So, you want to take away rights from all people, even those who have demonstrated an ability to safely and responsibly own firearms, because a very small minority of people abused those same rights? Why should I be punished because someone else broke the law? How is that not a violation of my sixth ammendment right to due process?

If I were interested in being snarky, this is where I would tell you to think like an adult, not a tyrant.

I'm not against well thought out gun control. But most proposals aren't well thought out and are knee jerk reactions.

I'm saying we, as a society, have huge issues that still need to be addressed even if guns were banned entirely. Wealth inequality, mental health issues, our entire culture around conflict resolution, racism, housing, social services, food insecurity, etc.

We have lots of underlying issues that lead people to gun violence and those issues won't magically disappear if gun violence were impossible. Gun violence is a symptom of a desperate population AND easy access to firearms. Fixing the access to guns is only a portion of the solution.

By defend crops do you mean kill things?

Yes. White-tailed deer are invasive, eat crops, and cause many single-car accidents in rural areas where emergency services can take 30-45 minutes to respond, if you have cell service to call them. It's very desirable to hunt them during mating season to control their population. Wild boar are also invasive, eat crops, and leave giant ruts that damage equipment.

There can be exceptions for specific people to own specific types of guns that would make mass shootings impossible.

There is an unfortunately significant overlap between guns ideal for completely legitimate and responsible purposes and guns ideal for committing horrible atrocities.

Eg. If it is a heavy rifle that takes minutes to reload.

Hunting often involves walking long distances into remote areas. For this reason, hunters often desire the lightest rifle they can find that will get the job done. In fact, one of the reasons the AR-15 was so popular when it was introduced to the civilian market (as a hunting rifle with a 5-round magazine, btw) is because it was two pounds lighter (six pounds instead of eight) than the Ruger Mini 14, which was the most popular hunting rifle at the time.

Also, hunting often involves putting yourself in the same areas bears and other dangerous animals call their home. Not being prey is the first rule of hunting. The type of rifle you're suggesting would offer significant challenges to a hunter who needed to defend themselves from a wild animal.

it seems the only argument the pro-gun side seems to be able to muster is "it wouldn't 100% work, so there's no point even trying"

That's not what I said at all, what I said was focusing on our citizens well-being will have a much greater impact on gun violence than trying to ban guns.

do you agree with charlie kirk, it's worth having a few (tens of thousand) deaths a year to be able "protect your god given rights"? (makes perfect sense, if you don't think about it)

12-13k people die a year from drunk driving deaths per year, nearly as many as all gun homicides combined (sans suicides which make up 2/3rds of gun deaths). So by your logic, we should ban alcohol and that's the best approach.

Also trying to use that piece of racist shit as a "gotcha" on gun rights is pretty weak, you gonna also toss out that hitler liked bread so I must agree with him too right?

the onion title is not "funny" imo, it's upsetting and true, which is kind of a black comedy when you see people genuinely argue for it

I argue for it, because people like you suggest that the dems use political capital to try and push more gun control when it has very little support, instead of trying to actually solve our societies problems that would have much greater effect on gun violence.

nobody is talking about prohibition, "just" regulation, but also guns are nothing like alcohol or heavy drugs even

Nearly 4Xs the number of people die via alcohol consumption (178k on average) per year than all gun deaths combined. That's not even adding in drugs. So you don't really care about deaths. Just how they die.

And yes, you aren't suggesting regulation, you're suggesting a ban, because that's what a buy back effectively is.

I never said it was "easy". It's not. As the other guy pointed out, it's a months long, expensive, and personally invasive process to obtain a FFL. That being said, certain individuals are highly motivated to go through the process anyways. My original point was that the entire process becomes streamlined so long as you don't mind presenting yourself as a conservative. I've heard of people being turned down for a years old social media post, but somehow the redhats don't run into the same issues.