We are all Baptists now

Quote: Mosca

If you make it harder, it will happen less. Take your pick.

Quote: Mosca

If you make it easier to kill lots of people at once, then it will happen more. If you make it harder, it will happen less. Take your pick.

Quote: Nareed

I
If upholding the 2nd amendment means accepting mass shootings from time to time, then what hell kind of people live in America?

Quote:

Most Israelis don't give it a second thought.
The ones who are (myself included), who hear all the NRA nonsense about "more guns for law abiding citizens mean safer streets", and the overall jungle of gun owning in the US, tend to relate to it in one word:
NUTS.
No one can teach me about public safety. I live in the cesspool called "the Middle East" with psychopaths and nutjobs trying to kill me all around and inside my country; I lived in Jerusalem for 10 years, including at the of time of the second intifada, when getting on a bus or in a restaurant was considered playing a Russian roulette; I work in Jerusalem today in a place where 3 knives attacks happened over the last two months alone in 200 meters radius from my office and I drive to work from time to time through what is considered as West Bank roads.
And I DO have license to carry a handgun.
And I DO know how to use one better than most Israelis or Americans (used to be part of my job for more than 3 years).
But I DON'T carry one.
Why?
Because despite what you see in Hollywood movies, encounters with bad guys don't look like Bruce Willis or Clint Eastwood scenes where you fire and hit someone from 90 meters without aiming.
Because I know what it takes to use a gun in a professional way in a crowded street full of people.
Because I know how hard it is to hear some shouting, run, identify one person in the crowd, making sure he is armed and with intention to attack, making sure he is the target and not another armed person like yourself, stop, get into position, aim, fire and hit a moving target while your adrenaline in at stratospheric levels.
You know what happens when you fire and miss a shot in the street? Someone else is dead in most cases.
15 years ago I was trained to do it. Now that I don't, I know I will probably cause more harm than good, so I leave it to the professionals, and we have many of those as you probably know.
And that's before we even start talking about gun proliferation and cases where it is being used without any relation to crime or terror: just a simple road rage or drunk brawls.
That is why guns laws in Israel are extremely strict. It is almost impossible to get a gun permit, and if you do have one, you'd better think 50 times before you use it, as it will likely to get you into serious trouble in 90% of the cases, including in cases of self defense.
Sounds bizarre? Well, I see from time to time questions here in Quora "Is Israel a safe place to visit?" and of course in the news violence in Jerusalem looks no shorter than the one in Baghdad, but read this and tell me where is the bizarre:
VIOLENCE DEATH RATE BY COUNTRY
TL;DR:
US - 5.56 fatalities per 100,000 people (what a symbolic number, ha?)
Israel - 1.91
My dear American friends: you are the ones living in a war-zone, not me.

Quote: FrGamble

Why? I think it is because secularism ultimately fails to satisfy us and belittles humanity.