Quote:
Originally Posted by earlywynnfan
Ok, so you would support (or not object to) background checks. You would support mental health measures, but not if they infringe on constitutional rights.
1) What mental health measures would you support, and how do you see this helping the problem?
2) You appear to be saying any curb on guns/ammo/etc is an infringement on your rights. But we put curbs on our rights in almost every aspect of our lives, for the good of us all. Why would, say, making mandatory gun safety classes before buying a first gun against the constitution, but not taking driver's Ed before getting behind the wheel?
|
1A) I support liberal reforms to the healthcare system to make care cheaper and affordable or free; including mental care and psychiatrists, so that those who cannot or will not pay the cost or have family to pay the cost may get the help they need, for the good of everyone. I would look into improving access and resources ( something like half the counties in the US have 0 psychiatrists or psychologists, you can’t make people move around but you can incentivize one setting up practice in a previously underserved area). In cases of mental illness, I would look into adjusting HIPAA to allow some compassionate disclosure between a doctor and the family of a mental-problem person. Time and again we see that they are known to have issues, but the family doesn’t really understand just how bad it is.
I’m sure there’s more, but there’s 3 specific lanes I would investigate and see if the data on matches the reasoning.
1B) Because the vast majority of people who do such things have mental problems that are known to some degree to some of the local community. I think that when a horrible action is committed, the perpetrator is guilty, not whichever half of the country I disagree with at the moment. A tool is not sentient, a tool does not make decisions. A tool does not choose to kill a room full of innocent children. A person does. Address the person who is actually guilty instead of political opposition.
2) Any curb factually is, by definition, an infringement. How do you curb a right without infringing on it? One can support this and argue that it is good, but I don’t see how we can reasonably pretend that a new measure curbing guns is not an infringement on guns, a right that we the people still retain at present.
First, I don’t understand the guns classes point from the other side. If one believes that civilian ownership of firearms or certain type of scary looking firearms is dangerous to the community (which seems the logical pre-requisite to supporting gun control), how would this help? Why would they want to train shooters more? Would giving the Uvalde shooter or any other a lesson in firearm safe-handling, maintenance and marksmanship do anything, except possibly make them a little bit better of a shot?
I don’t think this will ever go anywhere as a result as neither of the main factions really wants it. It is not something that greatly disturbs me, I do think it is unconstitutional, that it probably punishes poor citizens by adding yet another fee and cost, but I am a big fan of classes for people who were not born into the gun community or brought in by friends who have taught them carefully. I greatly support choosing to seek professional or knowledgeable help when one is new to it. Safe handling, marksmanship, proper care and maintenance, these are goods that firearms owners (and anyone who wants to learn) should know. I have taught many myself.
I am against curbing/ infringing any constitutional right. I like the Bill of Rights. I think an individual has the right to say or do things others don’t agree with and live their life in their own way without the interference of the State. It was just a few years ago that this made me mostly a liberal (guns have been exempted for decades from the old liberal norm, that the right of the individual is paramount to an imaginary right by one’s neighbors to not have to deal with ideas or people or things they don’t like).