Machine gun fire into Las Vegas crowd at Route 91 music Festival

[starshiptrooper]

Be silent and pay your taxes, you benefit from them after all.

 

[Jig_Saw]

Why do all your “solutions” focus make it harder on the law abiding and do nothing to the criminal?

My solutions allow gun owners to continue owning their weapons without taking away my right to property. Why do you insist that gun owners bare no financial responsibilities to go along with their rights?

 

[Jig_Saw]

Be silent and pay your taxes, you benefit from them after all.

How exactly am I benefiting from my taxes having to pay social security disability for those wounded and social security benefits for the children of those killed in Las Vegas? The gun owner should bare that responsibility.

 

[starshiptrooper]

We benefit from society at large being better off, the common good, yada yada yada. Just because you do not personally benefit from the money being spent is not my problem, we are one glorious human race after all. Gunners and anti-gunners alike.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Of course, he didn’t use the ammonium nitrate and, as I’ve said a few times today, if ammonium nitrate did become a serious risk to the public health through bombings, we would be having serious conversations about adding something to it to make it less explosive.

Again, I don’t know why you are so resistant to the idea that I have a right to property and that is not trumped by someone’s second amendment rights. If someone owns a gun, they must bare the financial responsibility of ownership and not pass that onto the rest of society.

McVeigh killed three times as many people with ammonium nitrate as Paddock killed with his rifle(s). I would call that a serious risk to public health. Tsarnaevs, of course, used gunpowder taken from fireworks.

I have no desire to deprive you of your property whatever, and my ownership of a firearm does not threaten your ownership in any manner. Why should I bear the cost of Paddock’s murderousness any more than you should bear the cost of McVeighs just because you eat food fertilized by ammonium nitrate, or of Tsarnaevs just because you watch fireworks displays?

 

[Ridgerunner]

How exactly am I benefiting from my taxes having to pay social security disability for those wounded and social security benefits for the children of those killed in Las Vegas? The gun owner should bare that responsibility

I’m fine with that. Paddock’s victims should be (and are) able to sue Paddock’s estate and probably will. But that doesn’t mean I am somehow liable for Paddock’s actions any more than some random knife owner ought to pay for O.J. Simpson’s murders.

 

[AlNg]

I’m curious, at what number of guns do you go from not worried to worried?

Not worried at zero.
Worried at 15 or even less.
Very worried when the neighbor has several automatic machine guns.
The best answer is to confiscate and ban all guns, starting with the automatic machine guns.
The argument used by the gun lovers is that if the victims had a gun, they could have shot the assailant. However, that does not work in this case. No matter how many guns the victims had, it would do them no good, because the assailant was at a distance, hidden from view.

 

[AlNg]

How exactly am I benefiting from my taxes having to pay social security disability for those wounded and social security benefits for the children of those killed in Las Vegas? The gun owner should bare that responsibility.

What if the gun owner is dead and has no money. Shouldn’t those owning guns be heavily taxed to pay reparations to all the victims killed or injured by guns?

 

[Jig_Saw]

Actually, the numbers provided above show knives at about 17%, but whatever. Engineer or not, the principle is the thing. If you’re going to require gun owners to somehow obtain insurance that covers the victims of gun violence you can’t leave out knives just because their percentage is smaller. You either believe in your principle or you don’t. If you leave out knives, it shows that the principle you enunciate is not your concern, it’s just that you don’t like people having guns. That’s different, and you ought to speak your real mind about it.

You’re right, my eyeballing it was off - I think it would be more like 13-14%. So, guns are about 6x knives. Now, I’m not saying you can’t do anything with knives, but I am saying that we should definitely look at guns and making sure that those who own them carry the liability insurance so the costs of them being misused is not passed onto society at large.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What if the gun owner is dead and has no money. Shouldn’t those owning guns be heavily taxed to pay reparations to all the victims killed or injured by guns?

Paddock was an accountant. Maybe we ought to tax all the accountants to pay for it.

Regardless, you wait and see. Paddock will have an estate, inadequate of course. The Mandalay Bay will also be sued and will pay serious money. Imaginably so will the city of Las Vegas and the county.

But accountants will probably skate.

 

[josie_L]

Inisfallen:

I’d settle for sensible gun regulation, but that will never happen either, not as long as the Senate and Congress and most state legislatures lack the courage to cross their masters, the NRA and the gun manufacturers.

What is a sensible gun regulation that we don’t already have? We’ve got background checks. We’ve got limits on the types of weapons you can own. What more do you want?

I don’t believe in a gun ban or repealing the 2nd amendment as gun crime has been going down since the mid-90’s onwards despite an increase in gun ownership over the same period.

There are a couple of articles detailing this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...3edca6-a851-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html

Why Gun Control Is a Losing Issue for Democrats

Especially in red states, they have been reluctant to call for a crackdown even after the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

www.nationaljournal.com

 

[Ridgerunner]

You’re right, my eyeballing it was off - I think it would be more like 13-14%. So, guns are about 6x knives. Now, I’m not saying you can’t do anything with knives, but I am saying that we should definitely look at guns and making sure that those who own them carry the liability insurance so the costs of them being misused is not passed onto society at large.

Well, criminals won’t carry insurance for that any more than they’ll carry insurance for the damage they do selling drugs. So you’ll be selectively taxing the innocent to pay for the wrongdoing of the guilty.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Actually, the numbers provided above show knives at about 17%, but whatever. Engineer or not, the principle is the thing. If you’re going to require gun owners to somehow obtain insurance that covers the victims of gun violence you can’t leave out knives just because their percentage is smaller. You either believe in your principle or you don’t. If you leave out knives, it shows that the principle you enunciate is not your concern, it’s just that you don’t like people having guns. That’s different, and you ought to speak your real mind about it.

The “principle” is tempered by probability, practicality, cost-effectiveness. Carrying insurance for knives fail on all three counts.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Very worried when the neighbor has several automatic machine guns.

The best answer is to confiscate and ban all guns, starting with the automatic machine guns.

The argument used by the gun lovers is that if the victims had a gun, they could have shot the assailant. However, that does not work in this case. No matter how many guns the victims had, it would do them no good, because the assailant was at a distance, hidden from view.

Your neighbor does not have several automatic machine guns. They’re banned except for those who undergo very rigorous licensing requirements and ATF approval. And the licensing is very expensive. So no reason to worry about your neighbor who could, in any event, kill you with a bow and arrow if he’s psychotic enough.

And if criminals can bring in tons of heroin each year, which they do, they can sure bring in guns as well. So you’ll only be disarming the innocent.

 

[AlNg]

Maybe we ought to tax all the accountants to pay for it.

Good idea. All those accountants who own guns and every other gun owner should be heavily taxed to pay for the violence inflicted on innocent men, women and children by these horrible weapons. They have the weapons so they should be responsible for the consequences of using them on innocent victims. As we have seen in previous situations, storing or locking up these weapons does not exclude someone from taking them and using them against children. Also, even if you allow guns, why should people be allowed to store tens of them in their garage? Why would you need ten semi-automatic weapons?

 

[josie_L]

What I don’t understand is why bump stock devices, which was what allowed the killer to fire so many rounds, is made available to the public?

 

[josie_L]

Agreed, getting rid of guns will not stop individuals from killing or entering gun free zones.

 

[AlNg]

Your neighbor does not have several automatic machine guns. They’re banned except for those who undergo very rigorous licensing requirements and ATF approval. And the licensing is very expensive.

I understand that there are available tools and materials to convert a semi-automatic into an automatic machine gun. What about my rights to life and happiness. You say that the assailant has a right to own these weapons? But what about the right to life of the 59 people shot to death and the right to good health for the 500 wounded people in Las Vegas? Do they have any rights or is it only the gun lover who has rights in the USA?

 

[Jig_Saw]

We benefit from society at large being better off, the common good, yada yada yada. Just because you do not personally benefit from the money being spent is not my problem, we are one glorious human race after all. Gunners and anti-gunners alike.

There’s a common good to gun ownership? Didn’t know that. Hard pressed to think of what that is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The “principle” is tempered by probability, practicality, cost-effectiveness. Carrying insurance for knives fail on all three counts.

A principle that’s truly a principle is not governed by probability, practicality or cost-effectiveness. That’s “values” not “principles”. One could make an argument for abortion using that very same line of thought.

Besides, whose insurance company is going to pay for what? Is my insurance going to pay for some MS-13 killing in New York? You can be sure the MS-13 members won’t be carrying it, any more than they’re going to admit having weapons at all.

Requiring insurance for gun ownership is like the old Jim Crow poll tax. It’s just a way to discourage people from doing what they would otherwise have a right to do, and serves no other useful purpose.