On Wednesday evening, a rifle-toting gunman murdered 18 people and wounded at least 13 more in Lewiston, Maine, when he opened fire at two separate locations—a bowling alley, followed by a bar. A manhunt is still underway for 40-year-old suspect Robert Card, a trained firearms instructor with the U.S. Army Reserve who, just this summer, spent two weeks in a mental hospital after reporting that he was hearing voices and threatening to shoot up a military base.
While the other late-night talk show hosts stuck to poking fun at new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Thursday night, Stephen Colbert took his rebuke of the Louisiana congressman to a whole other level.
“Now, we know the arguments,” Colbert said of the do-nothing response politicians generally have to tragedies such as this. “Some people are going to say this is a mental health issue. Others are going to say it’s a gun issue. But there’s no reason it can’t be both.”
Banning is never the solution. All it does is expand the black market. Those who want guns will get them.
If we have black markets for guns like Australia has them I think we’ll be in a much better position than we are today.
Australias were never gunfho as Americans about guns. American history is very short and not too long ago they used guns to get independence from britian, not to mention the civil war. Some believe that they will have to defend the country again in this lifetime, that’s why they value the 2nd amendment.
I mean… The rest of the world proves that you’re wrong. Like the whole world. They don’t have this problem. America does.
Right? Motherfuckers can’t afford rent or a home, but can shell out 10-15 grand for a black market gun lmao.
Most of the illicit guns people are buying are like $100 hi-point pistols. They’re not buying illegal ARs (also that’s what the Mexican cartels are doing).
The only thing expanding the black market is legal gun sales. Black market guns don’t just fall off the truck leaving the factory.
Then why isn’t London full of homemade guns? If it’s not the availability of guns, then what is the reason the US has so many shootings?
There are currently more guns than humans in the United States, and the reason is because industry mass manufacturers millions of these per year and they go on to the open market. While people could illegally manufacture ghost guns from a home workshop, if they were illegal these supply would be greatly diminished.
I don’t really think that’s an argument you can make.
That isn’t even the issue here. This was an individual who was becoming more mentally disturbed and voluntarily checked himself into a psych hospital. It should not be controversial whatsoever that we enforce laws to remove guns from these individuals until the time an independent psychiatrist clears them.
This isn’t even just because of mass shootings. I’m worried about all the veterans with PTSD and depression who could commit suicide. We need to understand that taking someone’s guns when they’re in that state is helping them and could save their lives.
I will be the first person to protest if they illegitimately do this to people. I’m more concerned about the mental and physical health. Guarantee the return of their guns, or even allow a trusted individual to take them – just create incredibly steep charges if the person with custody of the guns hands them over prematurely and suicide or homicides happen.
None of this should be controversial. It literally helps no one to leave them with the guns. We can figure out a holding process for the firearms to ensure it isn’t abused to take guns away and that people have their property returned. But there should be absolutely no disagreement that people who are actively having mental health crises shouldn’t be near guns until they’ve recovered.
The corollary to your statement is that if we take guns away from people with mental illness, we are removing their ability to overthrow the government. This is a bad thing from the conservative mindset…
We want people to overthrow and kill people who are in the government, right? Right??
I know you’re playing devil’s advocate, but I’d point out that I don’t want to take away guns from people with mental illness, I want to temporarily confiscate them from people who are suicidal and homicidal until they receive proper treatment and stabilize.
After all, if they commit suicide, they won’t be very helpful for your (conservatives) ability to overthrow the government. They need to be alive, no?
I used to never smoke weed because it was so hard to get it just wasn’t worth the effort. Now that it’s legal and there’s a dispo right there, I always have my weed on me. availability matters.
It’ll absolutely reduce the number of guns purchased and owned by the general population. Gun control isn’t an all or nothing situation.
It would almost certainly reduce the number of guns out there, I don’t think anyone would dispute that. Alcohol prohibition reduced the amount of alcohol and the number of consumers by a huge amount. What people would argue, however, is that Prohibition made the alcohol that was out there much more dangerous. They’d also argue that gun prohibition would reduce formerly legal owners by (made up numbers) 90% while only reducing already prohibited owners by 10%. Is that a net gain or a net loss?
Most people who do not have guns are totally uninterested in obtaining them. They currently face danger only from people who have them. They would face less danger if fewer people had them. This is purely statistical fact and is observable across the entire world. The US is unique both in gun laws and in gun deaths.
The black market might expand, but that’s one more deterrent for new attackers. However, the issue is that in the US alone there are something like 300million guns already in circulation or owner by private individuals. So a buyback program would need to happen as well and I don’t know how realistic that is. We’ve had mass shootings for decades and this government can’t do shit about anything any more as all bipartisan good will has completely evaporated and the discourse has become so toxic.
