Very nice. "let's just get back on topic, and stop arguing. Just be glad I'm right and you're forced to agree with my opinion".Quote:
Originally Posted by FenceFurniture
Personally, I spent a lot of time target shooting as a kid, and then when I was single, spent a lot of time freely going back and forth to a rifle and pistol range. I reloaded my own ammunition and would prefer our setup here. I have the right to do, and avoiding gun violence of any statistical significance (compared to anything else that may be terminal) is pretty easy.
The number of people running around here (a small minority) crowing about the chance of school shootings and paying no attention to children with depression or drug habits is appalling. There are a few who die in each district every decade from suicide or drug use, or drunk driving, but everyone is fixated on something that is extremely unlikely. It's sheer stupidity.
However, if you cannot differentiate between being a small time drug dealer on the streets of chicago vs. living in a suburb and hunting deer and punching holes in paper while your kids are in school not being a small time drug dealer, I guess it could cause all kinds of irrational fear. I can name a handful of kids from my schools who committed suicide while they were in school, and some who have done it later. The anomaly here is that none shot themselves, but several did hang themselves from trees. My relative did shoot himself, but had been a life long alcoholic (drinking pretty much only beer, all the time, with everything -and he was in an incident at work where someone smelled stale alcohol on his breath. He quit drinking cold turkey, and had requisite issues as dry drunks do and went through a gaggle of psychiatric medications and ended it. If you're just looking for the conclusion that you want, you could ignore absolutely all of that and blame it on the hunting rifle that he rigged to end his pain. if he'd have lived long enough (and not been forced to stop drinking - he'd lost his license driving already and nearly gotten killed driving off the side of a road and under a bridge shearing the top off of his car), he probably would've had cirrhosis or an alcoholic stroke).
Eventually, the guns will be taken away here (I have none now, no use for them in the burbs and I can play guitars here plenty easy) because people will fail to address the behaviors that get people into selling drugs (broken families, no teaching of children within the home about long term planning and self-building, enormous use of mind altering drugs that have severe side effects for a small percentage, including derealization, etc).
The difference between us in the states and folks wringing their hands about what goes on in the states is that if australia has no interest in the same level of 2nd amendment stuff that we do, we don't care. there are a couple of sensationalist not for profits that barrage us with "look, it happened in NZ and it could happen here, too", and I generally tell them to shut up. This is an extremely small group that sends out things like mailers, and they're made from the same material as the folks who send out grandiose mailers saying things like "it's unlikely that your child will be able to complete school without witnessing a school shooting". I'd like to put both of those types in a jar and shake it. I'd like to add anyone else who thinks they have an opinion that is fact and then you should be forced to have the same thing because they can't address their own psychiatric problems (irrational fear of things that keep them from actually doing anything productive for other people).
