All love from me in this post man, you know that. When i say "you" in this reply I don't mean you specifically as human, just you as a gun owner.
I'm aware you can put RDS on pistols. I've seen them. I've used them at ranges. They're super effective for accuracy and precision. I'm aware of what semi-auto means and i know that pistols are semi auto by and large.
This kid bough two platform ARs. Which is something along the lines of this...
It makes no sense whatsoever for that to be a legal purchase for a non-military/police citizen. This is an incredibly powerful weapon that you can kill a lot of people with very quickly. I've been to the range about 5-6 times now and everyime I go I ALWAYS see people who have these. There's no reason whatsoever to have that much firepower available for anyone who doesn't yet have a criminal record or documented instances of dangerous mental instability. That's not for protecting your family from a burglar, owning that gun is for mass destruction and people are lying to themselves at the cost of children's lives if they believe anything else.
Fundamentally i don't believe you're entitled to protect yourself to that degree out in the world. We don't live in Rwanda. We live in a free society under rule of law. Feeling the need to protect yourself to that level shouldn't even be an option. We should be living in a world above needing to justify our safety by carrying murder weapons. Who do you think you are and what danger are you realistically going to be in to ever justify that level of entitlement? (don't take that personally please my friend). It comes at a cost of innocent lives because the exact same pathways that allow you to responsibly own a gun let people irresponsibly own them as well. There is no distinction between the two if we're not capable of eliminating these dangers.
I'm not comfortable leaving that up to your discretion. By bringing a weapon with you when you go to Home Depot or whatever you're inherently creating a situation with a non-zero chance of you using your gun. Maybe you are responsible and are in full control of your decision making, but i'm not going to bet my life that you are. I shouldn't have to. You are not capable of knowing how a situation is going to unfold before it does. Assholes can have CCL's too. What if i'm walking around that Home Depot with my wife and someone with a CCL makes a sexual comment or shoves her? Now we have a situation on our hands where i need to be aggressive and depending on the circumstances i'd want to beat this hypothetical carrier's face in. Well now he has a gun and it's invariably involved in our altercation. People get in fights in parking lots all the time. Road rage happens all the time. Bar fights happen all the time. You should not have the power to decide if you're going to shoot someone or not. Under any circumstances. That's not a country i want to live in. I don't care about your sense of safety, it's completely absurd that people feel entitled to that level of protection.
What magical level of background checks are gun-advocates expecting here? You all seem to be throwing that solution into the mix but never have specifics. The most relevant check-mark I've heard so far is that if you have a history of domestic violence then you are far more likely to have repeat violent behavior (I don't have the link to back it up). Ok, that's a good start but how would checking for that have prevented this kid from killing 19 4th graders? He had no registered mental health issues. His juvenile criminal record is still being checked from what i read.
So what are we supposed to test for and who is supposed to test it? Are gunshop owners going to bear that burden? Probably not and definitely not responsibly if it means less sales for them. How about our slow as a turtle-paced politicians? Unlikely and considering their predilection for lobbies and their money I won't hold my breath that this will be resolved quickly or effectively. How thorough and expert will the test guidelines be? Making acute mental health predictions has not yet proven to be possible by world leaders in the field. When i hear this argument all i really hear is "I'm normal and i want to own guns still so someone should really figure this out". It's a non-answer.
Case in point: "We probably need to start coming up with better gun laws" is removing yourself from accountability here. You're a gun owner who wants to keep owning guns regardless of how many children and innocent people are being slaughtered via the exact same means you acquired your weapons. While we wait for our politicians to figure it out people are dying.
Getting rid of guns is the solution. It's the only solution. There are too many people in this country to manage and there's a whole spectrum of mental health issues many Americans deal with. Legislating these mental health workarounds is an impossible task. The experiment is over, Americans cannot and should not be able to own guns as easily or to the extent they do now. There is no responsibility in this industry or from the consumers of it. Children are regularly dying because of it and we are failing them as adults and citizens of a free nation by allowing this to continue to happen. It's inexcusable.
