The latest school massacres

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You actually can use policy to impact culture.

Let's imagine a scenario where one of the states requires to pass some actual training before getting a gun license. Early on there would be a big hoopla about gun control and whether it's constitutional.

But if it stands, then over a few months you are going to have a new rising group of gun owners with an exclusive club mentality - they feel like they earned it, where gun owners in other states did not. This can be a potent viral strain to infect american gun culture with - remember how the american republicans defended the patriot act and phone tapping and so on? If you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Much the same can happen here internally - within the NRA culture - if you don't want the tests it's because you don't think you can pass.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

In 2013 there were 8,454 homicides with a gun. Cops estimates 80% of those are gang/drug related, which are mostly in urban slums. Other people have a 0.000530%, or 1:188,700, chance of being killed with gun. Each year you statistically have a greater chance dying falling down stairs 1:180,000, or riding a bicycle 1:140,000.

See the problem? Numbers can be manipulated to support any position. Gun violence is something most people only see on TV news. It couldn’t happen here in my safe town/city. When it does, it’s a horrible thing, until the media assails you with the next horrible thing.
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That pretty much negates the claim that people need guns to protect themselves. The chance they'll need to protect themselves is very slim.

If anyone in the "I accept carnage so that I can have all the guns I want" camp offered ANY ideas for ending mass shootings that didn't include gun control laws, I would listen.

My question to all the conservatives who, in the last two days, have said "we have to fix the mental illness problem", is will you increase taxes on the wealthy to finance the programs?