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Originally Posted by adpimiz
Another thing that irks me is although I'm not completely against an assault weapon ban, I think the belief that it will help is ignorant. You can ban assault weapons all you want, but the crazy people will still be crazy. They will either a. Obtain a weapon illegally or b. do something else to murder mass numbers of people (ex. Oklahoma City bombing). As we can see from the fact that we can't take liquids onto planes, a bomb can be made of almost anything. Even without guns, the crazy people will find outlets for their craziness, for lack of a better word. That's why I think turning our focus, as a country, to treating mental illness will have a much better result in preventing violence.
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I haven't really taken a side one way or another on this issue.
That being said, I'm tired of arguments and analogies being thrown around that really make no sense. An argument like this - "why get rid of guns if people will just find another way to kill anyway?" - is like arguing that people should be allowed to take liquids through security at the airport because people will find a way to blow up the plane anyway. To say that we shouldn't make something illegal because people will do it anyway.. well again.. I'm sure you can see why this argument falls flat without my having to explain it.
Another thing that I keep reading/hearing all over the place is, "Maybe we should ban cars, and knives, and alcohol.. because all of those things kill people, too!" Yes, that's true. But they're not specifically made to kill. A person drives a car and they get in an ACCIDENT, and another person is killed. They didn't get in their car so that they could kill someone on their way to work in the morning. Apples and oranges, people.
I will definitely agree, though, that some (or possibly all) of our attention should be on mental health.
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Originally Posted by badgeguy
Why is this issue always so "right side, left side"? I've read a lot from other countries and they never seem to make such issues so polarized....
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Because that's how things are nowadays. It's sad. It's most likely a fact that more Republicans than Democrats believe that this gun ban talk is ludicrous, but any time I see someone argue against the ban, someone starts yelling, "You ignorant, redneck Republican!" and if someone argues for it, it's, "You hippy, big-government-loving Democrat!" There are so many assumptions thrown around peoples' political affiliation based on beliefs which us intelligent people know can cross party lines.