Goldeneye Facility bathroom

Not to incidentally glorify a bunch of aristocratic slave owners, but I think that’s exactly the sort of shortcut that the founders of the USA didn’t want us to be making, and I do agree with them on that matter. I’d rather have long, hard, good-faith conversations over how to safely and responsibly have as much freedom and individual autonomy as possible without infringing on the same for others, than give up access to specific objects and actions piecemeal in an ostensible attempt to curtail our lowest common denominators.

In terms of outcomes, there are about 400 million guns in the US and about 283 million cars. Yet gun deaths and car deaths have kept pace with one another for about a decade with roughly 45K annually for each, with guns recently edging out cars during covid. Statistically speaking, a gun kills at a rate of 11.25⁻⁵ Americans per year, while a car kills at a rate of 15.79⁻⁵ Americans per year.

However, I hope you’ll agree with me that we shouldn’t ban cars simply because they are capable of violence.

Interesting, I’m autistic and what frustrates me here is that the question specifically asks you to posit “How is it possible” and the teacher insists that you’re supposed to just say that it’s not. Makes me want to just Calvinball the whole damn exam. 5 + 7, what is the answer? Purple. Obviously.

How is that possible?

“False”

🤷‍♂️

The question literally says “Marty ate more pizza”. It’s a foundational fact that you’re given as a part of the problem. If refuting the basic facts of the question are on the table and the answer was the say “Actually, no he didn’t” then you might as well say something like “No, he actually at 1/6 of his pizza” and claim all the numbers given are dishonest.

Well go on, show me the violent crime stats by country so that we can compare to semiauto long gun regs. It would also be nice if we could see before and after stats but I know that’s a tall ask and I’m not trying to be a sealion. Let’s just see violent crime stats, maybe just homicides per 1 million or similar. It sounds like you have access to this data.

Don’t show me only the mass shooting stats. We’re not trying to reduce mass shootings, we’re trying to reduce violence. We’re not trying to avoid having to see guns, we’re trying to avoid having to see bloodshed. I know, I know. You want to point out that mass shootings are a vector of violence that can be remedied by removing guns. This is true, taking away rights does mute a lot of issues related to irresponsible management of those rights. But you’ve been brushing off my suggestions that there are more just and fair ways to address that vector for this entire conversation. So let’s table that specific response of yours for now, and let’s just see the violence stats before moving on.

Nice try, FBI

And all the countries that allow guns suffer from frequent mass shootings, right? Because access to guns is the cause of social violence.

Have you ever driven a car?

Shame on you if you have. Some of those have been designed and used to kill people.

How dare you. Go live in the woods!

Overview of gun laws by nation

Even I am surprised by how many nations have a legal pathway to semiauto ownership. Also for the record, I think that firearm licensing programs are generally a good idea, and driver licensing programs provide a good model for them to follow. But few US states have them.

I think you misunderstand. I’m not trying to stan the 2A. I’m trying to point out that the US is not at all unique when it comes to private access to the sort of gun that Maryland has banned.

They issue “convertible notes”, which this coindesk article explains far better than I could because I am not a finance head and honestly do not fully understand them.

There are literally dozens of countries that allow private ownership of semi-auto long guns with a permit (Canada is one of them - I see your home instance is .ca), many of them don’t even require a stated reason. The legal difference in the US is that one of our founding documents specifies access as a right. Access to guns is not why we’re a violent county. We’re a violent country because we’re a genocidal settler-colonialist racial slaver society with no health care and piss-poor education. If all of our guns were to poof vanish tonight we’d just have more euro-style mass knifings in our schools and department stores. This shit is like water pressure, you can put your thumb on the hose with piecemeal measures but it’s going to burst out somewhere else so long as it’s still flowing.

Ruining the fun? That seems to be an incredibly weak argument for gun proliferation.

Why, you have an issue with fun? You have an issue with a society where everyone can pursue their hobbies to the fullest extent, and find enjoyment in them? Do you not think it’s possible to provide responsible restrictions on firearms in a way that doesn’t prevent one from going out into the woods on a weekend with friends to merely enjoy nerding out on the intersection of machining and marksmanship? More importantly, do you not find it justified to argue for rights from the goal of having a good time? Fun isn’t covered in the constitution per se but I think this falls under the old “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution”.

I’m not saying don’t try to stop mass murders. I’m saying do it in a way that makes fucking sense. This part bans make no fucking sense, especially when they don’t grandfather in for existing owners. I wish we would put all the effort spent on supporting these piecemeal measures into pressuring legislators to provide access to a good education and medical / mental health services for everyone as I’m convinced lack of those things are the source of the violence, but all this stupid system can do is take from people and it bothers me to see people jump on that train so willingly when it happens.

Especially at a time where government agencies are committing acts of escalating terror against the population, like we’re seeing with ICE. It’s just so tone deaf.

That doesn’t follow logically at all unless you think a society with frequent mass murders is a foregone conclusion.

1995? We were still using these in like 2008.

That seems like an awfully fringe and roundabout improvement for a law that ruins the fun for everyone else. But I guess this is the flip side of the same leadership that’s engineered a society in which so many people decide to be mass murderers in the first place.

Yeah, but the law you linked only says what it’s modifying. Did the previous law define the term “assault weapon” in Maryland, too?