Summary
In October 2020, Samuel Paty, a French teacher, was murdered following a false accusation by a 13-year-old student who claimed he’d shown anti-Muslim bias. The girl had made up the story to cover the fact she had been suspended from school for bad behaviour.
In reality, Paty’s lesson on free speech included optional viewing of Charlie Hebdo cartoons, but he hadn’t excluded anyone. The student’s story triggered a social media campaign led by her father, who, along with others, is now on trial for inciting hatred and connections to Paty’s attacker, an 18-year-old radicalized Chechen.
The school will be named the Samuel Paty School from next year.
I’m of the opinion that a lot of gun control is ineffective, especially given what guns are supposed to mean. Yes places like Australia have been extremely successful in removing guns, but also look at their policing system and governmental overreach which is honestly quite terrible. I’m of the opinion that the most effective gun control is changing the culture surrounding guns. Bring back (optional) shooting classes in schools, teach kids (and adults) gun safety and actual useful knowledge about firearms. Regulate the access, storage, and use of ammunition. Change the culture from people thinking they’ll be John Wick once they get their glock to people who actually understand that firearms are tools that can be used as weapons, and that they require time, effort, training, and a lot of responsibility to use safely. The cat is out of the bag in the US; guns aren’t going away. Acting like we can remove them is silly, but we can change the perception around them.
I also think we need similar movements for a lot of things, like cars.
Why do you need guns in schools? Even if it’s just to teach about them, it’s not the place to bring guns into, and giving them to kids creates this expectation that they should own one, and it’s normal to own one. It’s kind of fucked up. You can have a class discussing them, but they should be expected to handle one. Nobody in the world does that.
The government should just mandate that, to own a firearm, you need a license. This license can be obtained like a car license, after attending a number of classes, passing a written test and a practice test, where you show the examiner you know about gun safety. Then you have to renew every two years or how long it is, pass a medical exam and on you go. If you get caught intoxicated while holding or near an unsafe firearm, your license is taken away from you, with all your firearms, for a period of time, or permanently for repeat offenses, like with cars.
Just make guns act like cars, if it’s fine one way, it’s fine the other too. Putting restrictions instead of giving guns away like you’re Brian from Family Guy trying to buy a carton of milk in Texas will drastically reduce the number of people who even want one. If it’s too much of a hassle to own one, most people will just do without.
The Swiss do, which is where our gun laws originate from. The founding fathers were trying to emulate Swiss gun laws and culture, but they only really managed to solidify the laws not the culture. I’m not saying the founding fathers are the end all be all of legal interpretation, but I don’t think they missed with trying to emulate the Swiss here.
Same reason i think we should bring back shop classes, auto classes, home economics, and stuff like that. There are practical skills that are useful to learn that kids should be given the option to explore. Acting like firearms have no purpose, use, or value is silly. And it gives a good and dedicated space to learn how to use them safely, just like other tools should and did have, and just like guns used to have. Shooting classes in schools are not a novel idea and were actually common at point. Sure, in a coty it might not be the most useful but the majority of the population doesn’t live in cities.
I don’t actually think the way we handle cars is fine, it’s actually quite fucked. But my issue is mainly with how we view and treat cars, which is a cultural issue. I have the same gripe with firearms, hence why I suggest reforms that target changing gun culture.
No, changing the way we view and frame firearms as a society will. People often want guns because they either have a legitimate need or because it makes them feel strong/tough/cool/secure in their identity. Adding restrictions mainly hurts the former, while the latter will still go to obtain them but with less oversight and control. The way to actually address the second group is with cultural changes on the perception of firearms. Again, we should look to Swiss gun culture for this.
In most places you do. The places you don’t are mainly Texas. I’m not arguing we become Texas. If you want to own a firearm in most states you need a Firearm Owner’s ID. If you want to carry your firearm you usually need a Concealed Carry License. This is not what I take issue with. However if this were extended to a firearm owner’s registry, I would take issue with that for the same reasons I take issue with forming registries of people who have done nothing wrong.
This won’t work for the same reason it doesn’t currently work with cars.
You really, really don’t see how this can go wrong do you? I understand the sentiment and agree with what you want to accomplish with this, but this is rife for abuse. And not theoretical abuse, but the exact same type of abuse that has been used to incarcerate a lot of black and brown people in the US. It also is somewhat antithetical to the point of citizens being able to possess firearms if the government can just waltz in and take them away.
No because like drugs and prostitution people will just find another way. Legalize all of those things because the way to address those issues is with safety regulation and cultural shifts.
In most developed countries you don’t even need a gun. Why would you need a gun if you are living in Paris, or Rome for example, or New York.
In Paris and Rome most of the police don’t have automatic rifles.
And I think plenty of people would tell and show you exactly why you need a gun in NYC.
As a counter point, America has fewer gun restrictions and more convicts than Australia. Gun laws and government overreach do not seem connected.
America has a lot of government overreach too, don’t get me wrong. I’m just saying that American gun laws were originally meant to be modeled after Swiss gun laws and if we had also adopted Swiss gun culture we wouldn’t have the problems we do today.
I understood your point. I was showing that not only does America have “a lot” of government overreach, it has “more” government overreach. An Australian is less likely to be shot by another of its citizens and less likely to be imprisoned, enslaved, or killed by its government.
Sure, I can agree with that. But the amount of police corruption is also quite high in Australia. Not saying the US doesn’t have that, but it’s a lot of the same issues just without guns. I mean look at FriendlyJordies getting firebombed for whistleblowing on politicians.
I couldn’t say where police corruption is worse if I’m honest, I would guess its worse in America. But, Police violence is absolutely worse in America.
Regardless, I think the take away is: “whatever the intention, guns don’t equal civil liberties”.
My post was actually about religion and I only used gun control as a theoretical comparison.
However, it seems funny to me that you start by stating that ‘gun control is ineffective’, and then proceed to describe gun control in great detail and praise it.
Gun control =/= banning all guns.
Fair, i certainly couldve used better wording