I like to think of it as “National Do Something Useless Day”. Biden is being jumped on for not having the word god in his proclamation. That people can think Biden, an actual practicing catholic. is less of a christian than Trump is amazing. He’s only our second Catholic president, Kennedy was the first. I guess it was made a much bigger deal of the first time around, so I suppose that’s an improvement. I can always hope that someday religion won’t play a role at all. Baby steps 
.
I think that prayer can be a comfort to the person doing the praying, and even have a placebo effect on someone, but it’s ability to actually do something is zilch. It’s become a cliche that we’ll have a mass shooting and our politicians will send their “thoughts and prayers” instead of going against the powerful gun lobby and gun owners who think they’re entitled to own guns that spray bullets.
If you haven’t seen it ,‘Young Sheldon’ is worth watching. His mum is a fundamentalist Christian. There are a lot of sly and not so sly digs at such people.
Eg There is cyclone and Sheldon’s mum prays for protection. Their house is one of very few undamaged in their area. Mum is convinced that is the result of her prayers.
Mum also has two other children who are “as dumb as soup”. She is convinced that Sheldon’s “is all that science stuff is from Jesus”
The clip below is the Same character in The Big Bang
Trivia. The role of young Sheldon’s mum is played by Older Sheldon’s mum’s daughter. Hence the strong resemblance between the two actors.
It just hit me: if you had amnesia and couldn’t remember if you prayed or not (say yesterday); there would be no way to tell. Woot I’ve “discovered” a symmetry!
LOL - No one owns a gun that sprays bullets. You’ve been watching too many movies. Men with little penises own guns that make their penises look bigger so they can go out and impress their friends with how big their penis looks. That’s about all there is to gun ownership in the USA. Boys like to blow shit up and when the boys get bigger, they like to blow bigger shit up. The idiots that use guns in crimes can all be put to death for what I care. Eliminate the idiots and surprisingly the idiotic use of guns in idiotic ways will decrease…
I’m dubious that idiocy can ever be eliminated. I’m also dubious that idiocy is the only motivation for gun crime.
Killing murderers after the fact, seems like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted to me. Theres plenty of evidence that the dealth penalty is not a deterrent, and the one thing that seems intuitive here is that gun crime is impossible without a gun. It rationally follows that the more easily available guns are, the more likely it is that gun crimes will occur.
There’s also plenty of evidence of serious gun crime being reduced substantially by countries that have introduced strict laws governing gun ownership.
You can’t eliminate violent crime entirely of course, but other countries have shown strict gun laws do work in reducing gun crime.
And yet the states in the USA with the most strict gun laws have the highest rates of crime. Hmm? I absolutely abhore the idea of giving the government all the guns. We have wonderful gun laws that are not being enforced or taken seriously. Gun crime will be reduced when the existing gun laws are enforced.
“What is not disputed is that federal prosecutors bring far fewer cases against gun crimes than the amount of crime suggests they could.”
“Further, they found that 85% of prosecutions were under two laws – possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of a firearm while committing another federal crime – and that President George W. Bush focused on those two statutes in increasing gun prosecutions. That left 20 federal gun laws virtually unused, per their analysis.”
Why aren’t they prosicuted? “There is no money in it…” There is no money in investigating crime in America. Investigations are called, “expense.” Writing tickets so normal hard working people will pay money to avoid being thrown in a cage is called “profit.” The police state is all about profit. The police state can spend billions of dollars on the “War on drugs.” There is extreme profit in that. But catching people who violate gun laws is extrem low priority.
Gun crime decreases when the problem is taken seriously and not before. No responsible gun owner is against responsible laws.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Unless of course you can demonstrate objective evidence for a causal link?
Also I’m not sure what the point is, that gun crime / deaths are justified if it reduces other types of crime? Again I’m dubious.
In the US? Sorry but I’m dubious. Gun crime is impossible without guns, so the more easily guns are available, the more easily people can commit gun crimes. Again strict laws on owning guns works again and again in many countries.
Evidence please…
Horse…stable door…bolted…
Prosecuting gun crimes is being claimed here as a deterrent, and that would need to be demonstrated, but not having a gun is axiomatically a deterrent to gun crime.
It’s taken seriously in many countries, and they all severely limit the availability of guns, and it’s been shown to work.
Even if it means they won’t be able to own a gun?
Civilians needing a gun is a bad sign in and of itself, but more guns can only lead to more gun crime. Making it very difficult to own guns, reduces gun crime, this has been demonstrated again and again in different countries.
America is different in their cultural attitude towards gun ownership, and in their laws, based in no small part on the antiquated 2nd amendment.
No civilian should need a hand gun, or an automatic or semi automatic weapon. Other than hunting I see no valid reason for gun ownership.
I’m not immune to the appeal, I owned an air rifle at 17, and loved it, but the risks are simply not worth it.
Could not disagree more. Fist thing I buy after, purchasing my home, is a hand gun. I will regester it, keep the trigger lock on it, and follow the law. I will also use it if I need it? Perhaps our professions have something to do with precieved safety.
I do not trust police to help in a home invasion situation. They will always be late. And frankly speaking, I don’t believe they give a shit. (Based on years of direct interaction with them through hospitals, counseling programs, prison system, courts, etc…) An officer’s job, regardless of the mottos they toss about, is not to ‘protect.’ There is no duty to ‘protect.’
I will protect myself thank you.
If I’m lucky - the cops can get here in about 30 min.
I have thirty minutes.
Trust me -
The fucker will wish I had a gun to put him out of his misery…
I agree on the automatic types of weapons. For the rest, see below.
What has that to do with my statement that no civilian should need a handgun?
My perception is gun crime is impossible without a gun. Subjective views on gun safety safety, have no relevance to that perception.
Great, what has that to do with strict laws on gun ownership?
Less guns, less gun crime. Improve home security, improve policing, combat crime, and the underlying causes.
I say again, if a civilian needs a gun, that is a very bad sign.
Second Amendment baby.
Ok, but does that require gun ownership? Also if it does, couldn’t the gun be kept securely where the sport is practiced?
I don’t imagine strict gun laws stop shooting sports.
Just so.
When using an automatic weapon we were taught to fire in burst of four only.
In a machine gun that’s to prevent the barrel from over heating. It can cause the barrel to warp or worse, you get ‘cook off’ where a round in the breech may explode.
Say you have an Uzi: it has a magazine of between 12 to 30 rounds. It’s rate of fire is between 500 and 600 rounds per minute. Do the math on how long a magazine will last if one just holds the trigger down.
The F1submachine gun we had in the army had a 30 round magazine. Its rate of fire was about 600 rpm.
It’s my understanding that most submachine guns tend to have a similar rate of fire.
The belt fed, air cooled M60 machine gun we had delivered about the same rate of fire.
The crank action Civil War Gatling Gun delivered about 200 rounds a minute . Superior in one way to modern machine guns; multiple barrels.
My thoughts too. Sadly, such fuckwits are similar to say happy clapper religious nuts. Hard to recognise in daily life. I suppose a drone strike on say some gun shows would go be good start. 
Realistically, it seems necessary to restrict or ban gun use overall to get rid of the morons. A bit like speeding and drink driving laws; to help prevent the incompetent, the indifferent and the privileged from killing other people.
Automatic weapons are NOT legal in the US. Strict gun laws do not lower gun-crimes in the US. If a criminal wants to get a gun, they will do so illegally, not legally. That’s why Chicago has restrictive gun laws for ordinary people yet still have one of the highest murder rates in the country. Gun laws do NOTHING to stop assholes who commit crimes from getting their hands on guns. The genie is already out of the bottle.
If the sport requires standardized equipment, then no it doesn’t require ownership. But if the sport is at a high enough level that the weapons require customization, then private ownership is by far the most practical solution. For shooting sports and biathlon, practice usually happen at a sports club gun range, or similar, so keeping guns securely at the shooting ranges could be an option. However, if one shoot at several ranges, things quickly gets complicated. And having a large concentration of guns at one place increases the potential damage in case of robberies. How secure is “secure”? Even military weapons caches are known to be breached and subject to theft. So one can argue that a distributed weapons storage could reduce the potential impact in case of gun theft.
In any case, gun culture is perhaps the biggest culprit here. When gun and weapon laws are such that you cannot freely carry them around, and that using weapons for self defense is strictly forbidden (i.e. guns are strictly for hunting and shooting sports), then the crime rate involving guns fall. Take Norway - carrying a gun for other purposes than bringing them to and from the shooting range or to and from hunting is in practice not allowed. And using firearms for self defense is in practice not legal, nor accepted (it would require rather extraordinary circumstances for the courts to agree to their use). If neighbours report weapons handling out of the ordinary, you could expect an uncomfortable visit from the police. And when you DO transport them, rifles etc. must be packaged so that they can not immediately be recognized as firearms. Obtaining firearms for shooting sports requires membership of a recognized shooting sports club, and you have to send in an application to – and be vetted by – the police, as well as being recommended by the club. And your licence can be revoked, e.g. due to breaking gun laws, or in case of mental illness, drug abuse or drug and alcohol related convictions. This, combined with a (usually) unarmed police, firearms related crime is not very common.
There are differing views on this, but to me it seems like it’s not the gun concentration per se that is the main culprit when it comes to gun related crimes, but rather the gun culture and how strict the laws are and how they are being upheld. But of course – no guns allowed under any circumstance means even lower gun related incidents. And with low gun ownership and availability, crime like home invasions, robberies, etc. are much less likely to involve firearms. No doubt about that.
I didn’t know that. I was under the impression that assault rifles are legal. As far I’m aware, some of those weapons have an automatic mode of fire. Eg the old Armalite, which I understand is legal in the US.
How can you tell? Please name one one state which has banned even hand guns?
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence: Australia banned firearms, including hand guns, in 1996 after a particularly horrible mass shooting. Since then it has been almost impossible for an ordinary urbanite to own a firearm.
There have now been no mass shootings in Australia for 25 years and the Australian rate of gun related crime has plummeted.
Here it’s also become rare for a firearm to be used in armed robberies. Now it can be a bladed weapon or blunt object such as a hammer. The reason ? Perhaps because guns a now very expensive. The kind of dropkick who robs say a service (gas) station or liquor store doesn’t have the money to buy a gun.
Of course Australia isn’t the US. We have no second amendment, not even a Bill of Rights.
Having said that, imo the loopy US gun culture has allowed a willful misunderstanding of the Second Amendment . Further, imo it is a national shame that tough gun laws have not been introduced after mass shootings, especially of children and people at prayer.
I think the information below speaks for itself:
"Here is a recap of some of the other most deadly shootings in the country in the past 10 years.
- Las Vegas: 58 dead -
On October 1, 2017 a heavily armed “lone wolf” gunman opens fire from a 32-floor hotel room on an open-air concert on the Las Vegas Strip.
He kills 58 people before turning the gun on himself. Around 500 are wounded.
The Islamic State (IS) group claims the 64-year-old is one of its “soldiers” but the FBI says it finds no such connection.
- Florida club: 49 killed -
A 29-year-old gunman opens fire inside a gay nightclub in the Florida city of Orlando on June 12, 2016 and kills 49 people.
The shooter, who pledged allegiance to the IS group in a 911 call during the attack, is killed in a shootout when police storm the building.
- Sandy Hook: 27 killed -
A 20-year-old man kills his mother in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 before blasting his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and shooting dead 20 six- and seven-year-old children and six adults.
He commits suicide.
- Texas church: 26 dead -
A gunman opens fire with an assault rifle during a Sunday morning church service in the rural Texan community of Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017, killing 26 people and wounding 20.
The gunman, aged 26, is found dead in his vehicle.
- Florida school: 17 dead -
A former student opens fire at a high school in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018, killing 15 people on the premises with two dying in hospital.
A 19-year-old who had been expelled for disciplinary reasons is arrested.
- California office party: 14 dead -
A newlywed radicalized Muslim couple storm a Christmas office party at a social services center in San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015 and gun down 14 people, wounding 22 others. They are shot dead by police.
- Fort Hood military base: 13 dead -"
https://news.yahoo.com/mass-shootings-united-states-past-10-years-133629848.html
I think we need to agree to differ on this matter
And then they have towns that require gun ownership:
In Kennesaw, Georgia, local law says that “every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm.”
That made perfect sense during and after the American War of Independence in the eighteenth century. Since that time, there hasn’t been much need for a citizenry to arm itself against the possibility of invaders.
There are a couple (at least) of risible fantasies used by gun owners:
That owning a gun will protect them. Untrue. The people who own a gun are most likely to shoot themselves before an armed opponent. Or have a child shoot itself or another child. You keep your gun in a safe? Well it’s not much of a help in an emergency is it
That an armed citizenry can protect itself against a hostile government. Really, against a trained and properly armed army, whose weapons now include fucking drones , not to mention tanks an artillery. These days I suspect drones are the first go to weapons of choice (one’s own men don’t get killed)
That is the sad part. These days in the US, obtaining a gun is incredibly easy. And since guns are designed to kill with a casual wave of the hand, it becomes a vicious cycle of escalation. And we see that happening.
Criminals get more powerful guns, the police and law-abiding citizens buy more powerful weapons. The bad guys escalate, and so on and so on.
One of the core issues is that there are too many guns readily available.