Do you believe in the 2nd amendment?

I don't know why people take amendments as written law incapable of change. It's called an "amendment", look up the definition before going on a rampage on how if the government takes away our guns they will kill us all. Also, the second amendment gives the right to bear arms during WARTIME, and as far as I know it, there is no need to protect ourselves from an enemy inside of our country cause there isn't any

 

Sorry I was busy and just responded to the lower hanging fruit.

I'm going to ignore suicides (2/3 of all gun deaths every year). The vast majority of the rest of the gun crimes are committed by illegal guns in gang / drug violence. If we look at mass shootings, which are a miniscule fraction of the total gun deaths, yes most of them were with guns bought legally because most of the people who commit them have no criminal history and show no indication that they were going to do anything wrong.

Next let's talk about the AR 15. It is not a high powered rifle. It does not shoot even full size rifle rounds so calling it high powered is simply wrong. You can pick up a much more powerful rifle from WWII and do just as much damage for very little money (the Dallas shooter used a variant of the SKS I believe and since it wasn't an AR 15 no one reported on it). Lastly until recently the most deadly shooting in US history was the Virginia Tech shooting and it was done entirely with pistols. The choice of the weapon when you are trying to kill tons of people really does not matter (see French dude who just used a truck).

I don't think it is beneficial to argue about how many fewer people would actually die from suicides if all guns disappeared. Niether of us has data so I'll just agree to disagree.

I don't really have a good source for the violent crime because I don't remember. I'll copy and paste some stuff from Wikipedia:

Gun violence happens nearly entirely in large cities and the majority (up to 93%) of the victims were criminals. In addition, concealed carry permit holders and even less likely than police officers to commit a crime.

A safety course and mental health screening would not actually stop any mass shooting and so few people die in mass shootings it is not worth giving up our right to self defense in order to try to stop them. On the contrary I think that the US is a safer place for having more guns in private hands than less.

 

There should be common sense gun laws. I'm 100% pro 2nd amendment and have owned, operated and loved fire arms my entire life. There should be no "gun show loopholes" where people can buy guns without a background check. Everyone should have to do a background check to purchase a firearm. In my state (PA) you can do private sales of long guns(shotguns, rifles,etc..) i believe you should have to go thru an FFL for long guns & hand guns. As far as magazine capacities, I do not think there should be any restrictions on that. Criminals/terrorists/whoever will get their hands on stuff they want/need anyways. So why cant law abiding citizens have it?

Edit - I think it's COMPLETELY unfair that in some states like california, new york, etc.. guns are SO hard for citizens to obtain(law abiding ones). I think in New Jersey you cant even concealed carry unless you're off duty law enforcement/armed employment. (Writing self defense isn't a valid reason). I don't know how they continue to get away with this stuff (other then the elected officals that WE the people elect). This is an absolute infringement on our rights. Also, there's like ridiculous "wait/processing" times you have to wait to obtain weapons in certain states like New York. So, you go to the store and see a gun you want... you have to wait 6+ months to even be able to get the paper work, etc.. to legally go to the store again and buy it.

 

The gun show loophole isn't a loophole at all. It is explicitly written into the law that private sales are exempt from the background check system and if you are in the business of selling guns the sales you make are not private sales and are subject to background checks so most sales at gun shows will have background checks done. Regardless if they just made it so that background checks were free I'd be perfectly happy getting rid of the private sale exemption (as long as there was still exemptions to gifting firearms, especially to relatives).