---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote : Comment below...
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote : Comments below... ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <curtisdeltablues@...> wrote : --In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote : And I'm back to "America has a political problem," given that the overwhelming majority of Americans want stricter gun controls, but the appropriate legislation is consistently blocked by the minority who don't want any gun controls. Obviously that political problem has an impact on many other situations besides gun control. But the point is that if the majority could get its way, gun safety would be significantly improved, and some of the awful statistics would be reduced. C: With 80% of homicides in our cities being gang related I am not sure even gun laws can touch this issue. DC has the strictest laws against gun ownership and is 8th in homicide rate. The most vocal people for guns are not the ones shooting each other with them. Can you really think of a gun law that would stop criminals from using them to defend their turf? J: I don't think I said anything to that effect. c: Linking gun control to reducing the "awful statistics" was to that effect. Well, no, Curtis, reducing the statistics is not to the effect of stopping criminals from using guns. I don't choose my words at random, and I don't appreciate your changing them and trying to stuff them back into my mouth. c: Oh sorry, I thought you were referring to reducing people shooting each other which is dominated by criminals. Now that you have clarified that you are reducing the 'statistics" I get your point completely. If we had laws that reduced people taking statistics you would have a valid point. I wasn't stuffing any words into your mouth I was drawing out the implications of what you were saying as it applies to the world as I see it in a ...you know... like an online discussion where two people are looking at different areas of a complex problem. J:End of conversation. C: Always so huffy! What's up with that? J:However, Obama's "Now Is the Time" proposals include many things that could be done to reduce gun violence, including increased mental health care spending: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/wh_now_is_the_time_full.pdf http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/wh_now_is_the_time_full.pdf C: I am all for more mental health spending but again, the most gun violence is between gang members fighting over turf. His other proposals are all political theater to make it seem like he is doing something. Making it harder for criminals to get guns the easy way will just drive up the price and appeal for people who sell them the harder more profitable way. Improving school safety is a joke and more theater. No one can stop the kind of determined kids who have done the worst damage. I go in and out of schools every day and there is no way short of prison lockdown to even improve an inch on that. And prisons aren't exactly violence free either. The laws against gun clips and certain kinds of guns is more misplaced misdirection. The kind of gun you need to shoot a deer humanly can be just as effective and you will never get controls on those. This law is for people who don't know much about guns and think there are big differences. What talking about these measures HAS accomplished is that sales of assault rifles and large round clips went through the roof. So now that ship has sailed and there are more big clips and assault rifles on the street than ever in history. Unintended consequences of gun control laws. So for me the issue is education and dealing with poverty. If you look at a map of where DC homicides are, it is a map of our poorest residents. People living in a horribly broken social system, with a society that has artificially inflated the value of drugs through prohibition, ends up with gang driven murder rates like we have. Amsterdam does not have this toxic mix. So I'm back to "America has a people problem."
