• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    As to that first point, you know we had AR-15s in the 70s, right? (No one gave a shit. They weren’t “cool” until the Assault Weapons Ban. Yeah, that didn’t work out so well…)

    You know guns were far easier to get back then? LOL, I got an old Mossberg 500 (think classic 12-gauge pump) that was branded Revelation. They sold those at Western Auto stores.

    It was no thing to see a dude with a loaded gun rack in his pickup. Point being, access is not the thing that changed.

    And the rest of your post? On. The. Money.

    • cogman@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      As to that first point, you know we had AR-15s in the 70s, right?

      The other 2 factors are important along with the internet. There may have been less legal barriers to getting an AR-15, that does not mean accomplishing such a task was easy to do. It’s not like there were AR-15 ads on TV or in newspapers (well, there may have been, but that would have been highly regional). It’s not like every city had an “AR-15” guy in the yellow pages. Legal access hasn’t changed, but general access has (particularly to assault rifles).

      Regardless, my advocacy is first just starting with laws I think most everyone can agree with, red flag laws. Take away or don’t allow the purchase of guns by a domestic abusers or someone with a history of violence. Heck, you could even put a time limit on that stuff like “within the last 7 years”.

      A ton of these cases are fairly young men (<20). So it would be enough to say “hey, if you are under 25 and your school teachers say ‘Do not let this kid in particular have a gun’” then you don’t get a gun until you turn 25. Or even an outright ban on ownership for people less than 25 (though that’d be much less popular).

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/971544/number-k-12-school-shootings-us-age-shooter/

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      7 months ago

      Current gun laws are pretty restricted compared to things that used to be allowed. The big one is mail order guns, you could just send a money order and get pretty much any semi-auto gun you wanted delivered to your house with no background check at all.

      Full auto gums required a tax stamp since the 30s, and weren’t banned until 86.