You know what line I'm sick of hearing pertaining to gun regulation...

[HawkeyeLibkid]

"Law abiding citizens"...

Absofuckinlutley drives me up a wall. How many of these mass murderers were "law abiding citizens" until they sprayed a school or theater with bullets?

Just had to get it off my chest..

[SheilaT]

1. Yep. And "responsible gun owners."

Apparently every single gun owner out there is responsible, even the ones who leave loaded guns where their toddlers can find them.

[HawkeyeLibkid]

2. Yep

Remember, the NRA speaks for 0.01% of the US Population. They know best. Too bad so many people in our country are too fucking stupid to process any of what has happened in the last month, only that "They gonna take our gunz!"

I thought about posting a top ten list of stupidest arguments for no gun regulation....

[tblue]

3. And just cuz you're 'law-abiding' and SANE now

doesn't mean you always will be. Same goes for every person you let in your house where your weapons are kept. People snap. All the time.

[MichaelHarris]

4. Only way to stop

a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun, I know cuz the NRA told me. What they didn't tell me however was how to stop a good guy with a gun. I think we're supposed to look for a mediocre guy with a gun in this instance.

[lunatica]

5. Maybe someone with an identity crisis

[hack89]

6. A soon as we start viewing every American as a pre-criminal the safer we will be. nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. Yeah, I really hate that too. It makes me reflexively gag

The problem that I have with the idea of promoting the carrying of guns anywhere and everywhere is not so much that I think that (most) people are irresponsible but that people might too easily be tempted to use them to "resolve" situations that could be handled peacefully (or at least certainly without somebody getting injured or killed) and, frankly, I just don't understand the NEED to have a gun on you at all times- as though we lived in a more anarchic, lawless society like, say, Somalia or Afghanistan. Yeah, there are some "bad" sides of just about every town (which, gun or not, we might not feel safe walking through) but, seriously, what is the freakin' need to take a gun with you to the Football stadium? To work (unless you work in law enforcement, the FBI, or the CIA)? To the laundromat? To me, the instant, easy access to guns during a difficult situation creates a risk of reckless and irresponsible use of them IMHO. People, when they get upset about something, sometimes have irrational thoughts and want to do irrational things. The further away from access to guns they are when somebody, for instance, finds out their spouse is cheating on them or their boss fires them, the less likely it will be that somebody (or a lot of somebodies) wind up seriously injured or dead in the heat of the moment IMHO.

[davidpdx]

8. Oh I can't even start to explain how sick I am of the arguments I hear from gun owners

It makes me want to spit.

[Zoeisright]

9. No shit.

There's no way we would have 30,000 gun deaths if most gun owners were "responsible." Guns = death. Period.

[Recursion]

10. I think that's more about "normal" murders

The "everyday" murders that make up the vast majority of homicides are almost all committed by people (men, for that matter) with previous criminal records.

Mass shootings are so rare and so idiosyncratic that little useful can be said about them except that young middle class white males usually (but not always) commit them. But I don't know if the sample is large enough even for that to mean much.

But, yeah, it's a term that reeks of privilege, and it's usually a red flag.