Common Sense Alcohol Reform

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Ugh. Flavored vodka, and cocktails in general, may have their place… but these artificial flavors can’t compare to the naturally nuanced complex delights of quality wines, ales, or whiskeys…
 
Well I’m not sure where you are… I find that the best ales are locally crafted microbrews ;). If you have a local microbrewery scene, see what they have for wheat / white ales.
 
Once you go Scotch you won’t go back… it just takes a little “tongue maturity”.
 
We have all those.

We also have control and non-control states that control where you can buy liquor and when. (The easy way to explain this is some states have liquor stores and some don’t - for example, here in Washington you can buy liquor in grocery stores, but in North Catolina you cannot, because hard liquor is controlled by the state). States have laws on when establishments that sell alcohol can be open. Public intoxication is indeed illegal. There are a few places where you can leave with a drink (New Orleans is one), but for the most part, you can’t walk around with an open drink in your hand.

We have all that already.
 
Well, the purpose of alcohol and the purpose of guns are different. And it could be argued that strict controls on alcohol have less of a success rate than strict controls on guns.

I’m looking for some rationale why people would support restrictions on the sale and possession of poisons and explosives but not on the sale and possession of firearms. How would the logical form of the argument differ?
 
I don’t think anyone supports the open sale of firearms without restrictions. If they do, they’re…well, they need assistance.

We have the most restrictive gun laws in US history - and they haven’t changed anything. Raising the age of purchase wouldn’t have stopped Columbine (they used shotguns), Charleston (he was 21), Virginia Tech (he was 23), Sandy Hook (he was 20, shot and killed his mother before going to Sandy Hook and used her legally obtained firearm), Nickel Mines (yeah, I count them too - he was an adult), Vegas…

I’m all about background checks - I have no issue with that. But how? We passed a Federal law (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA) protecting your sensitive health information. How much of it should you be forced to put into a more public and less restrictive domain to buy a firearm? What conditions? How depressed is too depressed? Should a fully grown adult stable on Zoloft be barred from buying a weapon - what if they take it because their child or spouse suddenly died a year ago? How do you determine the line?

One thing I think should happen is we should (sadly) hold the parent accountable for the actions of the child: if the child gets the parent’s legally owned weapon (which I’ve read happens in something like 2/3 of school shootings, and given the accounts of same it seems plausible) and commits a crime with it, the parent also does time. We own guns and we don’t have children, but we still have everything locked up in a safe. (My dog will get his teeth in whomever is coming in before I could even attempt to grab a weapon, so I sleep pretty good at night. 🙂 )

I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know the answers. It’s not a single level question.

I’m also about education. There’s no such thing as an “assault rifle” or an “assault weapon”; that is a made up term. The military does not have “assault rifles”. Tell a soldier he’s carrying an assault rifle and I can think of a few who would literally laugh out loud - because the classification was made up by Congress and the media. People need to know what it is they want further restrictions on, and saying “assault weapons” is ridiculous. If you want to ban an AR, use the correct terminology. But I can show you rifles that do the exact same thing as an AR - just without a pistol grip and barrel covers. They’re the same weapon. And yes, that makes a difference. People don’t go around describing anything else with that level of inaccuracy. Guns are no different.
 
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PickyPicky said:
I’m looking for some rationale why people would support restrictions on the sale and possession of poisons and explosives but not on the sale and possession of firearms. How would the logical form of the argument differ?
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I think people should be free to have either at their discretion.
 
You may have the most restrictive laws in your history, but to those of us in a different culture it looks as though you have just been tinkering around the edges. I live in a country with one of the most restrictive gun regimes, and least worrisome gun crime levels, in the world, so I see things differently. Yep, I know, different culture, not easy to bridge the gap, and correlation doesn’t equal causation. If you can’t achieve the standards we have in the UK, keep an eye on Australia’s violent crime levels as the years roll by. That’s where the evidence may lie. So far it’s looking reasonably good.
 
May I present Brazil, where guns were confiscated and organized crime is rampant.

My British husband would disagree with you completely. You are not the US.

How are those acid attacks we hear about going?
 
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Very nasty. They wouldn’t register compared with the US violent crime numbers, though.
 
Alcohol is a poison.

Explosives can be handy in a number areas. I’ve used some to remove tree stumps.
 
Not nasty at all. It’s accurate. And how they would register really doesn’t matter to me when I’m walking the streets of London, a place I love and have spent more than a little bit of time.

Your “if you can’t achieve the standards we have in the UK” was a bit over the top by my reckoning, as you’re not even a resident here. Australia is also not the US.

Gun ownership has not been guaranteed by Constitutional amendment in either of those places. It has in the US. This will not be an easy fix in this country because of that.

I’m waiting to get labeled as a gun nut, which I assure you I’m not.
 
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It’s hard to compare the US and the UK strictly due to population size and area.

You also have a strong segment of the population that would flip their lids if the same kind of gun control that the UK has was passed here.

My mothers British, I’ve got a lot of family over there in Manchester. A relative of mine through marriage was murdered in a very high profile incident, I wouldn’t want to live there.
 
Ah - I mistook your statement. If you look at it, it seemed you were calling my pointing them out as nasty.

I sincerely apologize for my misunderstanding. 🌹
 
Absolutely no apology needed. It’s this curious disjointed way of conversing. I should learn to be clearer!

Best wishes to you.
 
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