Look away
- Thread starter KSnative
- Start date
Very worthwhile topic KSnative. I would like to be able to engage in a discussion based on facts with you and others about this topic. However, the old and liberal Fudds on this website are unable to process the results of their respective votes. Pointing out the policies their candidates support causes massive amounts of hurt feelings and as we all know feelings are much, much more important than anything.
dakotasj
Well-known member
Kinda hate to weigh in on this, but here goes.
What does "defund" the police mean?
IMO the entire criminal justice system needs to be improved and money spent to prevent crime not just punish crime and deal with the consequences. If that's what defund means, I'm in favor of that. However if defund means literally eliminate the police, I'm completely opposed. It can't be an "all or nothing."
I have no idea what this country spends for criminal justice. NYC police budget is $10B, Dallas $0.5B. Throw in prisons, courts and lawyers, plus victim impacts -- staggering.
Sadly, I think there will always be bad people and countries that do terrible things. Police and military are just "must haves" in todays world.
I think most reasonable people would agree that three major factors contributing to our crime problem are poverty, drugs/alcohol and mental health.
IF there is a way to use money to address these and other factors to prevent crime rather than deal with the consequences of crime then I think that's the conversation that needs to be occurring. I don't think party has anything to do with it. It is and should be an American issue.
When the word "party" enters the conversation it often just divides us rather than unify. I'm an American first, my party doesn't make the top 50 list of important things.
Pheasant hunting and bird dogs are both in the top 10.
I would like to think that "reducing crime" is something we can all unify our efforts to achieve.
All too often the police are asked to respond, and risk their lives, to horrible situations.
Sometimes they don't go home to their families.
Those police officers deserve our respect and our system of government should be doing what it can to reduce the need for them to be put into extremely hazardous situations. I think better solutions to poverty, drugs/alcohol and mental health are needed.
ten walker
Member
I read the court reports in my local newspaper and I notice one major contributor to most of the cases, DRUGS. I see several people I have known through out the 50 plus years I have lived in this area who have ruined their lives by using and or selling drugs. I think the answer is not defunding the police and certainly not making drugs legal. I wish I had the answer , but I don't.
Munster927
Well-known member
By drugs I hope you're referring to drugs other that weed?
Munster927
Well-known member
I'm for defunding police in a perspective of demilitarizing police forces. There's not a need to have police equipped better than our military from the Vietnam war era. Do they need the ability to handle a psycho who is bent on committing mass murder? Yes. But there's alot of police forces who have similar equipment of our military. My good friend is a Minneapolis police officer. So I'm no cop basher. Just a realist.
But then others have said crime had become more violent so you need a more militarized police force. To which I say why not review the ability for those people to obtain weapons that are designed to kill people, for the purpose of killing people.
To which I get a reply that it's my rights to own a weapon like that. So the conversation goes nowhere.
Ask yourself, to you just want a bigger hammer or do you want to prevent the problem.
Munster927
Well-known member
As an aside, if this thread is spurred by the Colorado shooting, remember that he was a law abiding citizen just like you and me before he lost it.
Read the more complete reports—
‘He had be expelled from school for a attack on a fellow student—he was kicked of the wrestling team for threatening others
HE WAS on The FBI watch list
Munster927
Well-known member
And yet he bought an assault rifle. Jeeze, If anyone shouldn't be allowed to buy a gun maybe it would be a guy on the FBI watch list? I dunno, just sayin.
Also, you make my point. Obviously he had some issues. But he never was charged for a crime that would have prevented him from purchasing a weapon.
Munster927
Well-known member
We can go there, sure. So what you're saying is, in this country someone that's radically islamic can legally obtain a weapon designed to kill mass amounts of people? And we're on with that?
Conversely, if we want to just say radical people in general, and take the color or country they're from out of it, can legally obtain weapons in this country today by walking into a store.
Some radical neo nazi could walk into your friendly Bass Pro Shops, buy an AR-15, walk out to his car, load the mag, come back in and kill as many people as he can until he runs out of bullets, is killed or apprehended.
If that's something were all ok with, let's just say it and stop with the political rhetoric.
Conversely, if we want to just say radical people in general, and take the color or country they're from out of it, can legally obtain weapons in this country today by walking into a store.
Some radical neo nazi could walk into your friendly Bass Pro Shops, buy an AR-15, walk out to his car, load the mag, come back in and kill as many people as he can until he runs out of bullets, is killed or apprehended.
If that's something were all ok with, let's just say it and stop with the political rhetoric.
I’ll take a shot at some of the drugs, crime, and poverty. In our area we have an urban community where 76% of the kids are born to single parents. Same area almost 40% of high school kids don‘t graduate. Single parents and high school dropout = increased poverty, drugs, and crime. But no one seems to care. We worry about ”defunding police”, and being woke. Seems now a days virtue signaling is more important than actually doing anything.
Ericb
Active member
Let me try again, because that’s not what I was getting at. I’m saying there may have been motivation brought on because of loyalties. The criminal needs to be punished but not all of society. My guns will never be used to hurt random people. Whether it’s my AR, a .22 or an over under, so why make it harder for the people that don’t break the law? Just punish the bad ones and set an example. Nothing will stop all violence, so deal with the offenders correctly.
One of the most horrific mass shootings in our country took place at one of our most secure governmental facilities, and was committed by a vet with high level security clearances. He did it with a bird gun that he had slightly modified with hand tools. The main reason that so many died was that good people entrusted with some of our nations most highly classified work, and who spent their lives helping defend our country, were not trusted by their own government to posses the means of effectively defending themselves.
Ask Mexico. Criminals don't care about "common sense" or any other gun control laws; neither do nut jobs. These laws disarm only honest citizens, and leave us all demonstrably less safe.
Ask Mexico. Criminals don't care about "common sense" or any other gun control laws; neither do nut jobs. These laws disarm only honest citizens, and leave us all demonstrably less safe.
Munster927
Well-known member
I figured after Sandy Hook when little kids were killed by someone who shouldn't have been able to get a gun so easily, something would change. I thought after people were killed in a movie theater, it would be harder to get guns. I thought after 50 people were killed in Vegas at a music festival, it would be harder to get guns.
I won't be surprised that after 10 people were killed in a grocery store that it still won't be hard to get a gun.
I for one, would gladly make it more difficult for myself to get a gun if it meant 1 of those people killed for no reason would be saved. I have more guns than I need as it is. I have a shotgun I use regularly and 3 shotguns that sit in a gun cabinet I don't use, just because. A rifle I use 2 weeks a year and a pistol I don't need. If I need a new one, I can wait a week if I have to. Hell I could wait a month.
Why do we gun owners feel like we're at a parade tossing candy out? You need a gun. You need one too. Here's a gun. Take a gun. Have another gun, it's your right.
I'd rather take pride in the fact that I'm part some sort of exclusive club like "yeah, I can have a gun and am responsible enough to own it" instead of just anyone who thinks "you know I need a gun for no reason other than I want it". Maybe I want to shoot up heroin, why can't I have that too?
But sure, let's just toss out more guns. Our country has more mass shootings at schools and public places than you all get paid holidays at your job.
I'll see y'all at the thread next month after the next mass shooting. We can hop on our hamster wheel again then.
I won't be surprised that after 10 people were killed in a grocery store that it still won't be hard to get a gun.
I for one, would gladly make it more difficult for myself to get a gun if it meant 1 of those people killed for no reason would be saved. I have more guns than I need as it is. I have a shotgun I use regularly and 3 shotguns that sit in a gun cabinet I don't use, just because. A rifle I use 2 weeks a year and a pistol I don't need. If I need a new one, I can wait a week if I have to. Hell I could wait a month.
Why do we gun owners feel like we're at a parade tossing candy out? You need a gun. You need one too. Here's a gun. Take a gun. Have another gun, it's your right.
I'd rather take pride in the fact that I'm part some sort of exclusive club like "yeah, I can have a gun and am responsible enough to own it" instead of just anyone who thinks "you know I need a gun for no reason other than I want it". Maybe I want to shoot up heroin, why can't I have that too?
But sure, let's just toss out more guns. Our country has more mass shootings at schools and public places than you all get paid holidays at your job.
I'll see y'all at the thread next month after the next mass shooting. We can hop on our hamster wheel again then.
In every single instance you cite, what was missing was the ability of the victims to defend themselves.
Mass shootings stop when the evil (or insane) person gets stopped. That tends to happen much faster when the potential victims are armed.
I find humor in many things. Dead friends and team mates who would still be here had they or I been better able to protect them, doesn't make the list.
Mass shootings stop when the evil (or insane) person gets stopped. That tends to happen much faster when the potential victims are armed.
I find humor in many things. Dead friends and team mates who would still be here had they or I been better able to protect them, doesn't make the list.
Ericb
Active member
Your tirade is full of holes. You want to make it harder to get something that you have a right to because you think it will save lives but you neglect all the lives saved because someone had a gun and stopped the violence. You also compare guns to illicit drugs. Some cities give out free needles so that junkies don’t get sick. Portland, OR made heroine legal, I think. Go there and knock yourself out. You go ahead and restrict your own gun ownership but don’t try to keep the rest of the 99.99% of law abiding gun owners from owning the most effective tool to defend themselves.