in 1996 and 2003 would be a simple and easy step.
I’m not saying that we ban all guns. I’m not saying that no one never has any legitimate reason to own a gun. But this wild west mutually assured destruction arms race that America is currently in against itself is eating us alive. Eating our children. And there are simple, tested, popular steps forward.
Top, Open Carry Texas members blast a semi-nude female mannequin for target practice; bottom, a Florida gun instructor wishes gun control activists “Happy Mother’s Day” (note the bullet holes in the exclamation point).
There is a perfectly good reason why God doesn’t stop school shootings, genocides, murders, rapes and even his/her own priests from molesting children. The simple reason is that god does not exist. That means the only person who can prevent and stop the next shooting is you.
As the comic suggests, get engaged with reality and petition for reasonable gun laws. Sure, not every criminal will follow these new laws, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to make the acquisition of guns just a little bit tougher. Not every citizen is going to respect traffic law either, but we should still have them anyway. It’s this effort is what stops crime from getting out of control… so while some crime might slip through the cracks, we should still make the effort to stop what we can.
So if you really want to see less shootings I suggest you stop praying to a figment of your imagination, get off your lazy ass, and do something about it yourself.
I’m terrified of guns. Petrified. For a person who already suffers daily from death anxiety, the idea of having a gun in my own home, USED TO BE unthinkable.
I felt a shift in my perspective today. Absolutely nothing is going to change in this country. If because of this Texas elementary school shooting, things do finally change, then thank fucking God. But I’m not holding my breath. And until something changes, how can I not arm myself in this wildly fucked up country? At the very least, I know that I’ll ALWAYS be the good guy with the gun, I’d never ever use to it hurt someone unless I had no other choice.
Do any of you guys own guns for personal or home protection? I would honestly love some perspectives and feedback because I don’t know how I could sleep tonight, even if I tried.
That is approximately how many people under age 18 have died as a result of gun violence in the United States exactly one year since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, according to a new reporting initiative, “Since Parkland.” The shooting was the impetus for March for Our Lives, a nationwide movement that has included sit-ins, die-ins, and school walkouts, launching students to the forefront of the gun control conversation.
In a long-form report released just days before the one-year anniversary of the Parkland shooting, more than 200 teen journalists explained just how many gun-related deaths have struck young Americans. “Since Parkland,” a collaborative reporting project among The Trace, The Miami Herald, and the McClatchy newspaper group, showcases the lives of the more than 1,200 victims of gun violence — age zero to 18 — who have been killed in the 12 months since the Florida tragedy.
The goal of the project? To “create three-dimensional human begins that were more than just another statistic — more than just another kid dead,” The Trace senior project editor Katina Paron tells Teen Vogue.
The cops had advance notice of a gunman on the loose, from the shooter’s grandmother, at great pains, notifying the police.
He crashed his car before arriving at the school, once again alerting the police. His grandmother stood in the line of fire to stop him, teachers threw themselves in front of bullets to save their students - but the US cops, heavily armed and armoured, the prototypical ‘good guy with a gun’? They stood by and did nothing.
Cops kill defenceless kids more than mass shooters do, and when given the opportunity to stop a shooting, refuse. What heroes. The cowardice makes sense, though; cops have no obligation to protect people, just to defend property.
Honestly. Give it a few weeks and we’ll find out that, like practically every other mass shooter, the cops had known about and been in contact with him for months.
reportedly the parents had to scream at the officers to go in and stop him – he was in there for up to an hour before they went in after him. they went in and got their own kids out before attending to the victims.
Reminder that, after the cops spent an hour brutalising Chicano and Latino parents instead of stopping the shooter, ICE showed up to arrest any undocumented survivors.
We have to protect this woman. They are going to try and go after her. She’s on probation and was told not to talk to the press. Her Intel is vital to what went down inside. Angeli Gomez, Respect. Watch all of it to the end.
Evidently, President Donald Trump’s previously impassioned desire not to see mass killing victims die in vain has given way to cold, hard political calculus. Our view.NRA view.
Gun-control advocates such as Democratic presidential candidate and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas — who is calling for a mandatory government buyback of outlawed assault-style rifles — cross the line between sensible and inflammatory. Our view.Beto O’Rourke’s view.
