Bill Foley

LewSwimmin said:
Perhaps the answer is to let them all have as many guns as they like under the constitution but make the possession and sale of ammunition illegal.
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You read my mind LewSwimmin, I was talking with a girlfriend in Denver last night, and said that to my best recollection the 2nd Amendment (the right to carry a gun) does not talk about having a right to own or carry or use ammunition. She agreed but there is still no way that Republicans, especially those who live in the South, would ever allow that law to get through the House and Senate.
The issue is that so many of those "politicians" receive major funding from the NRA a la the gun manufacturers.
Nothing will change until it becomes personal to those politicians who support gun ownership. They have to become victims or their families at least, and only then will they begin to understand what this is all about, it is not about a right to own, but a right to live free of the threat of being killed by someone even accidentally. Anyway, at the moment no-one can help the US - they lack the stones to enact the change which the majority of US citizens are crying out for.
 
Like the poster above says, the second amendment is highly unlikely to ever be amended (yes I see the irony too) under a Republican president as they nearly always accept money from the NRA to help fund their election campaigns. Their political system is even more flawed than ours, it is only possible in the USA to win a presidential election with substantial funding from private sources, the winner then has to act in the interest of these sources when they are elected. It’s why Trump could never relent on his position that the second amendment should remain as it is, because he accepted huge funding from the NRA during his campaign.

On the subject of whether the second amendment should be changed or not, I don’t think it’s really the issue, there are so many fire arms in circulation in the USA now that it just isn’t realistic to suddenly take them away. The issue is more centred around the lack of regulation when it comes to purchasing fire arms imo. This latest mass shooter had severe mental health problems/violent tendencies and they were in the system, any brief check into their background would have shown that giving this person a gun would be creating a ticking time bomb. Yet they were able to purchase fire arms legally from FIVE (yes five) separate stores to carry out this attack. How is it logical to live in a society where you have to meet strict criteria/regulations to operate a motor vehicle, yet anybody can purchase a gun at their local store?

I am very anti gun and in an ideal world think it would be better for everyone if they weren’t there at all, the life of even one child should be enough to support this position, let alone the many hundreds who have needlessly died. I just don’t see how you suddenly remove tens of millions of fire arms from a society/culture that are obsessed with them.
 
OntarioPhil said:
You read my mind LewSwimmin, I was talking with a girlfriend in Denver last night, and said that to my best recollection the 2nd Amendment (the right to carry a gun) does not talk about having a right to own or carry or use ammunition. She agreed but there is still no way that Republicans, especially those who live in the South, would ever allow that law to get through the House and Senate.
The issue is that so many of those "politicians" receive major funding from the NRA a la the gun manufacturers.
Nothing will change until it becomes personal to those politicians who support gun ownership. They have to become victims or their families at least, and only then will they begin to understand what this is all about, it is not about a right to own, but a right to live free of the threat of being killed by someone even accidentally. Anyway, at the moment no-one can help the US - they lack the stones to enact the change which the majority of US citizens are crying out for.
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And it's getting to be a problem here too, isn't it Phil. Not mass shootings as such (the occasional one or two) but gun violence is on the climb. The stuff on the subways is harrowing, got to the point where the wife won't take it unless I am along.
 
KingKieffer said:
Like the poster above says, the second amendment is highly unlikely to ever be amended (yes I see the irony too) under a Republican president as they nearly always accept money from the NRA to help fund their election campaigns. Their political system is even more flawed than ours, it is only possible in the USA to win a presidential election with substantial funding from private sources, the winner then has to act in the interest of these sources when they are elected. It’s why Trump could never relent on his position that the second amendment should remain as it is, because he accepted huge funding from the NRA during his campaign.

On the subject of whether the second amendment should be changed or not, I don’t think it’s really the issue, there are so many fire arms in circulation in the USA now that it just isn’t realistic to suddenly take them away. The issue is more centred around the lack of regulation when it comes to purchasing fire arms imo. This latest mass shooter had severe mental health problems/violent tendencies and they were in the system, any brief check into their background would have shown that giving this person a gun would be creating a ticking time bomb. Yet they were able to purchase fire arms legally from FIVE (yes five) separate stores to carry out this attack. How is it logical to live in a society where you have to meet strict criteria/regulations to operate a motor vehicle, yet anybody can purchase a gun at their local store?

I am very anti gun and in an ideal world think it would be better for everyone if they weren’t there at all, the life of even one child should be enough to support this position, let alone the many hundreds who have needlessly died. I just don’t see how you suddenly remove tens of millions of fire arms from a society/culture that are obsessed with them.
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I am inclined to agree with everything you say. The only point, which I apply to myself as well, is that we cannot fully grasp the American culture - I think you need to be born into it to really get it.
 
Toronto John said:
I'm Canadian and anti-gun. But if I lived in the US, I'd have one. Being unarmed when the 40% of the population owns a gun would not be prudent.
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Been here 30+ years and never felt the need.
Nashville shooting about 10 minutes from the house - f**king tragic.
Our Governors wife lost her best friend in the shooting,I'm sure the relaxing of some gun laws that he helped implement will not be changed.
 
musiccitycherry said:
Been here 30+ years and never felt the need.
Nashville shooting about 10 minutes from the house - f**king tragic.
Our Governors wife lost her best friend in the shooting,I'm sure the relaxing of some gun laws that he helped implement will not be changed.
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Thanks, mcc. It's a sensitive issue for our American friends, but I would love to get their takes.
 
Toronto John said:
And it's getting to be a problem here too, isn't it Phil. Not mass shootings as such (the occasional one or two) but gun violence is on the climb. The stuff on the subways is harrowing, got to the point where the wife won't take it unless I am along.
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That would be nice Derek!
One thought Denver had last night was that today, so many young children play aim and shoot video games. Never had them when I was a child - not even invented then - so the thinking is that at such an impressionable age, children learn that you can shoot someone (in the game) but they don't die in reality!
With parents who don't always think things through, the child is given a bb gun in early age and progresses to real firearms a little later and performs the video game activities without truly understanding that this time, people do actually die when you shoot them.
Do / did any of you ride a large motorbike as a young person, and the first time you had that machine between your thighs you felt so empowered - high torque, fast speed and sudden freedom? I suspect having a weapon - handgun or long gun - might just produce that same sense of euphoria and that is the attraction perhaps... the immediate sense of raw power!

Anyway as many of you have said, I do not see change in my lifetime in the US, but I am hopeful for the future in Canada.
One caveat John, I discourage my adult children from nighttime visits to Brampton and Vaughan, where much of the gun / knife violence originates in our region. Other than that we are very fortunate when compared with those who live an hour south of us.
 
musiccitycherry said:
Been here 30+ years and never felt the need.
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22 years for me, only time I have felt the need is at the start of the pandemic when people seemed to literally lose their minds.

Toronto John said:
I am inclined to agree with everything you say. The only point, which I apply to myself as well, is that we cannot fully grasp the American culture - I think you need to be born into it to really get it.
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Exactly this, once you live here you get insight into the culture, the culture is more than just "guns" but also includes and is partially driven by distrust in the federal government and personal freedoms. You also have to understand on what it means to be part of a federation - not sure if there is the same level of distrust in Canada.
 
USCherry said:
22 years for me, only time I have felt the need is at the start of the pandemic when people seemed to literally lose their minds.


Exactly this, once you live here you get insight into the culture, the culture is more than just "guns" but also includes and is partially driven by distrust in the federal government and personal freedoms. You also have to understand on what it means to be part of a federation - not sure if there is the same level of distrust in Canada.
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Yeah, well said.
There was a time in the 70s when Quebec wanted to separate from Canada, and things got a bit violent. The distrust here is regional, and there is a fraction (or faction, if you wish) that talk about Western Canada forming its own nation, but that has largely to do with economics as it does with cultural differences.
 
[QUOTE="
Nothing will change until it becomes personal to those politicians who support gun ownership. .[/QUOTE]

Wasn't this the case with Oklahoma?

There had been discussions about support for the IRA within certain sections of the US public -and suddenly the American public became aware of what terrorism really was.
 
OntarioPhil said:
That would be nice Derek!
One thought Denver had last night was that today, so many young children play aim and shoot video games. Never had them when I was a child - not even invented then - so the thinking is that at such an impressionable age, children learn that you can shoot someone (in the game) but they don't die in reality!
With parents who don't always think things through, the child is given a bb gun in early age and progresses to real firearms a little later and performs the video game activities without truly understanding that this time, people do actually die when you shoot them.
Do / did any of you ride a large motorbike as a young person, and the first time you had that machine between your thighs you felt so empowered - high torque, fast speed and sudden freedom? I suspect having a weapon - handgun or long gun - might just produce that same sense of euphoria and that is the attraction perhaps... the immediate sense of raw power!

Anyway as many of you have said, I do not see change in my lifetime in the US, but I am hopeful for the future in Canada.
One caveat John, I discourage my adult children from nighttime visits to Brampton and Vaughan, where much of the gun / knife violence originates in our region. Other than that we are very fortunate when compared with those who live an hour south of us.
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Video games causing more aggression/violence has been debunked numerous times over the past decade or two.

Here's a recent study:

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2...-doesnt-lead-to-violent-behaviour-study-shows

Sort of continuing your thread about bikes, its a bit like saying playing racing games will make many people do 150-200mph on the roads ... which very rarely happens.

10's of millions of people play video games regularly across the globe. If they did trigger violence, I'd imagine we'd be reading a whole lot more about maniac drivers, gunman etc.

Anyway, it appears a sad fact is that an extremely high proportion of gun crime occurs in poorer areas throughout the US, amongst themselves. Not sure how useful it is affluent people keeping firearms, but assume it makes them perhaps feel safer.
 
OntarioPhil said:
That would be nice Derek!
One thought Denver had last night was that today, so many young children play aim and shoot video games. Never had them when I was a child - not even invented then - so the thinking is that at such an impressionable age, children learn that you can shoot someone (in the game) but they don't die in reality!
With parents who don't always think things through, the child is given a bb gun in early age and progresses to real firearms a little later and performs the video game activities without truly understanding that this time, people do actually die when you shoot them.
Do / did any of you ride a large motorbike as a young person, and the first time you had that machine between your thighs you felt so empowered - high torque, fast speed and sudden freedom? I suspect having a weapon - handgun or long gun - might just produce that same sense of euphoria and that is the attraction perhaps... the immediate sense of raw power!

Anyway as many of you have said, I do not see change in my lifetime in the US, but I am hopeful for the future in Canada.
One caveat John, I discourage my adult children from nighttime visits to Brampton and Vaughan, where much of the gun / knife violence originates in our region. Other than that we are very fortunate when compared with those who live an hour south of us.
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Personal freedoms for straight white males.
 
The US gun situation makes me beyond angry. But it also sums up 50% of america. That facts mean nothing. They simply dont care. A lot because they do not have the intelligence and many because they have their "team" on the right and it doesn't matter what the subject is, they always side with their team.

What makes me even angrier is that the "left" moan about the right all the time but even when they have had the president and both houses they literally do nothing about it. What did Obama and Biden do? They can moan about the reps all day but they did nothing when they had the power to do so.

I have to walk away from conversations with gun nuts and accept the ultimate truth about the NRA supporters....given the choice between ending weekly school shootings and their right to own guns....they choose to own the guns. They accept it as part of ownership. Lots of smoke and mirrors and thoughts and prayers but that is the truth at the end of the day.
 
Druss_the_Legend said:
The US gun situation makes me beyond angry. But it also sums up 50% of america. That facts mean nothing. They simply dont care. A lot because they do not have the intelligence and many because they have their "team" on the right and it doesn't matter what the subject is, they always side with their team.

What makes me even angrier is that the "left" moan about the right all the time but even when they have had the president and both houses they literally do nothing about it. What did Obama and Biden do? They can moan about the reps all day but they did nothing when they had the power to do so.

I have to walk away from conversations with gun nuts and accept the ultimate truth about the NRA supporters....given the choice between ending weekly school shootings and their right to own guns....they choose to own the guns. They accept it as part of ownership. Lots of smoke and mirrors and thoughts and prayers but that is the truth at the end of the day.
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This debate is far more complex than labelling the majority of an entire nation as ‘not having intelligence.’
 
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