Biden to announce first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention
President Joe Biden will announce the creation of the first-ever federal office of gun violence prevention on Friday, fulfilling a key demand of gun safety activists as legislation remains stalled in Congress, according to two people with direct knowledge of the White House’s plans.
Stefanie Feldman, a longtime Biden aide who previously worked on the Domestic Policy Council, will play a leading role, the people said.
Greg Jackson, executive director of the Community Justice Action Fund, and Rob Wilcox, the senior director for federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety, are expected to hold key roles in the office alongside Feldman, who has worked on gun policy for more than a decade and still oversees the policy portfolio at the White House. The creation of the office was first reported by The Washington Post.
3, 2, 1...here come the gun nuts...
As expected every time guns are brought up in a political context, the comments are already full of people talking past each other while ignoring the real issues.
It is exactly as difficult to get rid of guns in this country as it would be to get rid of the electoral college, and the electoral college has done thing like lead directly to the covid pandemic being far worse than it had to be because Trump fired the guy we had in position to warn everyone if China leaked a pandemic.
Instead of discussing that, all you're going to find in a thread like this is back and forth about getting rid of guns (nearly impossible) or decrying the department as redundant (the DHS is proof this is also meaningless) or the like.
If something is not realistically achievable in the short term, that means we shouldn't be able to talk about it?
I disagree. If we limit discourse only to the immediately achievable we stop talking about how things should be, and how best to get there. Sometimes change happens overnight, sometimes it takes decades. It's worth talking about.
It definitely feels like a lost cause banning guns. It’s part of the culture. When we banned guns in Australia after one single mass shooting, I don’t believe Australia had nearly as much of a gun loving culture. It was still seen as a tool in the country side for hunting and such. I don’t know the answer to changing culture. It’ll take generations possibly. Smoking was seen like an everyday thing in the 60s. Now it’s disgusting. Perception can change eventually.
Most people are not asking to "get rid of guns." Most people are asking for restrictions that keep people safe, not least our school children, and a ban on military-style weapons like AR-15s. That's not unreasonable nor impossible.
AR-15s are functionally the same as the majority of rifles, they're semi automatic. Calling AR-15s military style immediately shows you know almost nothing about guns.
We'd have a better return on our investment banning handguns which are used in more deadly non-police shootings by a whole fucking lot.
Yeah, I'd call AR-15s military style. It's ok if you don't. No matter what you call them, it's idiotic that random people run around with them.
Can you define what about them makes you consider them military style?
And what are you thinking of when you say "random people running around with them", because legally anyone who purchases them is required to pass an FBI background check to make sure they're not a felon, among other things.
I consider semi-automatic and automatic firearms to be military style.
By "random" I just mean anyone who can pass a background check. The easy access to weapons is what stands out in American society when it comes to gun violence.
So just to be clear, that's 99% of guns, and automatic is essentially already out of the equation since nobody makes or sells those anymore because of ATF regulations. Virtually all modern guns are semi automatic.
You do know AR-15s that consumers can buy are already not automatic right?
You can try to twist my words as much as you want. Nothing new there. All I'm doing is calling for a ban on any weapon that's designed to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible.
"Twisting your words" (which didnt hapoen) then you go and use sophist goalpost moving.
Nice.
You claim that no one is asking to get rid of guns, and then call for a ban on an entire class of firearms (and a vague one, "military-style weapons", which is intentionally vague and demonstrates a lack of knowledge of firearms).
Make a decision please.
The 2nd Amendment was not written with AR-15s or any other military-style weapons in mind. A full ban on those weapons is reasonable and possible.
With that logic, the 1st amendment doesn't apply to the internet, phones, television, photos, or video.
Your understanding of the second amendment (and firearms in general) is flawed, and any attempt to disarm the working class shall be frustrated. It will not happen. A ban on rifles is not reasonable, it is class warfare.
It's also an attack on disabled and women.
It's not flawed. Your understanding is flawed. You live in fear. Don't live in fear.
I don't live in fear. I hope to never have to use my tools, no matter what they are. But just how I need my socket set when my car breaks down, I have my firearms if I need to defend myself or my loved ones.
You must be living in fear of something since you feel the need to be armed all the time. What are you afraid of?
Do I live in fear of sealed boxes if I carry a pocket knife?
I wonder if a pocket knife could kill 60 people and wound more than 400 from a hotel room in Las Vegas...
Hahahaha.
Yet more ignorance.
You could own canons when it was written, and fully automatic weapons already existed.
It was written with exactly the change in tech in mind, and if you had bothered to educate yourself (by reading things like Federalist Papers or the Adams-Jefferson letters) you'd know this. But you'd rather operate from ideology and hubris.
This is such a clown argument. Canons cannot be used to kill 60 people and wound more than 400 from a hotel room in Las Vegas. Get real!
Hahahahaah. Thanks for the chuckle!
What are you, 12? As usual, you gun nuts have no real arguments.
Ah, yes, sophistry. Nice.
Define military style
Semi-automatic and automatic.
Automatic is defacto illegal unless you go through a very lengthy process whereby you register yourself and your weapon and pay money directly to the ATF. Only very few individuals own automatics for this reason.
Literally every modern handgun and rifle is semi automatic, save for skeet shooting break-action shotguns and some revolvers.
So? My point still stands. It's designed to kill as fast as possible. It should be banned.
I will always take the side of our school children and a safe society over guns. More guns do not create safety, they exacerbate violence. Most other developed countries do not have this kind of violence, and they do not have the easy access to weapons designed to kill as many as possible as fast as possible.
So you're calling for virtually all guns to be banned then except for shotguns and revolvers?
I'm calling for any weapon that's designed to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible to be banned.
And that's 99% of weapons, because what's what guns do, they all kill things with a single trigger pull. You're asking for a de facto ban and that's absolutely a losing position.
And that's not even to mention that your position effectively means "I only believe the police and the military should have guns". Because that's what would happen.
Personally, I wouldn't mind a complete repeal of the 2nd Amendment, but knowing that's a ways out, I'm just going to call for a ban on weapons specifically designed to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible. And, no, that's absolutely not 99 percent of all weapons.
To quote Benjamin Franklin here, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Anyone is free to relocate to those other developed countries you mentioned if they do not want the burden of their own personal liberties and rights, but stripping those rights from everyone else in the USA doesn't fly well here.
Not true. You obviously know nothing about immigration to other countries.
Last I checked the USA wasn't on any country's immigration blacklist. You still need to have some kind of useful skill for a work visa, and there are unique costs to international moves, but it's far from illegal to move away from the US. Additional costs if you want to renounce your US citizenship instead of holding dual citizenship wherever you move to, but that's a personal decision there unless you move to a place that requires renouncing citizenship as part of gaining it like the US does. Unless you were conflating free as is freedom for free as in no cost, but that would be silly given the context where this entire discussion thread is about freedom.
Lol. This is just not how it works. There are an excessive amount of obstacles for a US citizen who wants to move to another developed country. Most Americans who want to leave are completely stuck here.
The difficult problem is the ones who decide to do bad things with guns, don't exactly have much respect for the law. Pass whatever restrictions you want, if someone wants to shoot anyone badly enough, they will find a way.
But that's not really a good reason to not have regulations. "People are going to steal your shit if they want to badly enough" does not mean theft shouldn't be a crime.
Sure, they may find a way, but if it's harder to find that way, there's a chance they'll either change their minds or use a tool that's less lethal and will kill fewer.
The US has a unique problem in the Western world, and what sticks out is access to weapons.
IMO a more robust mental and other healthcare system and social services would go a lot farther in preventing these kinds of things. Identifying and fixing/containing the people that are so deranged that they would kill others would stop most killings and the kinds of things that lead up to it. Most of the gun crime is a symptom of a much larger problem of people with little to no support lashing out.
You think Americans are just that much more mentally ill than people in every other developed country on earth? Of course not. The one thing that stands out in the US is easy access to weapons.
Yes I do but that's beside the point. The vast majority of gun owners never do anything criminal with them. It's people with mental health problems who snap or criminals who're using them to perpetrate other crimes (many of whom would probably not be criminals if they had proper social support.
Countries with strict gun control haven't solved the root of the problem. People can still be dangerous without guns and if we can't trust someone to own a gun we really shouldn't trust them to have free reign to interact with society without supervision either.
Every gun shoots lead all the same. It doesn't matter what "style" it is.
So it shouldn't matter if people are only allowed to own black powder muskets then, right?
Then banning some of them should pose no problem for gun enthusiasts.
I though we were switching over to environmentally friendly tungsten?
Some weapons, including AR-15s, are specifically designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. Makes a big difference.
Wait, who's talking about banning guns? Nobody in the thread has mentioned it and I did try to read all the comments. I even did a quick ctrl+f for keywords just to make sure and found nothing.
Look up
Where exactly? If that comment isn't older than my comment or comes as a result of the person I was replying to planting the seed I'm probably gonna block you
Lol alright bro, please do it.
So where exactly?
You sure you read the comments? Lmao.
Link to a comment, go ahead