Obama delivers one of his most powerful speeches to date...

[Medius]

You want laws that would be effective against gun violence?

-Carrying an illegally concealed weapon during the commission of a crime or using a firearm in the comission of a crime adds 30 years to your sentence.
-Illegally carrying a firearm while on probation or as a prohibited felon carries a ten year sentence.

The problem? Lots of minorities going to jail for a really long time. But if you want to save lots of lives really quickly, that's the way to do it.

Personally, I like the trend we have of violent crime going down. I'd like to see us focus on making the hell-holes of our country more livable and less prone to driving people to crime and anger and fighting. And throw in legalization of things that don't need to be crime and reduction of sentences on non-violent crime so that those criminals don't resort to violence to avoid jail. Add in a dose of mental health care and better drug rehabilitation access.

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[John Galt]

yeah, i said it's 20 4+ fatalities a year on average. this includes gangs killing each other, but some of these are crazy people doing crazy shit. my point with that is that mass shootings are NOT on the rise and they are NOT the reason for gun control. they are sad incidents but gun control won't change them.

it isn't so-called "gun culture" or anything like that that's the issue. it's drugs. secondly, mental illness. so long as we keep up the drug war it's going to be an issue.

half of what exploited says is not extreme nor do i think it violates the second amendment. i don't think a registry of handguns is a bad idea, for example. i can work with that position, and i think there are many who would. but i think we need to frame the conversation not about crazies, but about gun violence as a result of gangs, which is a result of the drug war. in addition it's also the helplessness that many people feel, typically black urban youth, that turns them to working the drug trade. that's core to the problem and gun control won't fix it. you can whine about how republicans won't do anything and then return to your position of we need to ban all guns, but that makes everyone walk away. you're the one being unreasonable, and you're not even talking about the real problem.

[lnrw]

[Medius]

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[Medius]

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[Medius]

[John Galt]