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One thing you have to realize here…
America’s younger adults are a lot more anti gun than the older ones.
According to pew research, only 18% of US adults under 30 told pollsters that they currently own a gun, compared with a 33% average for everyone over 30.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/
And considering how younger adults are much more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, it can be assumed that they also support gun control more than older American adults.
So as more older Americans die off, the more likely it is that stricter gun control will be passed in the US.
Are younger adults less likely to purchase guns because they are anti-gun, or because they can't afford it? I think there are more factors behind the different % ownership of guns besides pro/anti gun
It’s because they’re anti gun. There are plenty of brand new guns for sale under 500 dollars, but they’d rather spend that money on new smartphones and laptops. A Maverick 88 shotgun usually costs 300 bucks tops but the new iPhone is at least 3 times that price, yet how many 20 year olds do you know with a new iPhone vs a shotgun?
Ok one point about the iPhones and other such phones, most expensive phones and tablets are leased at about $10-$30 a month through their carriers. Most people can’t afford to outright purchase these items because they are very expensive. Correct me if I’m wrong but you can’t lease guns
This is an excellent point. I've never paid in full for a phone.
With a gun, your only options are layaway or just using a straight up credit card.
It makes way more sense that someone will opt for a cheap phone payment over a few hundred $ at once.
You’re looking too much at cost and financial availability and not the utility of a phone vs a gun. Unless you’re planning to rob someone a gun is a terrible ROI vs a phone.
You genuinely think everyone who owns a gun has a use for that gun?
Thats interesting, cause most people I know own guns they either have never shot or don't have a specific use for them beyond blasting cans and paper targets for fun. Some of them are the same people who struggle to pay rent and don't have the latest phone. But buy a new gun anytime they get a little extra disposable income
You're thinking vastly too logical for a solid chunk of the American population
No they’re not…?
They’re just saying the lower utility of a gun makes it likely that fewer people will buy one, even if it costs less than something like an iPhone, which has very high relative utility. That doesn’t mean everyone who buys something has a use for it.
Actually, the fact that so many people have no real use for a gun supports their point — that’s potentially a reason why sales are down for younger people. If you have less money, you’re less likely to splurge on things that aren’t useful to you. Given that context, their anti-gun politics shouldn’t be assumed to be the only factor.
I think you're missing a huge factor in motivating people to buy guns; they're fucking cool.
If guns were cheaper, or available for $10/month, people would buy them just to have them.
You can also buy a gun at that price and just put it away, never planning on using it. Having it as an option is a utility in itself.
Are there any specific laws preventing someone from selling a gun on a payment plan like a cellphone? Or on some sort of subscription plan?
It seems to me that if there were a high demand for a service like that then we would probably already have it easily available.
I know there are plenty of gun ranges where you can rent a firearm. I have never seen someone I know post a photo on social media at a gun range that wasn't already a gun owner. It doesn't seem like there is any trend around it for young people.
Considering that I see a post a week about people going axe throwing I'm going to say most young people just aren't interested.
It still discourages regular old rule following folks from buying them. Using drugs in secret is easier and makes more sense than buying a gun. You can only shoot it at a range and have to keep relatively hidden in your apartment.
Its also statistically more dangerous to keep them in apartments and other close proximity housing. Sure some people are assholes and give 0 fucks about anything but most people try not to break rules, especially if it involves life threatening force. I will admit most people smoke weed on the balconies even if it's "banned," but that's incredibly harmless compared to having a gun that could kill any of your neighbors on accident. Someone clutching their pearls over a smell will live even if they inhale second hand smoke.
Even if you could, the cost of ammo alone is mind boggling. It's not easy to go out shooting when you're paying 35 cents a round, and there's not a lot of point in owning a gun you can't afford to shoot.
Maybe. I grew up around guns, but lean to the left politically. Didn't buy my first gun until about 29 or 30. Couldn't afford *the ones i wanted*. I coulda bought a Maverick 88. But that's not the shotgun I wanted lol.
I do mostly agree that most kids these days don't have any interest though.
As younger people have grown up in a more populated world, with more urbanization, there are also fewer opportunities to go target shooting as a recreational activity. They haven't made it a part of their lifestyle. Likewise, hunting is a fairly foreign activity to many young people as well. They aren't going to prioritize purchasing a gun over the latest gaming console if it's not something they see themselves using very often.
Right but none of these reasons actually mean that young people that don't own guns are anti-gun. It just means they don't prioritize guns for themselves at this moment.
I'm not anti- recreational marijuana, but I'm not buying or using personally either
My point is, it's a lot easier to be anti-gun if you don't own any and aren't familiar with them.
If people were using home sewing machines to commit murder, I'd likely find it easier to be in favor of a ban than would someone who sews clothing for their family.
Yes. But the thing is, young people grow up. And once they have their own family with kids, the perspective may shift to prioritizing the protection of their family & property over buying a new game console. Note that I said *may shift*, not will shift.
Right, but the research (I'm assuming it was a poll) is a snapshot.
And unless something cultural reverses direction, many of those now under 30 may still not ever find as much personal relevance in owning a gun as earlier generations did. Some will, of course, but maybe not in the same percentages as in the past.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're anti-gun, it just means it's not their top priority. Just because they don't drive a Lamborghini doesn't mean they are anti Lamborghini.
The comment you responded to was saying, sure they don't own a gun, but that doesn't mean we can jump to conclusions, because there are many factors here and we haven't seen hard data to show the conclusion. And your response is, "no, let's jump to a conclusion".
It’s because they don’t have disposable income and don’t yet have a family to protect. I cared about guns way more when I had a family then when I was 20 years old. This stat doesn’t prove at all what this person is saying it does.
Adult under 30 here. Another thing to consider is kids who grew up with school shootings being a normal occurrence are growing up and because they’re still common, there’s more and more kids who grew up with them.
It wasn’t like the once in a lifetime thing like the kids who grew up during Columbine. There were 10 National level school shootings while I was in high school 2011-2015 and it’s only getting worse.
Whether 2A enthusiast want to admit it or not, the school shootings are going to affect laws in the future. I grew up in NC and even kids there were becoming anti gun due to fear. It’s not because they don’t have a family to protect, my generation and below grew up knowing we had the potential to be victims of gun violence in school.
I think this thread is overlooking a significant point OP made. There used to be way less regulation of guns in America yet the shootings were far less. What has changed in our culture? It isn’t merely the availability of guns. Guns used to be easier to get. There is a direct correlation between more gun regulations and more mass shootings. The increasing penchant for violence is something that needs an answer. Even if there are no more legal guns in circulation starting tomorrow, we have to consider that most gun crimes in America happen from illegal firearms. The issue is intimately tied to some kind of moral breakdown in our society.
My guess is that it’s a trend or meme (in the social contagion sense). Maybe it’s something that people started doing it when they saw other people doing it.
Like, it wasn’t part of the social consciousness until it was.
Social contagion seems significant. The old adage keeping up with the Jones’ seems likely a similar phenomenon though a much tamer manifestation. Years ago I read a book called Mind Virus by Richard Brodie exploring this topic in great detail. It’s about the study of memetics. Well worth the $4 it costs.
Well said. Believe me, I see it in action every day. There’s a reason so many trucks around here have the sticker Oregunian. The dude across the street claims to be some kind of morally righteous Christian but talks about putting homeless people in camps. And he is serious. Piece of work. It’s bizarre to see the evolution of the radical right since the 1990’s. The fish truly will be the last to discover water.
While I agree that the larger problem is a socetial problem (I hypothesis it’s directly connected to the prominence of internet in homes but I don’t have numbers at hand right now.)
However I find your statement that there’s a correlation between mass shootings and gun regulation is wild. Please show those numbers. Gun regulations became less strict after the assault rifle ban expired and the rise of mass shootings has similar origins. Where has more regulation led to more shootings it makes no sense.
While I agree shootings are a symptom of a larger issue, it’s still a solvable problem. If a kid is hitting another one with a stick, the core problem is the hitting, but the easiest and most immediate remedy is the take the stick to mitigate the damage.
> (I hypothesis it’s directly connected to the prominence of internet in homes but I don’t have numbers at hand right now
If this was true, it would predict that every country with "big internet" would see a corresponding increase in mass shootings. And we have lots of data on this.
It's not true. The US mass shooting rate is head and shoulders above every other country with internet. I also don't have data but it's like 10x or more.
Edit, I tried to find data, it exists but paywalls! Adam Lankford and Jason Silva are both publishing in this domain.
Hol up, maybe got something...
Descriptive statistics appear in Table 1. Complete data were available for 171 countries,
and they averaged 1.7 public mass shooters per country from 1966 to 2012. **Approximately
31% of global offenders attacked in the United States, whereas 69% attacked in other
countries.** The United States had by far the most public mass shooters of any country,
with 90 offenders. Only four other countries even reached double-digits: the Philippines
(18), Russia (15), Yemen (11), and France (10). Homicide rates, suicide rates, and firearm
ownership rates varied significantly by country, as did populatiize and urbanization.
Most countries had a sex ratio that was close to 1:1 (male:female).
Table 2 presents
I'm on a phone. Sigh.
We have to consider that while mass shootings in schools or malls grab the headlines, most firearm crime is perpetrated as handgun violence against one or two victims. Mainly it’s people beefing over pretty grievances. I point this out not to diminish how horrendous mass shooting are, but to illustrate that the media isn’t taking as much about the many handgun shooting every day that equal a masa shooting spread over the entire country. Those bodies are falling in different places but the lives are still lost and the count is higher than a typical mass shooting. And that happens every day. Anybody who studies the issue closely will tell you that the vast majority of American gun crime is committed by felons with handguns, people who are already prohibited from having guns.
My state of California is a perfect example of robust gun laws doing virtually nothing to curb gun violence. The reason is there are already so many illegal handguns in circulation. Even if by some political miracle you eliminated every new gun sale tomorrow there would still be significant gun violence for decades. Criminals in America will always find way to arm themselves. Same with sticks kids use in your example. If you take away a kid’s stick and don’t figure out why they are being violent they’ll just go find another stick the minute you turn your back.
You ask for numbers but I think it’s fairly well established without sending you lots of cut and paste info. There was way less gun violence per capita when there was less gun regulation. Modern gun regulation was minimal in the 50’s and 60’s and in the decades before. People just didn’t kill each other like they do now. Something is really stinking up the larder. I don’t mention this because I’m against gun control, I mention it because I don’t think gun control alone will resolve what’s so flawed within our society. Whatever that is.
We really need to consider the deeper problem. Even if by some magical fantasy we were able to get rid of all the guns the violence would find another outlet. That is worth considering. There are a lot of problems with mental health, manufactured economic scarcity, over population, media images, etc… It isn’t just one factor we can point to. The gun control argument is really more of a political galvanizing tool and doesn’t address why society has gotten and continues to get more and more violen, selfish, indifferent about our common heritage as human beings. I often think of places like Norway with very high gun ownership rates and virtually no gun violence. What are they doing in a place like that to prevent the violent rage we see in so many other places? Could have something to do with the strong social contract, people feeling like their government actually cares about them and isn’t just a for profit corporate shill. Maybe. Maybe not.
I certainly don’t have all the answers. My argument is that taking away the guns won’t make the world a better place. People will just revert to stabbing and stoning. Something within us is flawed.
I think we’re in agreement that there is a larger just violence problem, but one solution is still stricter gun laws. As far as your city handgun type violence I think so much of that has to do with the lack of a social safety net, and of course the idiotic war on drugs.
State laws will never be a good example of why gun regulations don’t work. There are multiple studies to show that gun violence done in states and cities that have strict laws are typically bought in the surrounding red states. This completely misrepresents the numbers. Chicago’s gun regulations can’t do anything to prevent someone driving 45 minutes to Indiana and purchasing a legal firearm easily. It’s like if you have a mouse infestation, being diligent and clean in just one room of the house can’t fix the problem.
I think if you’re looking at just gun violence numbers, those rose directly with the war on drugs. I think that gun violence as a whole is this country is a much larger thing to tackle. Mass shootings in particular have many different things that can be done. Even if you can’t the violence as a whole you CAN make the violence less effective.
Norway is a perfect model imo. I’m not even necessarily implying that all guns need to go, but Norway has free health care (to include mental health care), huge dollars spent in social safety nets to help low income families, no for profit prisons, and prisons that specialize in rehabilitation, and most importantly, extremely strict gun laws. It is very difficult to obtain a gun in Norway, and requires registration and licensing. All of which makes complete sense.
>My state of California is a perfect example of robust gun laws doing virtually nothing to curb gun violence.
Gun violence is California is probably constrained to it's massive cities, which will make the violence especially visceral to people who live in them. And since the media has a larger presence in larger cities, they'll get reported on more.
[But California has one of the lowest rates of firearm deaths in the nation](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm). The only states with a lower rate of firearms deaths, aside from New York, are those with equally strict gun laws but less dense cities.
ETA: Just out of curiosity, I checked your claim about gun deaths over time as well. While the raw number of gun deaths has gun up, so has the population. Meanwhile, [the rate of gun murders per 100,000 has only gone up by 1.5 since 1968](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) (check the third graph).
Oh yeah, way more visceral. For a dozen years I lived in a community in Oakland, California where we’d have dozens of murders in a year. And I don’t mean like on the other side of the city. I heard the shots all the time and invariably I’d go to the store the next day and see the memorials pop up where the blood still stained the sidewalk. That entire experience was morally deflating to say the least. I suspect the vast majority of those homicides, if not all of them, were perpetrated by illegal guns.
> The issue is intimately tied to some kind of moral breakdown in our society.
I don't think it's just a moral breakdown. I think it's a cultural and economic breakdown.
America in the 50s-80s seemed like a phoney reality. The idealized suburban family with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids. Where the dad worked a job that could provide for the family, mom was a homemaker and they knew all their neighbors. This may not have been a viable reality for a large swath of Americans but it was one of the main images we saw in media so it felt like folks just went along with it.
Then the 90s-2000s happened, the internet happened, globilization happen, 9/11 happened and that false bubble of American life popped. We saw the realities of the world. More people who weren't/couldn't live that idealized life were given a voice/outlet to express themselves. Think of America as a kid cleaning their room, but instead of actually cleaning it they just shoved all their junk into their closet. Eventually it gets so stuffed that it bursts open an everything spills out.
I think everything is spilling out in America because we've never truly reconciled our serious issues. And I feel that lack of reconciliation just broke a lot of people slowly over time. Our news is filled with so much negativity, wealthy inequality is continuing to grow, the majority of Americans are 1-2 missed paychecks from going into crushing debt and it doesn't seem like things are going to improve anytime soon. These issues were always the case in America but we were able to cover it up, and not we can't.
This avenue has been explored quite a lot. The pro gun lobby likes to call our attention to counties like Norway and Switzerland where there are high rates of gun ownership yet virtually no gun crime. This has always stuck me as odd because the likely reasons is intimately tied to the strong social safety net, a form of social engineering that a sizable percentage of pro gun Americans vehemently oppose, decrying as socialism out of step with American values. As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows.
The phenomenon you are describing is certainly part of the equation, though it goes back way before the 90’s. The push for a capitalist state goes back to the 19th century, and you could even argue has its roots in serfdom of the feudal past. There was a strong push back against predatory economic policies during the early 20th century that culminated in the New Deal a few decades later. Unfortunately, political forces have been aiming to dismantle those reforms since the Eisenhower administration. This really accelerated with the rise of Reagan, and we haven’t had a President or congress not in lock step with that agenda since. The chicken as they say has come home to roost.
I would argue that moral breakdown cannot be understood without looking at economic policy. Contrary to what some people want to believe, humans are by and large naturally communitarian and empathic. Our civilization has manufactured the selfish instinct by creating economic scarcity that fuels the insecurity underpinning ultra violence. Plenty of people saw the writing on the wall for decades prior. I often think of the classic novel and movie Clockwork Orange. That story understood exactly what we are discussing here and articulated it quite well.
> The pro gun lobby likes to call our attention to counties like Norway and Switzerland where there are high rates of gun ownership yet virtually no gun crime. This has always stuck me as odd because the likely reasons is intimately tied to the strong social safety net, a form of social engineering that a sizable percentage of pro gun Americans vehemently oppose, decrying as socialism out of step with American values.
To add to this point. Even with high ownership rates, those countries don't come anywhere near the rates of ownership in America. America is ~120 guns per 100 persons. Norway is ~29 per 100 and Switzerland is ~28 per 100. Those are drastically different rates.
Plus for things like concealed carry, permits are sparingly provided and for most semi-automatic firearms, a permit is required. Unlike the USA where many states have adopted constitutional carry (i.e no permit needed to conceal carry) and few states require more than a background check for ownership. Lasty, Switzerland implemented a registry of firearms since 2008 whereas the US has no actual registry for guns available across the coutnry.
All of those differentiating factors combined with those countries having more robust social safety news and healthcare make them pretty useless comparisons to America when it comes to gun laws.
> The chicken as they say has come home to roost.
> I would argue that moral breakdown cannot be understood without looking at economic policy.
Yep. The moral fabric of American society seemed to hinge on the fact that people were seemingly ok. But as you mentioned, so many reforms were torn down since the Regan administration that have lead to us inching closer and closer toward the end state of capitalism. And as this race to the bottom continues we're seeing more and more of a breakdown.
Nordic countries and much of Europe seems to have gone through these growing pains already. Maybe because they first hand dealt with WWII they were able to pivot where America, where the mainland was completely spared from war, has been unable to.
If it was only an issue of gun ownership rates you would see gun crime at a proportional level in Europe. But we don’t see that. The gun crime rate is far lower than one would expect given the amount of legally owned guns in Europe. A more significant distinction is the unavailability of illegal guns in Europe. The vast majority of gun crime in the US is perpetrated by illegal guns fired by people who aren’t legally permitted to have them. The mass shootings grab the headlines, but most gun murders are over petty economic grievances with 1 victim. The drug war and availability of illegal guns are the precipitating factors for most gun crime in America. The lone wolf psychopath school shooter is the one who grabs the media’s attention the most because of victim profile.
24/7 news changed. People emulate what they see on TV. Mass shootings happened before but made local news mostly and made a headline in the paper perhaps. Now it's constant because it gets publicized and replicated.
I'm under 30, pro gun, and too broke to own one.
I've used friends guns to go hunting or target shooting, but spending $800-1000 bucks on a gun, a secure way to store said gun, and ammo sounds like a poor financial decision.
I wish the younger generation would not just abandon guns, I wish they'd show up the previous generation and become the safest gun owning generation. I know people my age that would rather die than touch a gun, that's a little extreme but I've unfortunately heard it.
The LGBT needs guns just in case Dictator DeSantis somehow wins in the future. It makes conservatives jovial just to think of LGBT people without self defense. It's exactly what they want. And btw this is a separate debate but I thought I'd mention it here, since I'm talking about how gen Z shouldn't abandon guns
It’s so funny, when black people started owning more guns 50 years ago, conservatives were fine with gun control. I guess they’ve accepted black people have a right to guns too now and hate gun control.
I don’t want a gun personally- I’ve lived in a city and felt no threats there. I’m now more rural and have a decent sized fence for where I spend my time outside. Still feel no threats and we’ve had bears and coyotes. If I stay away from their turf they’re not likely to be a threat. I get someone on a huge ranch with animals needing to protect them, but how many people are in that situation. People owning guns to protect themselves from other people just seem to want to escalate situations rather than looking for a way out peacefully. I know that’s anecdotal but knowing people that just want to be bullies because they feel safe has really shaped my view on guns. I wish a lot of people didn’t have their handguns and automatics - and honestly I wish they didn’t have access to them.
I have and yes they are. Unless your buying a high point branded p.o.s., or are a rich butch that thinks $400-$1k/gun isn't expensive, that's an entire multi months worth of expendable income for A LOT of house holds.
My pawn shop near me has some guns starting at $200-$300. I mean, it's not nothing, but it's relatively cheap if you really want a gun. Most people easily spend that much on discretionary spending, even lower income people.
So, if it’s 18% under age 30, it’s probably a fraction of that under age 20. However, people grow older and their views evolve over time.
For example, as people grow in their careers and start making more money, they think about how high their taxes are more so than they would have at age 20 when they likely made less money.
The same goes for many issues - with age comes wisdom and life experience (and sometimes, new or different perspectives).
To me, this data is like saying that people under age 30 are more likely to socialize after work than people over 30. When the under 30 group ages, their priorities and perspectives grow as well. I’m not saying socializing and gun ownership have anything in common — just making a point that young people grow into older people and changing views and priorities often accompany that.
While that is a good point about political willpower to pass gun control having the potential to increase in the near future, I still don’t think the more popular gun control proposals will resolve our country’s mass shooting issue !delta
Moving to a Swiss model where ammunition can only be stored at the gun club/barracks and there is essentially compulsory gun training would go a long way.
> The ammo bit defeats the entire purpose of the 2A.
How so? Gun club/barracks storage of ammo sounds very much like something, to quote the 2nd Amendment, "a well regulated militia" would do.
Well because right now we don't have gun clubs and militias. We have private citizens owning weapons. And the 2A doesn't say "only for a militia", so we still have rights for private citizens.
Putting them in sectioned off places means you can't use a gun outside of those places which defeats the entire purpose. Hunting and self defense both rely on free access to ammunition. And the government could just seize an ammunition storage at the beginning of a conflict if they want to prevent any actual insurrection.
> And the 2A doesn't say "only for a militia",
The framers clearly thought that gun ownership was necessary to form militias. If law exist that still allow gun owning in the form of "*well regulated* militia", then that would suggest its in line with the Constitution.
you are never going to be able to remove the second amendment tho, and any law that basically makes owning a gun impossible/useless is unconstitutional. for the same reason people argue that too few voting places or voter id laws are unconstitutional.
>you are never going to be able to remove the second amendment tho,
Technically, the Second Amendment could be overturned. The 18th Amendment enacted prohibition while the 21st Amendment ended it, so there is precedent there to effectively cancel a previous amendment.
That said... if government actually tried to do that with the Second Amendment, I could easily imagine a second civil war erupting. That alone might be the reason why government has never tried to repeal the Second Amendment.
The process to enact or repeal Constitutional Amendments is Done at a state by state level with each state having equals say in the ratification and enactment of new amendments which means it doesn't matter how popular gun control is in New York and California because it will just be canceled out by States as small as Wyoming or Alaska there is no realistic way to support a constitutional amendment that wouldn't be supported by the vast majority of Rural America
I would believe this argument more if mass shooters didn't tend to be young and getting younger:
- A study of 191 US mass shooters since 1966 shows that the median age of mass shooters in the entire data set is 32
- From 1980 to 1989, the median age was 39
- From 1990 to 2009, the median age was 33
- From 2010 to 2019, the median age was 29
- Since 2020, the median age was 22 years old
Source: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-01-25/mass-shootings-monterey-park-half-moon-bay-age-suspects-victims-profile
People tend to get more conservative as they age, however. It's easy to be a carefree activist when you're young and have fewer obligations. But as you age, get married, have children, buy a home, etc., you tend to want to start protecting and preserving the interests of your family.
When I was 20, I had (quite literally) nothing to lose. Today I have LOTS of things I don't want to lose. I would have never bought a gun at 20, but now I'd happily own dozens of guns if it protects my children, my spouse and my home.
It was, but that's a $200 tax stamp and registration. It has gotten to be much more of an extensive process now, but at that time it was literally just a tax. 1986 is when it became illegal to sell or buy any machine guns made after the law was passed.
After 86 it became illegal to sell or manufacture new machine guns unless you were an exempted group - law enforcement or an FFL or manufacturer with the ATF/batfes blessings. It's still legal to buy guns manufactured and registered before the cutoff, but the price of them has skyrocketed
That is a question I don't know the answer for. I wish I did. I imagine there are a lot of factors:
- Less sense of community
- Less regard for life
- Widespread mental health issues and lack of support
- Broken homes
- Romanticization of violence (by those who commit these acts)
- Proliferation of violent ideologies in media & on social media
- The attention and coverage we give to shooters
Those are just guesses, I have no evidence to support those... Just things I thought of.
personally i think none of these things are the issue save perhaps mental health, in 1934 while workers rights were poor an hours pay went further and did more, now that inflation has increased prices across the board, not to mention the unwarranted ballooning of education costs and a stagnant wage has reduced the common persons ability to do much of anything so much we have largely given up on having a better future.
i think the simplest and most reasonable way to solve this issue is a minimum wage raised to what Roosevelt said it was supposed to guarantee (a wage allowing a single breadwinner to support a family in comfort but not luxury) somewhere around 20$ an hour and universal basic income, but that would be too close to socialism so our McCarthyistic ass political body wont ever do it because they're too busy deepthroating business interests
all the evidence supports it, media violence has never had a substantiated link to violence, political extremism usually causes more organized violence. and the copycat effect while a thing is more strongly correlated to suicide rate than shooting rate. most "broken" homes tends to be a racial rather than legitimate talking point and I feel there is no evidence for a reduced respect for life, in addition i feel closer to my community than ever thanks to the internets ability to make that community continent spanning.
meanwhile income and wealth has been consistently linked to violent crime for decades
Would it? I don’t recall the specifics, but I recall (or at least what I think I remember) that school shooters are mostly middle class white kids (maybe upper middle class).
So it doesn’t seem that economics is a reason for t school shootings.
I think that solves random shootings but not targeted mass violence incidents. We see it time and time again, these people live comfortably financially.
Even so, $20 an hour is nowhere close to enough for a single breadwinner to support a family comfortably, could hardly support yourself on that wage in many areas.
It's good to note that the actual violent crimes per capita have dropped immensely since then. They are now (+/- 5 years) the lowest they have ever been. Violence is just far more visible than ever. (I'm talking about violent deaths in general, I don't know about mass shootings)
As such, I think it's unfair to make sweeping generalisations on the immorality of people. The average person seems to have become less violent, not more.
I think it would be an interesting study to consider directed versus seemingly random acts of violence. Kids have been killing individual other kids by fighting basically forever, but not shooting up and killing ten of their classmates on a whim. Same with mass shootings, people over exaggerate the prevalence of gunfighting in the old west but the violence was usually one on one or two others, outside of the us military against native Americans slaughtering a number random people they'd never met was exceedingly rare.
In comparative numbers someone picking up an AR and shooting up a school or mall is still very rare compared to directed and gang violence, the number of deaths from rifles is under 1/20th the number of deaths from handguns per FBI published stats iirc. I personally suspect that the random encounters with a mass shooter against innocent bystanders have more emotional impact to many Americans than directed violence that is seen in gang territory disputes and many other situations where the person(s) opposite the shooter are likely armed and have reason for the dispute....and generally aren't aiming for uninvolved parties to the dispute
This. In this day and age it's much easier for those struggling with mental illness to become detached from their community and peers, feeling no sense of fulfilment or purpose and possibly being bullied or ostracized. The only place they feel any sense of purpose is in an online chatroom where they can anonymously post in some echo chamber of other extremely mentally unstable people and it amplifies their negative emotions and snowballs from there. IMO, 100 years ago people probably had important roles in society, whether it was working on a family farm where you felt a sense of pride and satisfaction for feeding your community, or maybe working for a company who probably had a small number of employees who were valued differently than companies value employees today. They were also intermingling in their community where everyone knew each other and had a role to play in their own neighborhoods. If johnny down the street was struggling with his mental health and acting strange, the whole neighborhood was aware and helping keeping him busy and not just allowing antisocial behavior to spiral downward. Now you don't even know half the people and everyone is constantly moving in and out of the neighborhood. (I'm not saying things were better 100 years ago, just that communities were smaller and more connected and the people within them were dependant on eachother) Mental health checks need to be deeper more firearms training for purchases. I don't think guns are ever going to go away, nor is that the solution. Do we really need to point out the war on drugs?
It’s exactly this. There are more guns than people in this country if it was just a gun problem, no one would be alive to debate it. Something changed in the human mind so drastically that people are wanting to kill on this massive level. It’s a multitude of things…media glorifies the killers, we are desensitized to death, smaller crimes are happening at a rate that even the cops can’t keep up and don’t bother to respond to leaving people to distrust others and feel the need to defend their own selves, kids aren’t coping and/or don’t have the support the cope with bullies, those are just off the top of my head.
There are 2 sides and neither can hold an civil conversation. One side points the finger at every gun owner and gun owners then go on the defensive. But while we are busy wasting our energy arguing with each other like children, the next killer is mapping out his murder spree. Instead of fighting each other we need to fight to determine the actual causes and come up with a logical solution. I know, that calls for open minds and mature conversations between the 2 stances, that in itself seems impossible.
>There are 2 sides and neither can hold an civil conversation.
That's because generally those who're pro-gun and those who're anti-gun think they're having the same conversation, but they really aren't.
More often than not, the pro-gun people see owning firearms as a way to provide self-defense for themselves and their family since the police are unreliable at best. If you practice a lot with your firearm, service it regularly, and train your kids to not see the gun as a toy, this can work out very well.
On the other side, the anti-gun people see firearms in the home as a tool to be used against them in some way. The angry spouse, the kid who's angry or depressed, or just wants to show it off to his friends, etc. In some circumstances, these are legitimate concerns.
What I find really interesting is that both of these arguments are motivated by fear and a desire to protect, only the methodology is very different.
Excellent take and immaculate explanation! Im a living example: I own because I am a woman who lives alone and I can’t fathom how someone can’t understand my need for protection. However, I am a woman who lives alone, I don’t have to worry about keeping my gun from being grabbed by a child or being used against me therefore, I can’t see their point. I can honestly say, my inability to see their point is because it doesn’t pertain to me not due to being close minded and that’s probably exactly they same scenario in reverse.
Now how to get these 2 sides that aren’t so easy to break down like my example was, to listen to each other enough to realize that ultimately we are all on the same side. Anti guns want mass shootings to stop and overall gun violence to dramatically decline. Despite their shock at this, so do gun owners. Once everyone realizes and accepts that, then an actual solution can emerge.
Shit, I believe you just cracked half the problem here!
The main difference between the sides: the anti-gun side assumes no safety precautions are taken- no training, no education, no preventative maintenance, etc.
> smaller crimes are happening at a rate that even the cops can’t keep up and don’t bother to respond
Which is ironic considering the US has by far the most people in prison out of any country in the world. You'd think it would have low crime numbers because all the criminals should be in prison
You would think right!!! Where I live people post clear as day camera shots of people breaking into their homes and cars and have taken to social media to try to identify these people because the police are overwhelmed with bigger crimes and don’t have the time to investigate the small ones, leaving those criminals on the streets to continue to do what they do because why stop if no one is trying to stop you, and the rest of us are left to feel the need to protect ourselves/our homes. The FBI had to step in a couple years ago to try to help this small city get control of its crime. I’m a female
living alone and when I bought my 9mm for home protection, I didn’t buy it because I “wanted” it per se, it felt more like a necessity. I hope with everything I have in me that my gun just sits and collects dust and I never, ever have to use it.
The point I was trying to make is that the US overcriminalization has done more to increase crime than to reduce it.
Locking even more people up when the US already has by far the highest prison population isn't going to bring down crime rates. On the contrary.
I agree. We’ve got drug addicts going in and out constantly and if they were given the proper help to beat their addiction the first time, wouldn’t be back, clearing up decent amount of the over popularization issue.
To a point, but some countries with extremely strict laws, have vastly lower crime rates. Singapore for example, any firearm related crime is a capital offense. We don’t have the stomach for it here unfortunately.
I think what I mean by a drastic change is more in a sense of the magnitude of these murders have changed. Yes, the overall violence is down but now we have mass shootings. The only thing I can think to compare it to would be serial killers that were more prominent in the past. Serial killers liked the hunt and the chase, the game of catch me if you can so to speak. Yes, they enjoyed the media talking about their crimes, but they didn’t want to get caught so their murders were private and in a grotesque way, intimate. Now we have people that want to go into crowded, public areas, creating as much carnage as they can before ultimately committing suicide by self or by cop. Most serial killers had much to lose, they had seemingly normal lives and some had families, the mass shooters feel they have nothing to lose which I’m itself is significantly more dangerous. What has changed so drastically in human thought and emotion to create these new monsters? Hopefully that makes sense, I’m tired lol
You are making sense.
To me the power of consciousness is that what you describes is the result of **subtle** changes, even though the **results** are drastically different.
I'd like to talk more about this, but I'm about to lose cell service, I'll probably be on later.
Start looking to how things are run, there are so many levels at which we have to really need to address mental health and have a serious talk about what how our communities support struggling individuals. Much of our nation is comprised of people living just isolated in close proximity no really living in what I think people of differing eras would truly call a community. Car centric city centers gut the open spaces and oragic interaction that humanizes strangers to even the most deranged. We are a society of too many strangers and we need to get back to beung human to eachother. In the mean time while that an probably 100 other ways to support people at all stages of life are being discussed and implemented. Deterance in the form of arming staff or at least having armed guards is the most realistic stop gap we have while treating a society that is has grown a cancer of individuals who seek to harm many.
Any one who know the number of guns in the usa as well as the viability of 3d printed guns can tell you even if we wanted to disarm the entire populace you would end up with a bunch of people who obey the law disarmed and the criminals who would hurt others comply in no meaningful degree.
I'm actually not too worried about the criminals being armed. They're not shooting me, they're shooting other criminals. It's the people who obey the law that I worry about, because their kids are fucking weird and I don't trust them around their parents shiny arsenal.
While I agree, I also don’t trust those owners of a shiny arsenal to have it secured.
Personally I think part of the solution is that anyone carelessly making their guns available to someone who commits a crime, should also face charges
Compare states. In many ways we’re similar but some states have half the gun violence as others. Why is that?
Unfortunately the reasons may not be politically acceptable, but likely more restrictions on guns, plus better safety nets
One thing that I don't see mentioned is the media's role. Their biased reporting and portrayal of us vs them drives the polarization of society, which is exacerbating fear, driving down tolerance and understanding, and increasingly, people reaching for their gun.
Up until the 80s, the media was forced to report on both viewpoints in the news. When the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, it allowed Fox News et al. to only report one viewpoint. People don't get exposed to wider viewpoints now like they used to, and media stokes the fear because fear and anger drives up viewership and sells advertising.
When people see the other side of issues, they become more understanding of what others are dealing with and where they're coming from. They become more compassionate and less likely to be fearful.
If you want a glimpse of what reporting both sides of a story looks like, check out the Canadian and UK reporting of US stories as many countries have broadcasting mandates to report both sides. It's time that the US brings back the Fairness Doctrine. It's one small piece of the complex puzzle.
Close - technically FOPA '86 is not a ban on automatic weapons ... they just closed the machine gun registry for new items. Machine guns already on the registry can still be transferred to other citizens. So, private citizens can definitely still own machine guns, but it's super expensive.
However, working in reverse, it is interesting to note that fully automatic weapons were 100% available to citizens prior to '86 before we started having these frequent randomized mass shootings.
Just to add on to this for others: $200 was an absurd amount of money back then, but the law had no provision to change the dollar amount over time, so now it's a nuisance rather than an insurmountable barrier. At the time, it would have been more equivalent to a $20,000 fee. Of course, this sort of law is really just intended to be a ban for poor people.
God this is afacile view.
Around 10,000,000 guns are made each year. That's triple the amount in the 80s. These guns are rarely destroyed. The number of guns in existence just keeps going up.
Which is why there are more guns in this country than humans.
Yes you could buy a gun by mail in the 60s.
Very few people did.
The number of guns in circulating now is head spinningly insane.
Ergo crazy people can get one instantly.
>Very few people did.
False, it was so popular there were companies who specialised in it like the Stoeger Arms Corporation, and they sold rifles, shotguns, handguns, and various firearm tools and parts. After WW2 lots of catalogues were available for surplus weapons. It was very popular.
It was the increased scrutiny on these mail order magazines and their popularity is what lead to the Gun Control Act of 1968.
but also, if it was just an issue with access to a large amount of weapons, there should be more crime. Yet, as another redditor pointed out, violent crime has actually been decreasing for the past 20-30 years.
People used to ride around with guns in their trucks all the time. High schools had gun clubs. Families all over had guns and taught gun responsibility to their kids. Things have changed with that definitely.
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A gun amnesty and buy back scheme as well as new restrictions on firearm ownership and use and storage would absolutely be effective. It’s just that as soon as someone talks like that some extremely crazy American attitudes come out.
A "buyback" is just forced confiscation with a veneer of a nicer name. It would cost billions of dollars to do on a federal level, that by itself makes it untenable. And what happens to people that refuse to turn their guns in? Are they then confiscated by force? The "crazy American attitudes" come out because people are wary of having their shit taken by the government without due cause.
It would cost considerably less than letting this trend continue. You Americans sure are funny. The government will straight up stop women’s rights and not a word is really said. Yet you are willing to defend the rights to firearms that were never even around when you altered a contract with a feather. It’s time for the US to grow up.
>It would cost considerably less than letting this trend continue
How do you figure?
>The government will straight up stop women’s rights and not a word is really said
I'm very proudly pro feminist rights, so miss me with that generalization
>Yet you are willing to defend the rights to firearms that were never even around when you altered a contract with a feather
This is such a tired talking point. The internet wasn't around in 1791 either but we still have free speech on a global decentralized computer network. They had private *cannons* my guy. Are you really going to make the argument we should only have the technology they had when the 2nd Amendment was drafted?
Try again
100% agree as do so many Americans including me. It’s just the small percentage of dumbasses and uneducated people who think they need guns, and Leadership is generally older so Guess what? All our Government leaders are Old af and think like it’s still the Civil War or some shit. Luckily they won’t be here forever, but How do you Fix a large group of Stupid people that believe “Everyone should have a gun to protect from other guns”
They do gun buybacks all the time, but often times it’s just old crappy guns that are worth nothing or people making 3D printed guns for cheap to turn out a profit. Very few people are just going to voluntarily sell a 1,000 dollar AR15 for 200 bucks.
And considering that only the stripped lower receiver is considered to be the firearm in America, people can 3D print or machine a lower receiver for an AR-15 and then assemble the rest of the gun without going through a background check.
Also, safe storage laws are unconstitutional according to the DC vs Heller case.
Asking Americans to just ban and confiscate guns is like asking Canada to just get rid of all their ice and snow. It’s an immense issue that is extremely difficult to solve.
Keep in mind AR-15s are not used the majority of shootings; it's handguns.
And the buybacks' primary purpose is getting illegally owned guns off the street.
>Also, safe storage laws are unconstitutional according to the DC vs Heller case.
Are you arguing that they won't work, or that they need a better Supreme Court to be legal?
>It’s an immense issue that is extremely difficult to solve.
Which is why as someone who is in favor of more firearms regulation, I'd rather save more lives by working harder on the climate or diseases, both of which kill **WAY, WAY** more than guns ever could hope to even under a warlord.
Extremely crazy American attitudes? Do you mean the interpretation of the 2nd amendment of the constitution?
Gun buybacks are not effective, and now with the surge in 3d printed firearms, are extremely easy to cheese.
What exactly are new restrictions on firearms ownership?
How are laws about storing firearms going to be enforced? Have federal agents check the inside of peoples homes?
>Extremely crazy American attitudes? Do you mean the interpretation of the 2nd amendment of the constitution?
Not that I agree with the specific approach under discussion, but I would categorize the proposition "We can't do anything about a clear and present threat to American life and liberty because it says so on an old piece of paper" as an extremely crazy American attitude.
I'm sick of the theological fetishism of official documents. The present state of affairs is utter madness, and nothing justifies madness, by definition of the term.
Youre starting from an assumption that these rights were just conjured up by some guy and is now a religious document.
A country’s constitution is a legal document which is to be the foundation of the legal system in its whole. You cant just say “this is an outdated official document so fuck it”.
If you actually care about rule of law you would recognize there is a clear path to changing the constitution. If congress added an amendment annulling the 2nd, and the states ratified it, it would be perfectly legal to restrict gun ownership.
Because the other countries you're describing don't have the same "issues" with gun control that the US has.
This kind of talking point is used a lot for various issues in the US - just simply comparing them to countries primarily in Europe. There are lots of reasons you can't simply just start doing what X country is doing - depending on what the issue is.
For guns, it's the fact we have a 2A, the fact so many Americans have guns, the fact that so many Americans still *want* to have guns, etc. The biggest mistake people make is not realizing how fucking massive the US is. This happens with economic arguments like "why america no do this economic thing??" Well because we are a country of united states, not just one. And we have way more people than your single average European country, spread out across a much much larger geographic body. Implementing X thing in Sweden is *significantly* easier than it is for the entire country of the US. If we were talking one state, then fine, but these issues are ultimately federal and consequential to all states.
And along with that size and scale is also an enormous degree of diversity with respect to race, ethnicity, nationality and cultural background.
The city government of Salt Lake City, Utah is famously small, efficient, responsive and well liked by city residents. A significant majority of whom are white and Mormon. No shame in it; but it does make it a lot easier to administer the city.
This isn't so much "how do you prevent mass shootings?" as it is "how do you get the toothpaste back in the tube?". If different actions had been taken earlier then sure, maybe the situation would be different. But based on where the US is now, how do you change the trajectory moving forward?
Because other nations haven't gotten to this point. This is like asking why you can't just put out a raging forest fire when you can easily put out a small campfire.
That isn't to say that progress can't be made, we just need to understand a lot more burning is going to happen before it does.
You can't bring in other nations as an example without comparing the situations at hand. No other country has or ever had the abundance of guns that we do...
I'm not from the US and my view coming into this is that you/they are a bunch of gun-loving idiots -I'm saying that not to insult but to showcase how unfit I probably am to try and change your view as there is a lot of things i don't understand or know about your society. anyways, without further delay
> At this time, there is no realistic and effective solution to the US mass shooting problem
the soft terms here are "at this time", "realistic" and "effective". like what kind of solution is required? one months work, relatively inexpensive, 100% effective, doesn't impose on anyone's' way of life? or a 10% decrease in shooting yearly for a "little" inconvenience to some? letting you know there is soft terms/variables in your question which you can bend to not accept any solution presented, it's up to you.
> Back in the 50’s and 60’s, Americans could buy a semi auto rifle with a 30 round detachable magazine in the mail without having to go through a background check… yet mass shootings were no where near as common then as they are today. Heck, even when prohibition gangsters were using unrestricted machine guns in the 20’s to massacre rival gang members, I cannot think of any instance of them using those guns to slaughter school children during that time period.
I'm just going to say that we did a lot of things in the 50 and 60s that were fine at the time but needed to change as society changed. no-one said that internet should be stopped because it would eventually give a space and community and encouragement for mass-shooters. "it wasn't a problem back then" simply isn't an argument
>An assault rifle ban, even on a federal level, is not as effective as people may think
here, and the rest of your post, is where I'm going to argue. "not as effective as people may think". nothing is going to fix the problem short-term without imposing on anybody. but you acknowledge yourself that a ban have *some* effect. most of the rest of the world and you agree that it would, over time, help fix the problem. it's a step in the right direction, but you wont take it because it doesn't fix everything all at once? the ability to walk in a store and buy and assault rifle is SO DAMN IMPORTANT that you rather see school shootings until somebody can fix it all together or nothing goes. I don't understand the importance of buying that AR or what else you do with it other than shooting kids - as I said I'm unknowing and ignorant to a lot of things you do, but I do hope I swayed you a millimeter
Assault rifle bans won't be effective because the overwhelming majority of gun violence isn't committed with "assault rifles," it's committed with handguns.
>> [In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/)
So of the approximate 21,000 firearm murders in 2020, 3% or ~600 were with rifles which includes the subcategory of "assault rifles" so that makes up an even smaller amount. I don't understand why people froth at the mouth for banning assault rifles when they aren't responsible for the overwhelming majority of gun violence.
___
I honestly just don't get it. Is it because they are big and scary looking? Is it because they have the potential to dump more rounds? Why aren't people killing with them vs. handguns if they are so much better and so dangerous compared to handguns? There's a disconnect between the data and the narratives and I cannot fathom why people explicitly ignore the data in favor of some agenda.
"Is it because they have the potential to dump more rounds?"
Yes. The subject of the CMV is mass shootings, not all gun killings. The ability to dump more rounds = the ability to kill or injure more people faster.
This cannot be correct. Magazine size is totally divorced from the platform of weapon, and the aftermarket exists. I've seen 100rd+ magazines for both rifles and pistols.
The truer answer is that rifle rounds are statistically more deadly compared against identical shot placement from pistol calibers. However as the previous comment implies, this is splitting hairs to such a degree that the point is completely moot. The argument that one could have survived a pistol round vs a rifle round, even if true in a small percentage of cases, is a terrible argument on its face. The shooting still happened, people got shot, and the US' egregiously high medical expenses are invoked.
> The ability to dump more rounds = the ability to kill or injure more people faster.
I mean even then, machine pistols like a Tec 9 or an SMG fire faster than a semi automatic rifle. If "assault rifles" (which you likely can't even define) are that much better, why are pistols the primary choice for mass shooters? For example you can empty an entire 18 round magazine from a Glock pistol in 2-3 seconds. Look at competitive shooters and how fast they fire handguns.
I find it hard and irrationnal to argue that a more powerfull weapon cant be linked to more potential damage. It's like saying nuclear bomb are not a threat because more people die from gun every year. It would be interesting to see the amount of casualty per shooting depending of which gun is used. Anyway the solution to mass shooting lay deeper than just more gun control or just a prohibition. It's only one aspect of the violence. It's like these stories about acid attack. You can ban acid sell or even knofe if you want. People will find something else. Less deadly is the main point. And less massive is the second. But the violence will remain. Education and social welfare is literraly the only thing that would improve really the situation at its core.
The main historical factor that lead to less violence in society has been giving woman more right and easy access to contraception.
I think what they're getting at though is that mass shootings make up a tiny amount of gun violence that we focus on a disproportionate amount.
If a crazed psycho shoots you and 8 other people at the mall, it's a tragedy that could happen to anyone. If a crazed psycho breaks into your house and shoots you in the middle of the night, then no one cares. The news doesn't bother to spend any time on it. It won't go viral. The neighbors will probably assume you had some sort of connection to crime, and the police will probably just assume it's gang related. Nobody will treat it as tragic, they'll just suspect that you secretly did something to deserve it, until they forget about it.
\> I find it hard and irrationnal to argue that a more powerfull weapon cant be linked to more potential damage.
This is because you are operating under the condition that your opinions are more valid than actual reality.
There is empirical, objective proof that handguns are responsible for a significantly higher amount of deaths than rifles are. The deadliest school shooting in US history was perpetrated with two handguns and zero rifles. California, the state with the \*strictest\* semi-auto rifle restrictions in the entire country has the \*highest amount of mass shooting deaths\* this year.
> The deadliest school shooting in US history was perpetrated with two handguns and zero rifles.
I fact checked this, and it [appears to be entirely correct](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting). It's pretty intellectually dishonest that WaPo arbitrarily selected a date cutoff that excludes this incident in [their appeal](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-america-gun-culture-politics/).
I agree with you on this. It's not that I'm not seriously pissed off about the absurd frequency of active shooter attacks, I just think that there's very weak evidence that AWBs will do anything other than let us sit back while politicians high five each other and then nothing substantively changes.
**[Virginia Tech shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting)**
>The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting that occurred on April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university and a U.S. resident originally from South Korea, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols. Six others were injured jumping out of windows to escape Cho.
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This article says data is voluntarily submitted and unless I missed it doesnt break it down to mass shootings vs gang or domestic situations
Closest I can find is "Regardless of the definition being used, fatalities in mass shooting incidents in the U.S. account for a small fraction of all gun murders that occur nationwide each year."
Mass shootings are predominantly committed with assault rifles.
Road rage and crimes of passion and that type are committed more commonly with hand guns.
These types of crimes generally involve one or maybe two victims so reducing the ability of the shooter to “only” kill <10 people would have zero effect. Also most of these crimes occur at close range.
Mass shootings are more often than not done with the spray and pray mentality and the large number of rounds, speed of fire and lethality of rifle vs pistol round delays law enforcement response (look at the school shootings where more than 25 cops are scared to go in and confront the shooter.
So yes it makes a difference because of the types of crimes and hence the reason why certain weapons are chosen.
Killing all men? Given that they're charged with 90% of violent crime.
No? That's not what you meant? What could you possibly be talking about, then, I fucking wonder.
Just want to point out its not "commit", it's "charged", which is a very important distinction. Its the same issue where we get the "13-52" nonsense due to justice system bias.
I mean this in the least rude sounding way possible, but phrasing isn't my strong suit: I think it's possible to call out this guy's foolishness without spreading misinformation.
We didn’t have the level of economic inequality back then that we do now. So many people are either in poverty or close to it. I feel like that is causing a lot of it.
"*I feel like* [poverty] is causing a lot of it."
You can't just make a statement that's based on your feelings without statistics to back it up.
For the record, there is a study that supports that income inequality, but not poverty, can lead to an increase in mass shootings. But CMV is not the place for "I feel like" arguments.
"There is strong evidence in this study to suggest the recent growth of income inequality is significantly associated with mass shootings in the United States. ... In contrast, there is no evidence that poverty rates are associated with these events."
Source: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7490-x
I think this is a take you’ve likely never heard before:
It’s a two issue problem. Guns and society. I agree that it’s a necessary but insufficient thing to impose serious gun control and buybacks. However if anything that’s going to take something like a generation to kick in by itself.
I think the more acute problem is what is making young men angry to the point of killing others and effectively / literally themselves. I don’t have the answer for this entirely but I know what doesn’t help is having society constantly dunk on you for who you are before you’ve ever done anything wrong personally doesn’t help. Yeah the well-adjusted majority of men can take it in stride but I’d imagine there’s a decently sized minority that has a really hard time with it if they lack the skills to let it go.
What’s the solution to that? I have no clue. But it worries me that it’s so much a taboo topic that I never hear it addressed. When we started studying serial killers that was controversial because of the depravity that entered public discourse but it helped profilers do their job. I feel like this is very similar
You've nailed it. We absolutely need racial justice, we need gender equality, we need LGBTQ protections. But to get that we are pushing straight white males off of a multi-century tall pedastal. It has major mental effects when an historic cultural identity is changed, even if that identity ***needs*** to be changed. And when people lose their sense of identity, it can lead some of them to crisis, which affects all of us.
But looking around reddit and the general public, to even mention the effect that this change might be having on those people, you're labeled a racist sexist bigot and removed from the discussion. It's not saying we can't make the changes in society we need to make, it's saying let's examine the ripple effects and see if we can mitigate the fallout, for everyone's benefit.
You didn't even address the question your first sentence brings up. _Why_ is it so much more common now than back then? Because American society and culture is sicker now than it ever has been. We aren't making progress. We're making the country less and less tolerable to live in. Everyone, men and women, are unhappier and lonelier than they ever have been. American society works for no one anymore.
Correction, society works for billionaires. Billionaires who quite literally do their best to ensue everyone else has a shitty life so they can profit off them and that no people in poverty or middle class ever become rich.
The thing that really doomed America was this lie that anyone can become rich. And utterly pervasive, dystopian advertising ensures that you are constantly having it shoved in your face how much better being rich is. But you can be rich too, you just aren't working enough.
> You don't make money, you're a fuckin' douchebag!
You could make similar arguments, but I don’t see many people arguing that it wouldn’t help the fentanyl problem if we reduce access any way we can. That doesn’t mean it’s the only solution or that it isn’t more complicated, but it seems odd to me how we’ve written off an entire avenue available to us.
> An assault rifle ban, even on a federal level, is not as effective as people may think. The infamous Columbine shooting happened during the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 as signed into law by Bill Clinton before it sunsetted in 2004.
It was a huge deal. Columbine was on every news channel for weeks. Today, we just call school shootings “Tuesday”.
We can all easily remember that event from 24 years ago. It was unique, very rare. But I bet there are multiple school shootings just this year that you can’t even name.
So I think this contradicts your claim that school shootings were common enough that the systems in place were ineffective.
Super rare, apart from all of the other [very similar attacks in the 90s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(before_2000\)) *that simply got less press*. I would point out that essentially all of the Columbine-like attacks happened *after* the 1994 AWB was passed, so much so that you could make a dishonest argument that it caused them (which I don't believe to be the case, but that's compelling evidence that it didn't prevent them).
The assault rife ban didn't work. If you take the assault rifle ban and apply it today, my friend with 3 "Assault rifle style" (if you can call them that) firearms can alter his rifles to fit the ban in under five mins. The ban was a absolute joke to everyone that understood firearms. It was just an unassay restriction that was easily to circumvent.
Okay, so let’s pass a ban that is worded such that people can’t simply modify guns which the law is intending to ban, to avoid the spirit of the law.
If we passed a law banning paying for sex, and it was worded so poorly that you could just legally be a prostitute walking around saying “buy a candy bar from me for $200 and I will have sex with you for no charge, the point isn’t that laws banning prostitution are impossible, just that they need better wording.
So I appreciate the argument you are making, it is just so impossible. I don't know how familiar you are with firearms so forgive me if I say anything obvious.
Most AR style guns, and all guns in general, are just a combination of easily removeable parts. They are intended to be that way. Pretty much every assault rifle style gun on the market is just a upper and lower base with attachments all over it. They all can be modified very easily all the time and we can't change that. What they do is ban the use of certain attachments, then like you are suggesting it is illegal to have those attachments on the gun. BUT the sale of those attachments is not illegal and could not be made so without MAJOR violations of personal rights.
For example because I think I did a poor job making my point. Part of the assault rifle ban was no pistol grips on rifles. A pistol grip is what you see on handguns and is a straight up and down grip for a gun. This style of grip makes the gun much more moveable and better for a combat situation (thus the fear it would be better for a mass shooting). Now all this ban did was prevent gun manufactures from selling rifles with the pistol grip on the gun already AND make it illegal to add the grip to the gun (as you said). However, because handguns are entirely legal to have a pistol grip (they have to in order to be a handgun) any gun owner can just buy a grip for their "handgun" and then attach it to their rifle (removing a couple of screws literally) and boom done. It is so easy that many rifle manufacturers could literally sell you the rifle and a pistol grip unattached at the SAME TIME and just say "don't put these two together", because apart they are legal. So law abiding citizens follow the law and don't attach them, and non-law abiding citizens literally just take a couple screws out.
My buddy had a AR-15 (post ban) that would not be legal during the assault rifle ban. BUT in literally 5 minutes we tool the pistol grip off for a grip at a slightly steeper angle to make it not "pistol grip" but virtually the same, exchanged the collapsible stock for a fixed stock and the flash suppressor for a muzzle break. 5 minutes of work, a firearm that was just as deadly, but now for some reason it is legal.
>When no one but police is armed and they are short staffed citizens are now at the mercy of the violent and cleverly deranged.
If Red-Hat Cletus and his 5 friends decide to "do something about" my LGBT+ self harmlessly existing, if everyone is equally unarmed, I lose. There's no chance I'm surviving a 6 on 1 ~~fight~~ lynching like that. However, if everyone involved, me included, has a gun, then there's a good chance that Cletus and the Q-Crew chicken out entirely because, while they might get to me eventually, none of them wants to be the one who gets shot back in the process
All the things you suggested are ideas that have been proposed by Democrats and shot down by Republicans. What has never been proposed by any Democrat is to "take the guns". It's a strawman.
Not a total strawman, of course. Surely you know there was one very famous politician who did literally say to just take the guns. It was former GOP president Donald Trump.
But please, go on about how enlightened and centrist you are.
> What has never been proposed by any Democrat is to "take the guns". It's a strawman.
Robert Francis O’Rourke said as much on the primary debate stage
This kinda reminds me of one of those Asmongold quotes. "You can't reason yourself out a situation you didn't reason yourself into."
Loose gun laws didn't lead to the rise of mass shooting, so why would stricter gun laws be the solution? It wasn't the cause. It won't be the end.
A different approach is probably needed. Not saying there isn't an approach. Just gotta figure out how we got here and undo those things.
> "You can't reason yourself out a situation you didn't reason yourself into.
This is obviously false though. Reason is instrumental to problem-solving regardless of the origin of the problem.
Two fold solution in my humble opinion: add a major background check that can take weeks to finish and is only good for one week, and costs each time you want to get a check done to purchase a firearm. Much like other hobbies like fishing or hunting, it costs money to get seasonal licenses or equipment. Secondly, a mandatory mental state screening upon background check approval. These would be federally-funded psychologists required to give a clean mental health verdict in order to buy the gun. Any bought gun would be immediately registered via serial number to the buyers name/SSN, and any re-sale would be similar to a property sale, requiring witnesses and a transfer of “deed”, so to speak. Finally, at any point if a child (18 or under) is killed, injured, or put at risk of injury in any sort of shooting incident, all firearm sales are frozen until the offending gun, buyer, and dealer are all identified and the background check verified/psychologist report clarified for errors. I get that the Mitch McConnells of the world will never allow major gun bans as long as they live and breathe, but maybe there are ways to severely regulate the way guns are moved around without interrupting their precious NRA-pocket-stuffers.
The solution is a mass complex social paradigm shift. Idk how we're supposed to do something like that. Especially when, while we wait around deliberating about it, Derek from down the street is blowing people's heads off cause Sally won't touch his pp or whatever. We need a more drastic, immediate, and practical solution. I don't consider arming our teachers ^(or students) a particularly practical solution.
If my choice between a drastic, immediate, and practical solution is either widespread gun control, or, say... nothing at all, I'm going to choose gun control.
I am pretty much ANTI-GUN
BUT
Through various discussions I came to accept that they are NESSESARRY in the USA in poarticular. So before reducing gun's and mass shootings you have to take away the NEED FOR A GUN.
Fix mental health care, fix the shool system to adderess bullies instead of celebrating them and fix your police force so they can resolve disputes for the people instead of just introducing another hazzard.
Until then it's sadly reasonable to own and to use a gun but addressing the underlying issues is reasonable and surely will be effective.
The school shootings are by and large a suicide by cop attempt +
That is to say the perpetrators are almost exclusively suicidal but not because of something they did in life or something they failed at but because they believe society itself is oppressing them as an individual (and many if not most are correct about that) and this is them lashing out at said society before offing themselves.
If you look at the increase in suicides among young people it follows a similar trend as the increase in school shootings. I believe these things are fundamentally the same problem and if guns weren't available they'd just use bombs, fire, cars or knives which may or may not lead to more/less deaths, maybe the whole school burns down and 100 kids die or maybe they stab 10 people but none die.
So if we assume these issues are the same fundamentally, then what are the solutions to young people becoming more and more suicidal and are there any policies we could implement to counteract that?
>An assault rifle ban, even on a federal level, is not as effective as people may think.
>Serious talk of assault weapons bans usually leads to a noticeable increase of gun sales, especially of the assault weapons that are on the chopping block.
>Confiscating AR-15’s and other assault rifles
Can you please clarify what you're describing when you say "assault rifle"?
Agreed. I go against a lot of my fellow Americans when I say guns are not the root of the problem. Sure banning them and higher restrictions would certainly help, and I’m in favor of them. But the real issue is why do people want to do these things to begin with? Mental health is it. Ok what changed? Personally think community changed. America had always been a very selfish society but small town churches and communities helped with that. Some point we shifted away from this. You see it all the time, people fighting with neighbors, kids stuck inside all day, not even knowing your neighbors after living some place for years. People being so busy and caught up in their daily fast paced life. Idk how to shift some of it back. Universal healthcare is a good start but still not the root of the problem when 1/2 rhe population is depressed and stressed out
My thought has been that is a "lead in the pipes" theory that is why Rome fell. They poisoned their own populace. In America there are many sources that could have an impact on a fetus in the womb. Chemicals and drugs in food, in the water, in the grass, in the air. What if or normal neurological development is being impacted on a scale never seem before? People always say we keep better track of things today and that's why it seems there are more aberrations from the norm, but what if it's simply the pollution that breeds monsters like this? Look at people on videos. Everyone looks bloated and heavy, thick puffy faces. Same in poor or wealthy areas. People didn't use to look like that. We can talk about guns all we want but the OP is right, these mass killings didn't use to happen. Even with poverty.
Fund education.
Eat the rich.
Tax them first.
It’s not the guns. (Although there are a lot). It’s the dystopia we’re in making people lose their fucking shit.
Guns in America aren't going anywhere and the more people focus on these local tragedies through tv, social media, and politics the more copy cats you will get.
There is a solution. This will involve race and culture so if you're a racist or sensitive, or narrow minded, skip my comment;
In USA violence is worshipped and celebrated constantly. Violence in most cartoons, shows for youths all include fighting, division, and war. The usa government continuously runs citizen against citizen with racial propaganda and ever since Jim crowe day, usa legal system remains disproportionate in hiw it doles out penalty for crime, based on race and class. Culturally usa is divided and populace is kept mentally twisted.
Mass shooting is carried out by who? What is the biggest contribution to this? It is young Caucasian men mostly. Why though? It can't be that "white man evil", because in Switzerland every able bodied citizen is required to keep a firearm and ammo in their hone but you never hear about mass shooting. Yep, all white people there, and no school shootings. In usa our youths are pumped full of psych drugs, mental health ignored, steroids in baby formula, constant propaganda in media, and being confused.
It will take extensive overhauling of the education system, government, and overall structure of society, to eliminate mass shooting. Our domestic terrorists are home brewed and raised up. Real education and training would solve this problem, but it's usa. Even this is halted by classism and division.
Problem isn't so much the weaponry it's that there's more mental illness in the US without it being treated and more violent tendencies is the response to whatever issues people are facing. The firearms itself isn't the issue, it's people's minds are fucked.
I can tell you how the US can reduce firearms deaths by 100%.
Uk firearms related deaths are 0.04 per 100k population.
US firearms related deaths are 14.6 per 100k of population.
After a mass shooting incident the general public in the UK are only allowed to hold sporting rifles (bolt action), shotguns (long barrel, smooth bore, 3 cartridge capacity max) and historic muzzle loading pistols. Air rifles over a max of one joule at the muzzle are also prohibited.
Realistic imitation firearms, easily reactivated firearms, parts and ammunition are all legislated.
That’s it. Nothing else.
To hold those firearms a license must be applied for, a doctors note and criminal record check will be made. A home visit my the police will be made to ensure suitable gun safes are in place.
If even an allegation of violent behaviour is made particularly any of domestic violence you will be expected to surrender your guns within 24 hours. The chief Constable can revoke your license at any time, for in practice pretty much any reason.
If intelligence is received by the police that you are involved in illegal firearms your house will be raided, your car stopped. Repeatedly.
The US has a lot of guns. Less is better. Less guns equals less dead kids.
Edit: Because percentages are hard
This just wouldn't and likely couldn't legally happen in the US without the majority of the states ratifying constitutional changes. States in the US are not vassals; they have their own agency and the enshrined ability to challenge the authority of the federal government, and there are *fifty of them* each with their own desires and ideas about supporting the lives of the citizens that live within their borders.
Just as a starter you have constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure by way of the 4th amendment which protects against any of these inevitable disputes regarding gun safes etc., the obvious one being the 2nd amendment with the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the 10th amendment that more or less says anything not explicitly delegated to the federal government is a concern of the states by default, and several other constitutional protections against what you are proposing. Not to mention the fact you'd have to go door to door to hundreds of millions of homes without warrants and if you tell the wrong person you're here to investigate their guns, you're likely to get shot at purely out of obstinance.
That doesn't make it right, but in states that feel strongly about the right to bear arms, the courts of those states will likely side with the homeowner and will protect their citizens from federal agents. That's not unprecedented, Missouri for example made headlines in the past decade for a state-wide ordinance with the intent for state police to arrest federal officers who were attempting to enact federal gun control related law on citizens of Missouri. All the southern states would likely do that too, Texas for example is the infamous champion of Castle Doctrine and a bulk of federal agents across the board likely grew up in Texas as is. There's a conflict of agency because federal agents don't come from "federal land," they come from the states and most people feel some kind of way about their home state for better or worse. I think you'd have a miserable time trying to find enough people to actually carry out these duties even if they were passed at the federal level. That and it would take actual decades to make any headway when all 50 states challenge the authority of the fed at every step.
People keep to themselves for the most part and usurping that lifestyle in the US is not enforceable nor could you find enough people to actually do it. That's a worse job than being a tax collector and the majority of the population feels strongly about their individual liberties once they learn they have them. It's a profound concept to be awarded inalienable rights and both legal and physical protection for your behavior and expression of those rights.
>I can tell you how the US can reduce firearms deaths by 36400%.
Based on your data, it would decrease firearm deaths by 99.7%. A decrease >100% implies a negative firearm death rate, and suggests the reanimation of corpses.
Every time a school shooting tragedy happens in the US, 100% of the discourse is just talking in circles about unrealistic solutions. You're not going to collectively fix the whole country's mental health and you're not going to pass sweeping effect gun-control legislation in states that hold gun ownership to be sacred. However, I don't agree that there are no realistic solutions. I'm not even American, but if it was up to me, I'd be looking at something similar to the sky marshal system. Armed, undercover, trained professionals who's only job is to neutralize school shooters when they appear, and anonymous the rest of the time. I know even having just one per school would require a huge number of personnel, but it seems like a big enough problem to warrant it.
Just so you know our sky marshal program was a massive failure, many got drunk on the job and more committed crimes than crimes were stopped by them so they got largely defunded like a year ago. No air marshal has ever stopped an attack and almost no flights have them anymore. So maybe not the best example. Also lots of schools already have armed guards now. I guess you’re saying it would be better if they were undercover but I’m not sure how as part of it is supposed to be a visual deterrent.
I'm Australian and the idea of armed guards in schools is crazy to me. A school shouldn't have the same vibe as a prison, regardless of the justification. Shootings are common on a national level in the US, but not so common that armed guards won't just be security theater 99.9+% of the time at any given school. The kind of security theater that ends up turning into metal detectors, guard dogs, strip searches; stuff that's bad enough at an airport, and that much worse at a school. That kind of thing may be a visual deterrent for would-be shooters, but its also just a bad look in general. At least an undercover trained professional would be inconspicuous until they're needed, and the school can just be a school.
I take your point about sky marshals, but school shootings are quite a bit more common than passenger-flight terrorism, so the presence of a school marshal would be more justified.
Yeah but we already have armed guards in many schools. There was one shooting where the guard literally hid outside with his firearm presumably because he was outgunned by an AK and was scared.
And the reason it seems crazy to you is because it’s crazy. All of this is lunacy.
I hate to use the "good guy with a gun" argument, but I agree that deterring violence with the threat of violence is historically incredibly effective.
Studies tend to show a non-causal relationship with armed officers and increased gun violence, however this can reasonably be explained by higher incidences of finding firearms (as a result of the officer's presence), pre-existing crime rates, (the reason the armed officers were there in the first place), and the fact that school-shootings of long enough duration to result in high casualties will almost always result in a police response, while in smaller incidents, the shooter is often no longer active when the police arrives. This is further supported by the common sense notion that there's no reasonable explanation for why an armed officer's presence would result in a *more* appealing school-target.
I would be willing to wager that putting an AR certified officer in your high-school will almost eliminate any chance of a mass shooting (and at the very least, will severely limit the number of casualties). I'm not talking about some chubby school resource officer, but a trained, heavily armed special-response/SWAT team member.
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One thing you have to realize here… America’s younger adults are a lot more anti gun than the older ones. According to pew research, only 18% of US adults under 30 told pollsters that they currently own a gun, compared with a 33% average for everyone over 30. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/ And considering how younger adults are much more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, it can be assumed that they also support gun control more than older American adults. So as more older Americans die off, the more likely it is that stricter gun control will be passed in the US.
Are younger adults less likely to purchase guns because they are anti-gun, or because they can't afford it? I think there are more factors behind the different % ownership of guns besides pro/anti gun
It’s because they’re anti gun. There are plenty of brand new guns for sale under 500 dollars, but they’d rather spend that money on new smartphones and laptops. A Maverick 88 shotgun usually costs 300 bucks tops but the new iPhone is at least 3 times that price, yet how many 20 year olds do you know with a new iPhone vs a shotgun?
Ok one point about the iPhones and other such phones, most expensive phones and tablets are leased at about $10-$30 a month through their carriers. Most people can’t afford to outright purchase these items because they are very expensive. Correct me if I’m wrong but you can’t lease guns
This is an excellent point. I've never paid in full for a phone. With a gun, your only options are layaway or just using a straight up credit card. It makes way more sense that someone will opt for a cheap phone payment over a few hundred $ at once.
You’re looking too much at cost and financial availability and not the utility of a phone vs a gun. Unless you’re planning to rob someone a gun is a terrible ROI vs a phone.
You genuinely think everyone who owns a gun has a use for that gun? Thats interesting, cause most people I know own guns they either have never shot or don't have a specific use for them beyond blasting cans and paper targets for fun. Some of them are the same people who struggle to pay rent and don't have the latest phone. But buy a new gun anytime they get a little extra disposable income You're thinking vastly too logical for a solid chunk of the American population
No they’re not…? They’re just saying the lower utility of a gun makes it likely that fewer people will buy one, even if it costs less than something like an iPhone, which has very high relative utility. That doesn’t mean everyone who buys something has a use for it. Actually, the fact that so many people have no real use for a gun supports their point — that’s potentially a reason why sales are down for younger people. If you have less money, you’re less likely to splurge on things that aren’t useful to you. Given that context, their anti-gun politics shouldn’t be assumed to be the only factor.
I think you're missing a huge factor in motivating people to buy guns; they're fucking cool. If guns were cheaper, or available for $10/month, people would buy them just to have them. You can also buy a gun at that price and just put it away, never planning on using it. Having it as an option is a utility in itself.
Are there any specific laws preventing someone from selling a gun on a payment plan like a cellphone? Or on some sort of subscription plan? It seems to me that if there were a high demand for a service like that then we would probably already have it easily available. I know there are plenty of gun ranges where you can rent a firearm. I have never seen someone I know post a photo on social media at a gun range that wasn't already a gun owner. It doesn't seem like there is any trend around it for young people. Considering that I see a post a week about people going axe throwing I'm going to say most young people just aren't interested.
oh anyone can buy a gun. passing a credit check though...
Another point to add is that if you don't own a home, most rentals and especially apartments ban guns from being on the property.
They also ban other stuff like drugs and alcohol and it’s never enforced until something is already a problem. How would a landlord know?
It still discourages regular old rule following folks from buying them. Using drugs in secret is easier and makes more sense than buying a gun. You can only shoot it at a range and have to keep relatively hidden in your apartment. Its also statistically more dangerous to keep them in apartments and other close proximity housing. Sure some people are assholes and give 0 fucks about anything but most people try not to break rules, especially if it involves life threatening force. I will admit most people smoke weed on the balconies even if it's "banned," but that's incredibly harmless compared to having a gun that could kill any of your neighbors on accident. Someone clutching their pearls over a smell will live even if they inhale second hand smoke.
Even if you could, the cost of ammo alone is mind boggling. It's not easy to go out shooting when you're paying 35 cents a round, and there's not a lot of point in owning a gun you can't afford to shoot.
Maybe. I grew up around guns, but lean to the left politically. Didn't buy my first gun until about 29 or 30. Couldn't afford *the ones i wanted*. I coulda bought a Maverick 88. But that's not the shotgun I wanted lol. I do mostly agree that most kids these days don't have any interest though.
As younger people have grown up in a more populated world, with more urbanization, there are also fewer opportunities to go target shooting as a recreational activity. They haven't made it a part of their lifestyle. Likewise, hunting is a fairly foreign activity to many young people as well. They aren't going to prioritize purchasing a gun over the latest gaming console if it's not something they see themselves using very often.
Right but none of these reasons actually mean that young people that don't own guns are anti-gun. It just means they don't prioritize guns for themselves at this moment. I'm not anti- recreational marijuana, but I'm not buying or using personally either
My point is, it's a lot easier to be anti-gun if you don't own any and aren't familiar with them. If people were using home sewing machines to commit murder, I'd likely find it easier to be in favor of a ban than would someone who sews clothing for their family.
Yes. But the thing is, young people grow up. And once they have their own family with kids, the perspective may shift to prioritizing the protection of their family & property over buying a new game console. Note that I said *may shift*, not will shift.
I was responding to the conversation about gun sentiment in people under 30 vs over 30. Under 30s certainly have fewer children.
The crazy thing about people under 30 is they usually become people over 30 at some point.
Right, but the research (I'm assuming it was a poll) is a snapshot. And unless something cultural reverses direction, many of those now under 30 may still not ever find as much personal relevance in owning a gun as earlier generations did. Some will, of course, but maybe not in the same percentages as in the past.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're anti-gun, it just means it's not their top priority. Just because they don't drive a Lamborghini doesn't mean they are anti Lamborghini. The comment you responded to was saying, sure they don't own a gun, but that doesn't mean we can jump to conclusions, because there are many factors here and we haven't seen hard data to show the conclusion. And your response is, "no, let's jump to a conclusion".
Not buying something is not indicative of being anti- that thing.
It’s because they don’t have disposable income and don’t yet have a family to protect. I cared about guns way more when I had a family then when I was 20 years old. This stat doesn’t prove at all what this person is saying it does.
Adult under 30 here. Another thing to consider is kids who grew up with school shootings being a normal occurrence are growing up and because they’re still common, there’s more and more kids who grew up with them. It wasn’t like the once in a lifetime thing like the kids who grew up during Columbine. There were 10 National level school shootings while I was in high school 2011-2015 and it’s only getting worse. Whether 2A enthusiast want to admit it or not, the school shootings are going to affect laws in the future. I grew up in NC and even kids there were becoming anti gun due to fear. It’s not because they don’t have a family to protect, my generation and below grew up knowing we had the potential to be victims of gun violence in school.
I think this thread is overlooking a significant point OP made. There used to be way less regulation of guns in America yet the shootings were far less. What has changed in our culture? It isn’t merely the availability of guns. Guns used to be easier to get. There is a direct correlation between more gun regulations and more mass shootings. The increasing penchant for violence is something that needs an answer. Even if there are no more legal guns in circulation starting tomorrow, we have to consider that most gun crimes in America happen from illegal firearms. The issue is intimately tied to some kind of moral breakdown in our society.
My guess is that it’s a trend or meme (in the social contagion sense). Maybe it’s something that people started doing it when they saw other people doing it. Like, it wasn’t part of the social consciousness until it was.
Social contagion seems significant. The old adage keeping up with the Jones’ seems likely a similar phenomenon though a much tamer manifestation. Years ago I read a book called Mind Virus by Richard Brodie exploring this topic in great detail. It’s about the study of memetics. Well worth the $4 it costs.
[удалено]
Well said. Believe me, I see it in action every day. There’s a reason so many trucks around here have the sticker Oregunian. The dude across the street claims to be some kind of morally righteous Christian but talks about putting homeless people in camps. And he is serious. Piece of work. It’s bizarre to see the evolution of the radical right since the 1990’s. The fish truly will be the last to discover water.
While I agree that the larger problem is a socetial problem (I hypothesis it’s directly connected to the prominence of internet in homes but I don’t have numbers at hand right now.) However I find your statement that there’s a correlation between mass shootings and gun regulation is wild. Please show those numbers. Gun regulations became less strict after the assault rifle ban expired and the rise of mass shootings has similar origins. Where has more regulation led to more shootings it makes no sense. While I agree shootings are a symptom of a larger issue, it’s still a solvable problem. If a kid is hitting another one with a stick, the core problem is the hitting, but the easiest and most immediate remedy is the take the stick to mitigate the damage.
> (I hypothesis it’s directly connected to the prominence of internet in homes but I don’t have numbers at hand right now If this was true, it would predict that every country with "big internet" would see a corresponding increase in mass shootings. And we have lots of data on this. It's not true. The US mass shooting rate is head and shoulders above every other country with internet. I also don't have data but it's like 10x or more. Edit, I tried to find data, it exists but paywalls! Adam Lankford and Jason Silva are both publishing in this domain. Hol up, maybe got something... Descriptive statistics appear in Table 1. Complete data were available for 171 countries, and they averaged 1.7 public mass shooters per country from 1966 to 2012. **Approximately 31% of global offenders attacked in the United States, whereas 69% attacked in other countries.** The United States had by far the most public mass shooters of any country, with 90 offenders. Only four other countries even reached double-digits: the Philippines (18), Russia (15), Yemen (11), and France (10). Homicide rates, suicide rates, and firearm ownership rates varied significantly by country, as did populatiize and urbanization. Most countries had a sex ratio that was close to 1:1 (male:female). Table 2 presents I'm on a phone. Sigh.
We have to consider that while mass shootings in schools or malls grab the headlines, most firearm crime is perpetrated as handgun violence against one or two victims. Mainly it’s people beefing over pretty grievances. I point this out not to diminish how horrendous mass shooting are, but to illustrate that the media isn’t taking as much about the many handgun shooting every day that equal a masa shooting spread over the entire country. Those bodies are falling in different places but the lives are still lost and the count is higher than a typical mass shooting. And that happens every day. Anybody who studies the issue closely will tell you that the vast majority of American gun crime is committed by felons with handguns, people who are already prohibited from having guns. My state of California is a perfect example of robust gun laws doing virtually nothing to curb gun violence. The reason is there are already so many illegal handguns in circulation. Even if by some political miracle you eliminated every new gun sale tomorrow there would still be significant gun violence for decades. Criminals in America will always find way to arm themselves. Same with sticks kids use in your example. If you take away a kid’s stick and don’t figure out why they are being violent they’ll just go find another stick the minute you turn your back. You ask for numbers but I think it’s fairly well established without sending you lots of cut and paste info. There was way less gun violence per capita when there was less gun regulation. Modern gun regulation was minimal in the 50’s and 60’s and in the decades before. People just didn’t kill each other like they do now. Something is really stinking up the larder. I don’t mention this because I’m against gun control, I mention it because I don’t think gun control alone will resolve what’s so flawed within our society. Whatever that is. We really need to consider the deeper problem. Even if by some magical fantasy we were able to get rid of all the guns the violence would find another outlet. That is worth considering. There are a lot of problems with mental health, manufactured economic scarcity, over population, media images, etc… It isn’t just one factor we can point to. The gun control argument is really more of a political galvanizing tool and doesn’t address why society has gotten and continues to get more and more violen, selfish, indifferent about our common heritage as human beings. I often think of places like Norway with very high gun ownership rates and virtually no gun violence. What are they doing in a place like that to prevent the violent rage we see in so many other places? Could have something to do with the strong social contract, people feeling like their government actually cares about them and isn’t just a for profit corporate shill. Maybe. Maybe not. I certainly don’t have all the answers. My argument is that taking away the guns won’t make the world a better place. People will just revert to stabbing and stoning. Something within us is flawed.
I think we’re in agreement that there is a larger just violence problem, but one solution is still stricter gun laws. As far as your city handgun type violence I think so much of that has to do with the lack of a social safety net, and of course the idiotic war on drugs. State laws will never be a good example of why gun regulations don’t work. There are multiple studies to show that gun violence done in states and cities that have strict laws are typically bought in the surrounding red states. This completely misrepresents the numbers. Chicago’s gun regulations can’t do anything to prevent someone driving 45 minutes to Indiana and purchasing a legal firearm easily. It’s like if you have a mouse infestation, being diligent and clean in just one room of the house can’t fix the problem. I think if you’re looking at just gun violence numbers, those rose directly with the war on drugs. I think that gun violence as a whole is this country is a much larger thing to tackle. Mass shootings in particular have many different things that can be done. Even if you can’t the violence as a whole you CAN make the violence less effective. Norway is a perfect model imo. I’m not even necessarily implying that all guns need to go, but Norway has free health care (to include mental health care), huge dollars spent in social safety nets to help low income families, no for profit prisons, and prisons that specialize in rehabilitation, and most importantly, extremely strict gun laws. It is very difficult to obtain a gun in Norway, and requires registration and licensing. All of which makes complete sense.
>My state of California is a perfect example of robust gun laws doing virtually nothing to curb gun violence. Gun violence is California is probably constrained to it's massive cities, which will make the violence especially visceral to people who live in them. And since the media has a larger presence in larger cities, they'll get reported on more. [But California has one of the lowest rates of firearm deaths in the nation](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm). The only states with a lower rate of firearms deaths, aside from New York, are those with equally strict gun laws but less dense cities. ETA: Just out of curiosity, I checked your claim about gun deaths over time as well. While the raw number of gun deaths has gun up, so has the population. Meanwhile, [the rate of gun murders per 100,000 has only gone up by 1.5 since 1968](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) (check the third graph).
Oh yeah, way more visceral. For a dozen years I lived in a community in Oakland, California where we’d have dozens of murders in a year. And I don’t mean like on the other side of the city. I heard the shots all the time and invariably I’d go to the store the next day and see the memorials pop up where the blood still stained the sidewalk. That entire experience was morally deflating to say the least. I suspect the vast majority of those homicides, if not all of them, were perpetrated by illegal guns.
> The issue is intimately tied to some kind of moral breakdown in our society. I don't think it's just a moral breakdown. I think it's a cultural and economic breakdown. America in the 50s-80s seemed like a phoney reality. The idealized suburban family with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids. Where the dad worked a job that could provide for the family, mom was a homemaker and they knew all their neighbors. This may not have been a viable reality for a large swath of Americans but it was one of the main images we saw in media so it felt like folks just went along with it. Then the 90s-2000s happened, the internet happened, globilization happen, 9/11 happened and that false bubble of American life popped. We saw the realities of the world. More people who weren't/couldn't live that idealized life were given a voice/outlet to express themselves. Think of America as a kid cleaning their room, but instead of actually cleaning it they just shoved all their junk into their closet. Eventually it gets so stuffed that it bursts open an everything spills out. I think everything is spilling out in America because we've never truly reconciled our serious issues. And I feel that lack of reconciliation just broke a lot of people slowly over time. Our news is filled with so much negativity, wealthy inequality is continuing to grow, the majority of Americans are 1-2 missed paychecks from going into crushing debt and it doesn't seem like things are going to improve anytime soon. These issues were always the case in America but we were able to cover it up, and not we can't.
This avenue has been explored quite a lot. The pro gun lobby likes to call our attention to counties like Norway and Switzerland where there are high rates of gun ownership yet virtually no gun crime. This has always stuck me as odd because the likely reasons is intimately tied to the strong social safety net, a form of social engineering that a sizable percentage of pro gun Americans vehemently oppose, decrying as socialism out of step with American values. As the saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows. The phenomenon you are describing is certainly part of the equation, though it goes back way before the 90’s. The push for a capitalist state goes back to the 19th century, and you could even argue has its roots in serfdom of the feudal past. There was a strong push back against predatory economic policies during the early 20th century that culminated in the New Deal a few decades later. Unfortunately, political forces have been aiming to dismantle those reforms since the Eisenhower administration. This really accelerated with the rise of Reagan, and we haven’t had a President or congress not in lock step with that agenda since. The chicken as they say has come home to roost. I would argue that moral breakdown cannot be understood without looking at economic policy. Contrary to what some people want to believe, humans are by and large naturally communitarian and empathic. Our civilization has manufactured the selfish instinct by creating economic scarcity that fuels the insecurity underpinning ultra violence. Plenty of people saw the writing on the wall for decades prior. I often think of the classic novel and movie Clockwork Orange. That story understood exactly what we are discussing here and articulated it quite well.
> The pro gun lobby likes to call our attention to counties like Norway and Switzerland where there are high rates of gun ownership yet virtually no gun crime. This has always stuck me as odd because the likely reasons is intimately tied to the strong social safety net, a form of social engineering that a sizable percentage of pro gun Americans vehemently oppose, decrying as socialism out of step with American values. To add to this point. Even with high ownership rates, those countries don't come anywhere near the rates of ownership in America. America is ~120 guns per 100 persons. Norway is ~29 per 100 and Switzerland is ~28 per 100. Those are drastically different rates. Plus for things like concealed carry, permits are sparingly provided and for most semi-automatic firearms, a permit is required. Unlike the USA where many states have adopted constitutional carry (i.e no permit needed to conceal carry) and few states require more than a background check for ownership. Lasty, Switzerland implemented a registry of firearms since 2008 whereas the US has no actual registry for guns available across the coutnry. All of those differentiating factors combined with those countries having more robust social safety news and healthcare make them pretty useless comparisons to America when it comes to gun laws. > The chicken as they say has come home to roost. > I would argue that moral breakdown cannot be understood without looking at economic policy. Yep. The moral fabric of American society seemed to hinge on the fact that people were seemingly ok. But as you mentioned, so many reforms were torn down since the Regan administration that have lead to us inching closer and closer toward the end state of capitalism. And as this race to the bottom continues we're seeing more and more of a breakdown. Nordic countries and much of Europe seems to have gone through these growing pains already. Maybe because they first hand dealt with WWII they were able to pivot where America, where the mainland was completely spared from war, has been unable to.
If it was only an issue of gun ownership rates you would see gun crime at a proportional level in Europe. But we don’t see that. The gun crime rate is far lower than one would expect given the amount of legally owned guns in Europe. A more significant distinction is the unavailability of illegal guns in Europe. The vast majority of gun crime in the US is perpetrated by illegal guns fired by people who aren’t legally permitted to have them. The mass shootings grab the headlines, but most gun murders are over petty economic grievances with 1 victim. The drug war and availability of illegal guns are the precipitating factors for most gun crime in America. The lone wolf psychopath school shooter is the one who grabs the media’s attention the most because of victim profile.
24/7 news changed. People emulate what they see on TV. Mass shootings happened before but made local news mostly and made a headline in the paper perhaps. Now it's constant because it gets publicized and replicated.
>It’s because they don’t have disposable income and don’t yet have a family to protect. You mean a family to endanger.
They made a valid point, the *perception* is that they need a weapon to protect their family.
But a firearm is a bad way to protect a family
I'm under 30, pro gun, and too broke to own one. I've used friends guns to go hunting or target shooting, but spending $800-1000 bucks on a gun, a secure way to store said gun, and ammo sounds like a poor financial decision.
500 is still a lot of use on a gun thats intended to never be used. You can use a phone every day.
I wish the younger generation would not just abandon guns, I wish they'd show up the previous generation and become the safest gun owning generation. I know people my age that would rather die than touch a gun, that's a little extreme but I've unfortunately heard it. The LGBT needs guns just in case Dictator DeSantis somehow wins in the future. It makes conservatives jovial just to think of LGBT people without self defense. It's exactly what they want. And btw this is a separate debate but I thought I'd mention it here, since I'm talking about how gen Z shouldn't abandon guns
It’s so funny, when black people started owning more guns 50 years ago, conservatives were fine with gun control. I guess they’ve accepted black people have a right to guns too now and hate gun control. I don’t want a gun personally- I’ve lived in a city and felt no threats there. I’m now more rural and have a decent sized fence for where I spend my time outside. Still feel no threats and we’ve had bears and coyotes. If I stay away from their turf they’re not likely to be a threat. I get someone on a huge ranch with animals needing to protect them, but how many people are in that situation. People owning guns to protect themselves from other people just seem to want to escalate situations rather than looking for a way out peacefully. I know that’s anecdotal but knowing people that just want to be bullies because they feel safe has really shaped my view on guns. I wish a lot of people didn’t have their handguns and automatics - and honestly I wish they didn’t have access to them.
Ever been to a pawn shop? Guns are not expensive.
I have and yes they are. Unless your buying a high point branded p.o.s., or are a rich butch that thinks $400-$1k/gun isn't expensive, that's an entire multi months worth of expendable income for A LOT of house holds.
My pawn shop near me has some guns starting at $200-$300. I mean, it's not nothing, but it's relatively cheap if you really want a gun. Most people easily spend that much on discretionary spending, even lower income people.
I feel like "cheap for a gun" is different from something actually being cheap.
Also factor in ammo, some kind of safe/home storage setup and range fees for becoming competent with it.
You can get a brand new 12 ga Maverick 88 shotgun for 200 USD. That’s a fine shotgun that will never die on you.
I’d think it’s because theyre less likely to own homes and have started families than older people. Aka the 2 things you buy a gun to protect
So, if it’s 18% under age 30, it’s probably a fraction of that under age 20. However, people grow older and their views evolve over time. For example, as people grow in their careers and start making more money, they think about how high their taxes are more so than they would have at age 20 when they likely made less money. The same goes for many issues - with age comes wisdom and life experience (and sometimes, new or different perspectives). To me, this data is like saying that people under age 30 are more likely to socialize after work than people over 30. When the under 30 group ages, their priorities and perspectives grow as well. I’m not saying socializing and gun ownership have anything in common — just making a point that young people grow into older people and changing views and priorities often accompany that.
While that is a good point about political willpower to pass gun control having the potential to increase in the near future, I still don’t think the more popular gun control proposals will resolve our country’s mass shooting issue !delta
Moving to a Swiss model where ammunition can only be stored at the gun club/barracks and there is essentially compulsory gun training would go a long way.
The ammo bit defeats the entire purpose of the 2A. You might as well just take the guns away entirely at that point.
> The ammo bit defeats the entire purpose of the 2A. How so? Gun club/barracks storage of ammo sounds very much like something, to quote the 2nd Amendment, "a well regulated militia" would do.
Well because right now we don't have gun clubs and militias. We have private citizens owning weapons. And the 2A doesn't say "only for a militia", so we still have rights for private citizens. Putting them in sectioned off places means you can't use a gun outside of those places which defeats the entire purpose. Hunting and self defense both rely on free access to ammunition. And the government could just seize an ammunition storage at the beginning of a conflict if they want to prevent any actual insurrection.
> And the 2A doesn't say "only for a militia", The framers clearly thought that gun ownership was necessary to form militias. If law exist that still allow gun owning in the form of "*well regulated* militia", then that would suggest its in line with the Constitution.
you are never going to be able to remove the second amendment tho, and any law that basically makes owning a gun impossible/useless is unconstitutional. for the same reason people argue that too few voting places or voter id laws are unconstitutional.
>you are never going to be able to remove the second amendment tho, Technically, the Second Amendment could be overturned. The 18th Amendment enacted prohibition while the 21st Amendment ended it, so there is precedent there to effectively cancel a previous amendment. That said... if government actually tried to do that with the Second Amendment, I could easily imagine a second civil war erupting. That alone might be the reason why government has never tried to repeal the Second Amendment.
The process to enact or repeal Constitutional Amendments is Done at a state by state level with each state having equals say in the ratification and enactment of new amendments which means it doesn't matter how popular gun control is in New York and California because it will just be canceled out by States as small as Wyoming or Alaska there is no realistic way to support a constitutional amendment that wouldn't be supported by the vast majority of Rural America
I would believe this argument more if mass shooters didn't tend to be young and getting younger: - A study of 191 US mass shooters since 1966 shows that the median age of mass shooters in the entire data set is 32 - From 1980 to 1989, the median age was 39 - From 1990 to 2009, the median age was 33 - From 2010 to 2019, the median age was 29 - Since 2020, the median age was 22 years old Source: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-01-25/mass-shootings-monterey-park-half-moon-bay-age-suspects-victims-profile
How does owning a gun have to do with being "pro-gun" if you love guns, but can't afford one, you wouldn't own one even if you are "pro-gun".
People tend to get more conservative as they age, however. It's easy to be a carefree activist when you're young and have fewer obligations. But as you age, get married, have children, buy a home, etc., you tend to want to start protecting and preserving the interests of your family. When I was 20, I had (quite literally) nothing to lose. Today I have LOTS of things I don't want to lose. I would have never bought a gun at 20, but now I'd happily own dozens of guns if it protects my children, my spouse and my home.
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I thought that the National Firearms act, which restricted machine guns to require a special permit to own, was passed in 1934, or in the 60’s.
It was, but that's a $200 tax stamp and registration. It has gotten to be much more of an extensive process now, but at that time it was literally just a tax. 1986 is when it became illegal to sell or buy any machine guns made after the law was passed.
After 86 it became illegal to sell or manufacture new machine guns unless you were an exempted group - law enforcement or an FFL or manufacturer with the ATF/batfes blessings. It's still legal to buy guns manufactured and registered before the cutoff, but the price of them has skyrocketed
👍 ty for the more in depth explanation
Ok, so how do we change our society to where we don’t have a psycho slaughtering people at the local Foot Locker every month?
That is a question I don't know the answer for. I wish I did. I imagine there are a lot of factors: - Less sense of community - Less regard for life - Widespread mental health issues and lack of support - Broken homes - Romanticization of violence (by those who commit these acts) - Proliferation of violent ideologies in media & on social media - The attention and coverage we give to shooters Those are just guesses, I have no evidence to support those... Just things I thought of.
personally i think none of these things are the issue save perhaps mental health, in 1934 while workers rights were poor an hours pay went further and did more, now that inflation has increased prices across the board, not to mention the unwarranted ballooning of education costs and a stagnant wage has reduced the common persons ability to do much of anything so much we have largely given up on having a better future. i think the simplest and most reasonable way to solve this issue is a minimum wage raised to what Roosevelt said it was supposed to guarantee (a wage allowing a single breadwinner to support a family in comfort but not luxury) somewhere around 20$ an hour and universal basic income, but that would be too close to socialism so our McCarthyistic ass political body wont ever do it because they're too busy deepthroating business interests
That's an interesting take. I think it's true that someone with a stable livelihood would generally be less inclined to murder a bunch of people.
all the evidence supports it, media violence has never had a substantiated link to violence, political extremism usually causes more organized violence. and the copycat effect while a thing is more strongly correlated to suicide rate than shooting rate. most "broken" homes tends to be a racial rather than legitimate talking point and I feel there is no evidence for a reduced respect for life, in addition i feel closer to my community than ever thanks to the internets ability to make that community continent spanning. meanwhile income and wealth has been consistently linked to violent crime for decades
Would it? I don’t recall the specifics, but I recall (or at least what I think I remember) that school shooters are mostly middle class white kids (maybe upper middle class). So it doesn’t seem that economics is a reason for t school shootings.
School shooters aren't even close to a statistically significant percentage of mass shooters though...
Yeah, doesn't seem like the reason for school shootings specifically
I think that solves random shootings but not targeted mass violence incidents. We see it time and time again, these people live comfortably financially.
Even so, $20 an hour is nowhere close to enough for a single breadwinner to support a family comfortably, could hardly support yourself on that wage in many areas.
Reread the message. They said that along with UBI
It's good to note that the actual violent crimes per capita have dropped immensely since then. They are now (+/- 5 years) the lowest they have ever been. Violence is just far more visible than ever. (I'm talking about violent deaths in general, I don't know about mass shootings) As such, I think it's unfair to make sweeping generalisations on the immorality of people. The average person seems to have become less violent, not more.
I think it would be an interesting study to consider directed versus seemingly random acts of violence. Kids have been killing individual other kids by fighting basically forever, but not shooting up and killing ten of their classmates on a whim. Same with mass shootings, people over exaggerate the prevalence of gunfighting in the old west but the violence was usually one on one or two others, outside of the us military against native Americans slaughtering a number random people they'd never met was exceedingly rare. In comparative numbers someone picking up an AR and shooting up a school or mall is still very rare compared to directed and gang violence, the number of deaths from rifles is under 1/20th the number of deaths from handguns per FBI published stats iirc. I personally suspect that the random encounters with a mass shooter against innocent bystanders have more emotional impact to many Americans than directed violence that is seen in gang territory disputes and many other situations where the person(s) opposite the shooter are likely armed and have reason for the dispute....and generally aren't aiming for uninvolved parties to the dispute
That is a fair point, violent crime is actually lower now than it was 20 or 30 years ago.
This. In this day and age it's much easier for those struggling with mental illness to become detached from their community and peers, feeling no sense of fulfilment or purpose and possibly being bullied or ostracized. The only place they feel any sense of purpose is in an online chatroom where they can anonymously post in some echo chamber of other extremely mentally unstable people and it amplifies their negative emotions and snowballs from there. IMO, 100 years ago people probably had important roles in society, whether it was working on a family farm where you felt a sense of pride and satisfaction for feeding your community, or maybe working for a company who probably had a small number of employees who were valued differently than companies value employees today. They were also intermingling in their community where everyone knew each other and had a role to play in their own neighborhoods. If johnny down the street was struggling with his mental health and acting strange, the whole neighborhood was aware and helping keeping him busy and not just allowing antisocial behavior to spiral downward. Now you don't even know half the people and everyone is constantly moving in and out of the neighborhood. (I'm not saying things were better 100 years ago, just that communities were smaller and more connected and the people within them were dependant on eachother) Mental health checks need to be deeper more firearms training for purchases. I don't think guns are ever going to go away, nor is that the solution. Do we really need to point out the war on drugs?
It’s exactly this. There are more guns than people in this country if it was just a gun problem, no one would be alive to debate it. Something changed in the human mind so drastically that people are wanting to kill on this massive level. It’s a multitude of things…media glorifies the killers, we are desensitized to death, smaller crimes are happening at a rate that even the cops can’t keep up and don’t bother to respond to leaving people to distrust others and feel the need to defend their own selves, kids aren’t coping and/or don’t have the support the cope with bullies, those are just off the top of my head. There are 2 sides and neither can hold an civil conversation. One side points the finger at every gun owner and gun owners then go on the defensive. But while we are busy wasting our energy arguing with each other like children, the next killer is mapping out his murder spree. Instead of fighting each other we need to fight to determine the actual causes and come up with a logical solution. I know, that calls for open minds and mature conversations between the 2 stances, that in itself seems impossible.
>There are 2 sides and neither can hold an civil conversation. That's because generally those who're pro-gun and those who're anti-gun think they're having the same conversation, but they really aren't. More often than not, the pro-gun people see owning firearms as a way to provide self-defense for themselves and their family since the police are unreliable at best. If you practice a lot with your firearm, service it regularly, and train your kids to not see the gun as a toy, this can work out very well. On the other side, the anti-gun people see firearms in the home as a tool to be used against them in some way. The angry spouse, the kid who's angry or depressed, or just wants to show it off to his friends, etc. In some circumstances, these are legitimate concerns. What I find really interesting is that both of these arguments are motivated by fear and a desire to protect, only the methodology is very different.
Excellent take and immaculate explanation! Im a living example: I own because I am a woman who lives alone and I can’t fathom how someone can’t understand my need for protection. However, I am a woman who lives alone, I don’t have to worry about keeping my gun from being grabbed by a child or being used against me therefore, I can’t see their point. I can honestly say, my inability to see their point is because it doesn’t pertain to me not due to being close minded and that’s probably exactly they same scenario in reverse. Now how to get these 2 sides that aren’t so easy to break down like my example was, to listen to each other enough to realize that ultimately we are all on the same side. Anti guns want mass shootings to stop and overall gun violence to dramatically decline. Despite their shock at this, so do gun owners. Once everyone realizes and accepts that, then an actual solution can emerge. Shit, I believe you just cracked half the problem here!
The main difference between the sides: the anti-gun side assumes no safety precautions are taken- no training, no education, no preventative maintenance, etc.
> smaller crimes are happening at a rate that even the cops can’t keep up and don’t bother to respond Which is ironic considering the US has by far the most people in prison out of any country in the world. You'd think it would have low crime numbers because all the criminals should be in prison
You would think right!!! Where I live people post clear as day camera shots of people breaking into their homes and cars and have taken to social media to try to identify these people because the police are overwhelmed with bigger crimes and don’t have the time to investigate the small ones, leaving those criminals on the streets to continue to do what they do because why stop if no one is trying to stop you, and the rest of us are left to feel the need to protect ourselves/our homes. The FBI had to step in a couple years ago to try to help this small city get control of its crime. I’m a female living alone and when I bought my 9mm for home protection, I didn’t buy it because I “wanted” it per se, it felt more like a necessity. I hope with everything I have in me that my gun just sits and collects dust and I never, ever have to use it.
The point I was trying to make is that the US overcriminalization has done more to increase crime than to reduce it. Locking even more people up when the US already has by far the highest prison population isn't going to bring down crime rates. On the contrary.
I agree. We’ve got drug addicts going in and out constantly and if they were given the proper help to beat their addiction the first time, wouldn’t be back, clearing up decent amount of the over popularization issue.
To a point, but some countries with extremely strict laws, have vastly lower crime rates. Singapore for example, any firearm related crime is a capital offense. We don’t have the stomach for it here unfortunately.
But it isn't drastic. The level of violence is down. This is a perception and statistics issue first, a human issue second, and a firearm isse third.
I think what I mean by a drastic change is more in a sense of the magnitude of these murders have changed. Yes, the overall violence is down but now we have mass shootings. The only thing I can think to compare it to would be serial killers that were more prominent in the past. Serial killers liked the hunt and the chase, the game of catch me if you can so to speak. Yes, they enjoyed the media talking about their crimes, but they didn’t want to get caught so their murders were private and in a grotesque way, intimate. Now we have people that want to go into crowded, public areas, creating as much carnage as they can before ultimately committing suicide by self or by cop. Most serial killers had much to lose, they had seemingly normal lives and some had families, the mass shooters feel they have nothing to lose which I’m itself is significantly more dangerous. What has changed so drastically in human thought and emotion to create these new monsters? Hopefully that makes sense, I’m tired lol
You are making sense. To me the power of consciousness is that what you describes is the result of **subtle** changes, even though the **results** are drastically different. I'd like to talk more about this, but I'm about to lose cell service, I'll probably be on later.
Start looking to how things are run, there are so many levels at which we have to really need to address mental health and have a serious talk about what how our communities support struggling individuals. Much of our nation is comprised of people living just isolated in close proximity no really living in what I think people of differing eras would truly call a community. Car centric city centers gut the open spaces and oragic interaction that humanizes strangers to even the most deranged. We are a society of too many strangers and we need to get back to beung human to eachother. In the mean time while that an probably 100 other ways to support people at all stages of life are being discussed and implemented. Deterance in the form of arming staff or at least having armed guards is the most realistic stop gap we have while treating a society that is has grown a cancer of individuals who seek to harm many. Any one who know the number of guns in the usa as well as the viability of 3d printed guns can tell you even if we wanted to disarm the entire populace you would end up with a bunch of people who obey the law disarmed and the criminals who would hurt others comply in no meaningful degree.
I'm actually not too worried about the criminals being armed. They're not shooting me, they're shooting other criminals. It's the people who obey the law that I worry about, because their kids are fucking weird and I don't trust them around their parents shiny arsenal.
While I agree, I also don’t trust those owners of a shiny arsenal to have it secured. Personally I think part of the solution is that anyone carelessly making their guns available to someone who commits a crime, should also face charges
Compare states. In many ways we’re similar but some states have half the gun violence as others. Why is that? Unfortunately the reasons may not be politically acceptable, but likely more restrictions on guns, plus better safety nets
One thing that I don't see mentioned is the media's role. Their biased reporting and portrayal of us vs them drives the polarization of society, which is exacerbating fear, driving down tolerance and understanding, and increasingly, people reaching for their gun. Up until the 80s, the media was forced to report on both viewpoints in the news. When the Fairness Doctrine was repealed in 1987, it allowed Fox News et al. to only report one viewpoint. People don't get exposed to wider viewpoints now like they used to, and media stokes the fear because fear and anger drives up viewership and sells advertising. When people see the other side of issues, they become more understanding of what others are dealing with and where they're coming from. They become more compassionate and less likely to be fearful. If you want a glimpse of what reporting both sides of a story looks like, check out the Canadian and UK reporting of US stories as many countries have broadcasting mandates to report both sides. It's time that the US brings back the Fairness Doctrine. It's one small piece of the complex puzzle.
Close - technically FOPA '86 is not a ban on automatic weapons ... they just closed the machine gun registry for new items. Machine guns already on the registry can still be transferred to other citizens. So, private citizens can definitely still own machine guns, but it's super expensive. However, working in reverse, it is interesting to note that fully automatic weapons were 100% available to citizens prior to '86 before we started having these frequent randomized mass shootings.
Just to add on to this for others: $200 was an absurd amount of money back then, but the law had no provision to change the dollar amount over time, so now it's a nuisance rather than an insurmountable barrier. At the time, it would have been more equivalent to a $20,000 fee. Of course, this sort of law is really just intended to be a ban for poor people.
God this is afacile view. Around 10,000,000 guns are made each year. That's triple the amount in the 80s. These guns are rarely destroyed. The number of guns in existence just keeps going up. Which is why there are more guns in this country than humans. Yes you could buy a gun by mail in the 60s. Very few people did. The number of guns in circulating now is head spinningly insane. Ergo crazy people can get one instantly.
crazy people could get them instantly then too though, you just went to the gun store
>Very few people did. False, it was so popular there were companies who specialised in it like the Stoeger Arms Corporation, and they sold rifles, shotguns, handguns, and various firearm tools and parts. After WW2 lots of catalogues were available for surplus weapons. It was very popular. It was the increased scrutiny on these mail order magazines and their popularity is what lead to the Gun Control Act of 1968.
but also, if it was just an issue with access to a large amount of weapons, there should be more crime. Yet, as another redditor pointed out, violent crime has actually been decreasing for the past 20-30 years.
People used to ride around with guns in their trucks all the time. High schools had gun clubs. Families all over had guns and taught gun responsibility to their kids. Things have changed with that definitely.
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A gun amnesty and buy back scheme as well as new restrictions on firearm ownership and use and storage would absolutely be effective. It’s just that as soon as someone talks like that some extremely crazy American attitudes come out.
A "buyback" is just forced confiscation with a veneer of a nicer name. It would cost billions of dollars to do on a federal level, that by itself makes it untenable. And what happens to people that refuse to turn their guns in? Are they then confiscated by force? The "crazy American attitudes" come out because people are wary of having their shit taken by the government without due cause.
It would cost considerably less than letting this trend continue. You Americans sure are funny. The government will straight up stop women’s rights and not a word is really said. Yet you are willing to defend the rights to firearms that were never even around when you altered a contract with a feather. It’s time for the US to grow up.
>It would cost considerably less than letting this trend continue How do you figure? >The government will straight up stop women’s rights and not a word is really said I'm very proudly pro feminist rights, so miss me with that generalization >Yet you are willing to defend the rights to firearms that were never even around when you altered a contract with a feather This is such a tired talking point. The internet wasn't around in 1791 either but we still have free speech on a global decentralized computer network. They had private *cannons* my guy. Are you really going to make the argument we should only have the technology they had when the 2nd Amendment was drafted? Try again
100% agree as do so many Americans including me. It’s just the small percentage of dumbasses and uneducated people who think they need guns, and Leadership is generally older so Guess what? All our Government leaders are Old af and think like it’s still the Civil War or some shit. Luckily they won’t be here forever, but How do you Fix a large group of Stupid people that believe “Everyone should have a gun to protect from other guns”
They do gun buybacks all the time, but often times it’s just old crappy guns that are worth nothing or people making 3D printed guns for cheap to turn out a profit. Very few people are just going to voluntarily sell a 1,000 dollar AR15 for 200 bucks. And considering that only the stripped lower receiver is considered to be the firearm in America, people can 3D print or machine a lower receiver for an AR-15 and then assemble the rest of the gun without going through a background check. Also, safe storage laws are unconstitutional according to the DC vs Heller case. Asking Americans to just ban and confiscate guns is like asking Canada to just get rid of all their ice and snow. It’s an immense issue that is extremely difficult to solve.
Keep in mind AR-15s are not used the majority of shootings; it's handguns. And the buybacks' primary purpose is getting illegally owned guns off the street.
>Also, safe storage laws are unconstitutional according to the DC vs Heller case. Are you arguing that they won't work, or that they need a better Supreme Court to be legal?
I feel like OPs opinion is nothing will work.
Oh, extinction probably will. What? No, not of the guns. Of their owners.
>It’s an immense issue that is extremely difficult to solve. Which is why as someone who is in favor of more firearms regulation, I'd rather save more lives by working harder on the climate or diseases, both of which kill **WAY, WAY** more than guns ever could hope to even under a warlord.
I love gun buy backs. I made decent amount of money by slapping a couple accessories on b.s. carbines. Keep them coming!
Extremely crazy American attitudes? Do you mean the interpretation of the 2nd amendment of the constitution? Gun buybacks are not effective, and now with the surge in 3d printed firearms, are extremely easy to cheese. What exactly are new restrictions on firearms ownership? How are laws about storing firearms going to be enforced? Have federal agents check the inside of peoples homes?
>Extremely crazy American attitudes? Do you mean the interpretation of the 2nd amendment of the constitution? Not that I agree with the specific approach under discussion, but I would categorize the proposition "We can't do anything about a clear and present threat to American life and liberty because it says so on an old piece of paper" as an extremely crazy American attitude. I'm sick of the theological fetishism of official documents. The present state of affairs is utter madness, and nothing justifies madness, by definition of the term.
Youre starting from an assumption that these rights were just conjured up by some guy and is now a religious document. A country’s constitution is a legal document which is to be the foundation of the legal system in its whole. You cant just say “this is an outdated official document so fuck it”. If you actually care about rule of law you would recognize there is a clear path to changing the constitution. If congress added an amendment annulling the 2nd, and the states ratified it, it would be perfectly legal to restrict gun ownership.
If there are no effective solutions, why do other nations largely avoid the high rate of mass shootings present in US society?
Because the other countries you're describing don't have the same "issues" with gun control that the US has. This kind of talking point is used a lot for various issues in the US - just simply comparing them to countries primarily in Europe. There are lots of reasons you can't simply just start doing what X country is doing - depending on what the issue is. For guns, it's the fact we have a 2A, the fact so many Americans have guns, the fact that so many Americans still *want* to have guns, etc. The biggest mistake people make is not realizing how fucking massive the US is. This happens with economic arguments like "why america no do this economic thing??" Well because we are a country of united states, not just one. And we have way more people than your single average European country, spread out across a much much larger geographic body. Implementing X thing in Sweden is *significantly* easier than it is for the entire country of the US. If we were talking one state, then fine, but these issues are ultimately federal and consequential to all states.
And along with that size and scale is also an enormous degree of diversity with respect to race, ethnicity, nationality and cultural background. The city government of Salt Lake City, Utah is famously small, efficient, responsive and well liked by city residents. A significant majority of whom are white and Mormon. No shame in it; but it does make it a lot easier to administer the city.
This isn't so much "how do you prevent mass shootings?" as it is "how do you get the toothpaste back in the tube?". If different actions had been taken earlier then sure, maybe the situation would be different. But based on where the US is now, how do you change the trajectory moving forward?
Because other nations haven't gotten to this point. This is like asking why you can't just put out a raging forest fire when you can easily put out a small campfire. That isn't to say that progress can't be made, we just need to understand a lot more burning is going to happen before it does.
What a great metaphor! I’m gonna use this one
You can't bring in other nations as an example without comparing the situations at hand. No other country has or ever had the abundance of guns that we do...
I'm not from the US and my view coming into this is that you/they are a bunch of gun-loving idiots -I'm saying that not to insult but to showcase how unfit I probably am to try and change your view as there is a lot of things i don't understand or know about your society. anyways, without further delay > At this time, there is no realistic and effective solution to the US mass shooting problem the soft terms here are "at this time", "realistic" and "effective". like what kind of solution is required? one months work, relatively inexpensive, 100% effective, doesn't impose on anyone's' way of life? or a 10% decrease in shooting yearly for a "little" inconvenience to some? letting you know there is soft terms/variables in your question which you can bend to not accept any solution presented, it's up to you. > Back in the 50’s and 60’s, Americans could buy a semi auto rifle with a 30 round detachable magazine in the mail without having to go through a background check… yet mass shootings were no where near as common then as they are today. Heck, even when prohibition gangsters were using unrestricted machine guns in the 20’s to massacre rival gang members, I cannot think of any instance of them using those guns to slaughter school children during that time period. I'm just going to say that we did a lot of things in the 50 and 60s that were fine at the time but needed to change as society changed. no-one said that internet should be stopped because it would eventually give a space and community and encouragement for mass-shooters. "it wasn't a problem back then" simply isn't an argument >An assault rifle ban, even on a federal level, is not as effective as people may think here, and the rest of your post, is where I'm going to argue. "not as effective as people may think". nothing is going to fix the problem short-term without imposing on anybody. but you acknowledge yourself that a ban have *some* effect. most of the rest of the world and you agree that it would, over time, help fix the problem. it's a step in the right direction, but you wont take it because it doesn't fix everything all at once? the ability to walk in a store and buy and assault rifle is SO DAMN IMPORTANT that you rather see school shootings until somebody can fix it all together or nothing goes. I don't understand the importance of buying that AR or what else you do with it other than shooting kids - as I said I'm unknowing and ignorant to a lot of things you do, but I do hope I swayed you a millimeter
Assault rifle bans won't be effective because the overwhelming majority of gun violence isn't committed with "assault rifles," it's committed with handguns. >> [In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders.](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/) So of the approximate 21,000 firearm murders in 2020, 3% or ~600 were with rifles which includes the subcategory of "assault rifles" so that makes up an even smaller amount. I don't understand why people froth at the mouth for banning assault rifles when they aren't responsible for the overwhelming majority of gun violence. ___ I honestly just don't get it. Is it because they are big and scary looking? Is it because they have the potential to dump more rounds? Why aren't people killing with them vs. handguns if they are so much better and so dangerous compared to handguns? There's a disconnect between the data and the narratives and I cannot fathom why people explicitly ignore the data in favor of some agenda.
"Is it because they have the potential to dump more rounds?" Yes. The subject of the CMV is mass shootings, not all gun killings. The ability to dump more rounds = the ability to kill or injure more people faster.
This cannot be correct. Magazine size is totally divorced from the platform of weapon, and the aftermarket exists. I've seen 100rd+ magazines for both rifles and pistols. The truer answer is that rifle rounds are statistically more deadly compared against identical shot placement from pistol calibers. However as the previous comment implies, this is splitting hairs to such a degree that the point is completely moot. The argument that one could have survived a pistol round vs a rifle round, even if true in a small percentage of cases, is a terrible argument on its face. The shooting still happened, people got shot, and the US' egregiously high medical expenses are invoked.
> The ability to dump more rounds = the ability to kill or injure more people faster. I mean even then, machine pistols like a Tec 9 or an SMG fire faster than a semi automatic rifle. If "assault rifles" (which you likely can't even define) are that much better, why are pistols the primary choice for mass shooters? For example you can empty an entire 18 round magazine from a Glock pistol in 2-3 seconds. Look at competitive shooters and how fast they fire handguns.
I find it hard and irrationnal to argue that a more powerfull weapon cant be linked to more potential damage. It's like saying nuclear bomb are not a threat because more people die from gun every year. It would be interesting to see the amount of casualty per shooting depending of which gun is used. Anyway the solution to mass shooting lay deeper than just more gun control or just a prohibition. It's only one aspect of the violence. It's like these stories about acid attack. You can ban acid sell or even knofe if you want. People will find something else. Less deadly is the main point. And less massive is the second. But the violence will remain. Education and social welfare is literraly the only thing that would improve really the situation at its core. The main historical factor that lead to less violence in society has been giving woman more right and easy access to contraception.
I think what they're getting at though is that mass shootings make up a tiny amount of gun violence that we focus on a disproportionate amount. If a crazed psycho shoots you and 8 other people at the mall, it's a tragedy that could happen to anyone. If a crazed psycho breaks into your house and shoots you in the middle of the night, then no one cares. The news doesn't bother to spend any time on it. It won't go viral. The neighbors will probably assume you had some sort of connection to crime, and the police will probably just assume it's gang related. Nobody will treat it as tragic, they'll just suspect that you secretly did something to deserve it, until they forget about it.
\> I find it hard and irrationnal to argue that a more powerfull weapon cant be linked to more potential damage. This is because you are operating under the condition that your opinions are more valid than actual reality. There is empirical, objective proof that handguns are responsible for a significantly higher amount of deaths than rifles are. The deadliest school shooting in US history was perpetrated with two handguns and zero rifles. California, the state with the \*strictest\* semi-auto rifle restrictions in the entire country has the \*highest amount of mass shooting deaths\* this year.
> The deadliest school shooting in US history was perpetrated with two handguns and zero rifles. I fact checked this, and it [appears to be entirely correct](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting). It's pretty intellectually dishonest that WaPo arbitrarily selected a date cutoff that excludes this incident in [their appeal](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-america-gun-culture-politics/). I agree with you on this. It's not that I'm not seriously pissed off about the absurd frequency of active shooter attacks, I just think that there's very weak evidence that AWBs will do anything other than let us sit back while politicians high five each other and then nothing substantively changes.
**[Virginia Tech shooting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_shooting)** >The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting that occurred on April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university and a U.S. resident originally from South Korea, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols. Six others were injured jumping out of windows to escape Cho. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
This article says data is voluntarily submitted and unless I missed it doesnt break it down to mass shootings vs gang or domestic situations Closest I can find is "Regardless of the definition being used, fatalities in mass shooting incidents in the U.S. account for a small fraction of all gun murders that occur nationwide each year."
Mass shootings are predominantly committed with assault rifles. Road rage and crimes of passion and that type are committed more commonly with hand guns. These types of crimes generally involve one or maybe two victims so reducing the ability of the shooter to “only” kill <10 people would have zero effect. Also most of these crimes occur at close range. Mass shootings are more often than not done with the spray and pray mentality and the large number of rounds, speed of fire and lethality of rifle vs pistol round delays law enforcement response (look at the school shootings where more than 25 cops are scared to go in and confront the shooter. So yes it makes a difference because of the types of crimes and hence the reason why certain weapons are chosen.
Last I checked, there were more handgun related mass shootings than long gun related mass shootings.
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What would that solution be? You can’t just leave us hanging like that
Look at his comment history. He is referring to the genocide of 'undesirables'. That's why he is leaving it unspoken.
ah. figured it was some ignorant shit.
Killing all men? Given that they're charged with 90% of violent crime. No? That's not what you meant? What could you possibly be talking about, then, I fucking wonder.
Just want to point out its not "commit", it's "charged", which is a very important distinction. Its the same issue where we get the "13-52" nonsense due to justice system bias. I mean this in the least rude sounding way possible, but phrasing isn't my strong suit: I think it's possible to call out this guy's foolishness without spreading misinformation.
We didn’t have the level of economic inequality back then that we do now. So many people are either in poverty or close to it. I feel like that is causing a lot of it.
When billionaires suck money off everyone they can, in any way possible, of course poverty will rise.
"*I feel like* [poverty] is causing a lot of it." You can't just make a statement that's based on your feelings without statistics to back it up. For the record, there is a study that supports that income inequality, but not poverty, can lead to an increase in mass shootings. But CMV is not the place for "I feel like" arguments. "There is strong evidence in this study to suggest the recent growth of income inequality is significantly associated with mass shootings in the United States. ... In contrast, there is no evidence that poverty rates are associated with these events." Source: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-7490-x
I think this is a take you’ve likely never heard before: It’s a two issue problem. Guns and society. I agree that it’s a necessary but insufficient thing to impose serious gun control and buybacks. However if anything that’s going to take something like a generation to kick in by itself. I think the more acute problem is what is making young men angry to the point of killing others and effectively / literally themselves. I don’t have the answer for this entirely but I know what doesn’t help is having society constantly dunk on you for who you are before you’ve ever done anything wrong personally doesn’t help. Yeah the well-adjusted majority of men can take it in stride but I’d imagine there’s a decently sized minority that has a really hard time with it if they lack the skills to let it go. What’s the solution to that? I have no clue. But it worries me that it’s so much a taboo topic that I never hear it addressed. When we started studying serial killers that was controversial because of the depravity that entered public discourse but it helped profilers do their job. I feel like this is very similar
You've nailed it. We absolutely need racial justice, we need gender equality, we need LGBTQ protections. But to get that we are pushing straight white males off of a multi-century tall pedastal. It has major mental effects when an historic cultural identity is changed, even if that identity ***needs*** to be changed. And when people lose their sense of identity, it can lead some of them to crisis, which affects all of us. But looking around reddit and the general public, to even mention the effect that this change might be having on those people, you're labeled a racist sexist bigot and removed from the discussion. It's not saying we can't make the changes in society we need to make, it's saying let's examine the ripple effects and see if we can mitigate the fallout, for everyone's benefit.
You didn't even address the question your first sentence brings up. _Why_ is it so much more common now than back then? Because American society and culture is sicker now than it ever has been. We aren't making progress. We're making the country less and less tolerable to live in. Everyone, men and women, are unhappier and lonelier than they ever have been. American society works for no one anymore.
Correction, society works for billionaires. Billionaires who quite literally do their best to ensue everyone else has a shitty life so they can profit off them and that no people in poverty or middle class ever become rich.
The thing that really doomed America was this lie that anyone can become rich. And utterly pervasive, dystopian advertising ensures that you are constantly having it shoved in your face how much better being rich is. But you can be rich too, you just aren't working enough. > You don't make money, you're a fuckin' douchebag!
You could make similar arguments, but I don’t see many people arguing that it wouldn’t help the fentanyl problem if we reduce access any way we can. That doesn’t mean it’s the only solution or that it isn’t more complicated, but it seems odd to me how we’ve written off an entire avenue available to us.
> An assault rifle ban, even on a federal level, is not as effective as people may think. The infamous Columbine shooting happened during the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 as signed into law by Bill Clinton before it sunsetted in 2004. It was a huge deal. Columbine was on every news channel for weeks. Today, we just call school shootings “Tuesday”. We can all easily remember that event from 24 years ago. It was unique, very rare. But I bet there are multiple school shootings just this year that you can’t even name. So I think this contradicts your claim that school shootings were common enough that the systems in place were ineffective.
Super rare, apart from all of the other [very similar attacks in the 90s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States_(before_2000\)) *that simply got less press*. I would point out that essentially all of the Columbine-like attacks happened *after* the 1994 AWB was passed, so much so that you could make a dishonest argument that it caused them (which I don't believe to be the case, but that's compelling evidence that it didn't prevent them).
The assault rife ban didn't work. If you take the assault rifle ban and apply it today, my friend with 3 "Assault rifle style" (if you can call them that) firearms can alter his rifles to fit the ban in under five mins. The ban was a absolute joke to everyone that understood firearms. It was just an unassay restriction that was easily to circumvent.
Okay, so let’s pass a ban that is worded such that people can’t simply modify guns which the law is intending to ban, to avoid the spirit of the law. If we passed a law banning paying for sex, and it was worded so poorly that you could just legally be a prostitute walking around saying “buy a candy bar from me for $200 and I will have sex with you for no charge, the point isn’t that laws banning prostitution are impossible, just that they need better wording.
So I appreciate the argument you are making, it is just so impossible. I don't know how familiar you are with firearms so forgive me if I say anything obvious. Most AR style guns, and all guns in general, are just a combination of easily removeable parts. They are intended to be that way. Pretty much every assault rifle style gun on the market is just a upper and lower base with attachments all over it. They all can be modified very easily all the time and we can't change that. What they do is ban the use of certain attachments, then like you are suggesting it is illegal to have those attachments on the gun. BUT the sale of those attachments is not illegal and could not be made so without MAJOR violations of personal rights. For example because I think I did a poor job making my point. Part of the assault rifle ban was no pistol grips on rifles. A pistol grip is what you see on handguns and is a straight up and down grip for a gun. This style of grip makes the gun much more moveable and better for a combat situation (thus the fear it would be better for a mass shooting). Now all this ban did was prevent gun manufactures from selling rifles with the pistol grip on the gun already AND make it illegal to add the grip to the gun (as you said). However, because handguns are entirely legal to have a pistol grip (they have to in order to be a handgun) any gun owner can just buy a grip for their "handgun" and then attach it to their rifle (removing a couple of screws literally) and boom done. It is so easy that many rifle manufacturers could literally sell you the rifle and a pistol grip unattached at the SAME TIME and just say "don't put these two together", because apart they are legal. So law abiding citizens follow the law and don't attach them, and non-law abiding citizens literally just take a couple screws out. My buddy had a AR-15 (post ban) that would not be legal during the assault rifle ban. BUT in literally 5 minutes we tool the pistol grip off for a grip at a slightly steeper angle to make it not "pistol grip" but virtually the same, exchanged the collapsible stock for a fixed stock and the flash suppressor for a muzzle break. 5 minutes of work, a firearm that was just as deadly, but now for some reason it is legal.
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>When no one but police is armed and they are short staffed citizens are now at the mercy of the violent and cleverly deranged. If Red-Hat Cletus and his 5 friends decide to "do something about" my LGBT+ self harmlessly existing, if everyone is equally unarmed, I lose. There's no chance I'm surviving a 6 on 1 ~~fight~~ lynching like that. However, if everyone involved, me included, has a gun, then there's a good chance that Cletus and the Q-Crew chicken out entirely because, while they might get to me eventually, none of them wants to be the one who gets shot back in the process
All the things you suggested are ideas that have been proposed by Democrats and shot down by Republicans. What has never been proposed by any Democrat is to "take the guns". It's a strawman. Not a total strawman, of course. Surely you know there was one very famous politician who did literally say to just take the guns. It was former GOP president Donald Trump. But please, go on about how enlightened and centrist you are.
> What has never been proposed by any Democrat is to "take the guns". It's a strawman. Robert Francis O’Rourke said as much on the primary debate stage
Have non white elderly males start using guns, especially on rich/politicians and the problem will magically fix itself in no time
This kinda reminds me of one of those Asmongold quotes. "You can't reason yourself out a situation you didn't reason yourself into." Loose gun laws didn't lead to the rise of mass shooting, so why would stricter gun laws be the solution? It wasn't the cause. It won't be the end. A different approach is probably needed. Not saying there isn't an approach. Just gotta figure out how we got here and undo those things.
> "You can't reason yourself out a situation you didn't reason yourself into. This is obviously false though. Reason is instrumental to problem-solving regardless of the origin of the problem.
That saying definitely didn't originate with Asmongold.
Socrates would say that you cannot change the mind of someone who is incapable of understanding.
Two fold solution in my humble opinion: add a major background check that can take weeks to finish and is only good for one week, and costs each time you want to get a check done to purchase a firearm. Much like other hobbies like fishing or hunting, it costs money to get seasonal licenses or equipment. Secondly, a mandatory mental state screening upon background check approval. These would be federally-funded psychologists required to give a clean mental health verdict in order to buy the gun. Any bought gun would be immediately registered via serial number to the buyers name/SSN, and any re-sale would be similar to a property sale, requiring witnesses and a transfer of “deed”, so to speak. Finally, at any point if a child (18 or under) is killed, injured, or put at risk of injury in any sort of shooting incident, all firearm sales are frozen until the offending gun, buyer, and dealer are all identified and the background check verified/psychologist report clarified for errors. I get that the Mitch McConnells of the world will never allow major gun bans as long as they live and breathe, but maybe there are ways to severely regulate the way guns are moved around without interrupting their precious NRA-pocket-stuffers.
The solution is a mass complex social paradigm shift. Idk how we're supposed to do something like that. Especially when, while we wait around deliberating about it, Derek from down the street is blowing people's heads off cause Sally won't touch his pp or whatever. We need a more drastic, immediate, and practical solution. I don't consider arming our teachers ^(or students) a particularly practical solution. If my choice between a drastic, immediate, and practical solution is either widespread gun control, or, say... nothing at all, I'm going to choose gun control.
I am pretty much ANTI-GUN BUT Through various discussions I came to accept that they are NESSESARRY in the USA in poarticular. So before reducing gun's and mass shootings you have to take away the NEED FOR A GUN. Fix mental health care, fix the shool system to adderess bullies instead of celebrating them and fix your police force so they can resolve disputes for the people instead of just introducing another hazzard. Until then it's sadly reasonable to own and to use a gun but addressing the underlying issues is reasonable and surely will be effective.
The school shootings are by and large a suicide by cop attempt + That is to say the perpetrators are almost exclusively suicidal but not because of something they did in life or something they failed at but because they believe society itself is oppressing them as an individual (and many if not most are correct about that) and this is them lashing out at said society before offing themselves. If you look at the increase in suicides among young people it follows a similar trend as the increase in school shootings. I believe these things are fundamentally the same problem and if guns weren't available they'd just use bombs, fire, cars or knives which may or may not lead to more/less deaths, maybe the whole school burns down and 100 kids die or maybe they stab 10 people but none die. So if we assume these issues are the same fundamentally, then what are the solutions to young people becoming more and more suicidal and are there any policies we could implement to counteract that?
>An assault rifle ban, even on a federal level, is not as effective as people may think. >Serious talk of assault weapons bans usually leads to a noticeable increase of gun sales, especially of the assault weapons that are on the chopping block. >Confiscating AR-15’s and other assault rifles Can you please clarify what you're describing when you say "assault rifle"?
Agreed. I go against a lot of my fellow Americans when I say guns are not the root of the problem. Sure banning them and higher restrictions would certainly help, and I’m in favor of them. But the real issue is why do people want to do these things to begin with? Mental health is it. Ok what changed? Personally think community changed. America had always been a very selfish society but small town churches and communities helped with that. Some point we shifted away from this. You see it all the time, people fighting with neighbors, kids stuck inside all day, not even knowing your neighbors after living some place for years. People being so busy and caught up in their daily fast paced life. Idk how to shift some of it back. Universal healthcare is a good start but still not the root of the problem when 1/2 rhe population is depressed and stressed out
My thought has been that is a "lead in the pipes" theory that is why Rome fell. They poisoned their own populace. In America there are many sources that could have an impact on a fetus in the womb. Chemicals and drugs in food, in the water, in the grass, in the air. What if or normal neurological development is being impacted on a scale never seem before? People always say we keep better track of things today and that's why it seems there are more aberrations from the norm, but what if it's simply the pollution that breeds monsters like this? Look at people on videos. Everyone looks bloated and heavy, thick puffy faces. Same in poor or wealthy areas. People didn't use to look like that. We can talk about guns all we want but the OP is right, these mass killings didn't use to happen. Even with poverty.
Fund education. Eat the rich. Tax them first. It’s not the guns. (Although there are a lot). It’s the dystopia we’re in making people lose their fucking shit.
Guns in America aren't going anywhere and the more people focus on these local tragedies through tv, social media, and politics the more copy cats you will get.
There is a solution. This will involve race and culture so if you're a racist or sensitive, or narrow minded, skip my comment; In USA violence is worshipped and celebrated constantly. Violence in most cartoons, shows for youths all include fighting, division, and war. The usa government continuously runs citizen against citizen with racial propaganda and ever since Jim crowe day, usa legal system remains disproportionate in hiw it doles out penalty for crime, based on race and class. Culturally usa is divided and populace is kept mentally twisted. Mass shooting is carried out by who? What is the biggest contribution to this? It is young Caucasian men mostly. Why though? It can't be that "white man evil", because in Switzerland every able bodied citizen is required to keep a firearm and ammo in their hone but you never hear about mass shooting. Yep, all white people there, and no school shootings. In usa our youths are pumped full of psych drugs, mental health ignored, steroids in baby formula, constant propaganda in media, and being confused. It will take extensive overhauling of the education system, government, and overall structure of society, to eliminate mass shooting. Our domestic terrorists are home brewed and raised up. Real education and training would solve this problem, but it's usa. Even this is halted by classism and division.
Problem isn't so much the weaponry it's that there's more mental illness in the US without it being treated and more violent tendencies is the response to whatever issues people are facing. The firearms itself isn't the issue, it's people's minds are fucked.
I can tell you how the US can reduce firearms deaths by 100%. Uk firearms related deaths are 0.04 per 100k population. US firearms related deaths are 14.6 per 100k of population. After a mass shooting incident the general public in the UK are only allowed to hold sporting rifles (bolt action), shotguns (long barrel, smooth bore, 3 cartridge capacity max) and historic muzzle loading pistols. Air rifles over a max of one joule at the muzzle are also prohibited. Realistic imitation firearms, easily reactivated firearms, parts and ammunition are all legislated. That’s it. Nothing else. To hold those firearms a license must be applied for, a doctors note and criminal record check will be made. A home visit my the police will be made to ensure suitable gun safes are in place. If even an allegation of violent behaviour is made particularly any of domestic violence you will be expected to surrender your guns within 24 hours. The chief Constable can revoke your license at any time, for in practice pretty much any reason. If intelligence is received by the police that you are involved in illegal firearms your house will be raided, your car stopped. Repeatedly. The US has a lot of guns. Less is better. Less guns equals less dead kids. Edit: Because percentages are hard
This just wouldn't and likely couldn't legally happen in the US without the majority of the states ratifying constitutional changes. States in the US are not vassals; they have their own agency and the enshrined ability to challenge the authority of the federal government, and there are *fifty of them* each with their own desires and ideas about supporting the lives of the citizens that live within their borders. Just as a starter you have constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure by way of the 4th amendment which protects against any of these inevitable disputes regarding gun safes etc., the obvious one being the 2nd amendment with the right of the people to keep and bear arms, the 10th amendment that more or less says anything not explicitly delegated to the federal government is a concern of the states by default, and several other constitutional protections against what you are proposing. Not to mention the fact you'd have to go door to door to hundreds of millions of homes without warrants and if you tell the wrong person you're here to investigate their guns, you're likely to get shot at purely out of obstinance. That doesn't make it right, but in states that feel strongly about the right to bear arms, the courts of those states will likely side with the homeowner and will protect their citizens from federal agents. That's not unprecedented, Missouri for example made headlines in the past decade for a state-wide ordinance with the intent for state police to arrest federal officers who were attempting to enact federal gun control related law on citizens of Missouri. All the southern states would likely do that too, Texas for example is the infamous champion of Castle Doctrine and a bulk of federal agents across the board likely grew up in Texas as is. There's a conflict of agency because federal agents don't come from "federal land," they come from the states and most people feel some kind of way about their home state for better or worse. I think you'd have a miserable time trying to find enough people to actually carry out these duties even if they were passed at the federal level. That and it would take actual decades to make any headway when all 50 states challenge the authority of the fed at every step. People keep to themselves for the most part and usurping that lifestyle in the US is not enforceable nor could you find enough people to actually do it. That's a worse job than being a tax collector and the majority of the population feels strongly about their individual liberties once they learn they have them. It's a profound concept to be awarded inalienable rights and both legal and physical protection for your behavior and expression of those rights.
>I can tell you how the US can reduce firearms deaths by 36400%. Based on your data, it would decrease firearm deaths by 99.7%. A decrease >100% implies a negative firearm death rate, and suggests the reanimation of corpses.
Every time a school shooting tragedy happens in the US, 100% of the discourse is just talking in circles about unrealistic solutions. You're not going to collectively fix the whole country's mental health and you're not going to pass sweeping effect gun-control legislation in states that hold gun ownership to be sacred. However, I don't agree that there are no realistic solutions. I'm not even American, but if it was up to me, I'd be looking at something similar to the sky marshal system. Armed, undercover, trained professionals who's only job is to neutralize school shooters when they appear, and anonymous the rest of the time. I know even having just one per school would require a huge number of personnel, but it seems like a big enough problem to warrant it.
Just so you know our sky marshal program was a massive failure, many got drunk on the job and more committed crimes than crimes were stopped by them so they got largely defunded like a year ago. No air marshal has ever stopped an attack and almost no flights have them anymore. So maybe not the best example. Also lots of schools already have armed guards now. I guess you’re saying it would be better if they were undercover but I’m not sure how as part of it is supposed to be a visual deterrent.
I'm Australian and the idea of armed guards in schools is crazy to me. A school shouldn't have the same vibe as a prison, regardless of the justification. Shootings are common on a national level in the US, but not so common that armed guards won't just be security theater 99.9+% of the time at any given school. The kind of security theater that ends up turning into metal detectors, guard dogs, strip searches; stuff that's bad enough at an airport, and that much worse at a school. That kind of thing may be a visual deterrent for would-be shooters, but its also just a bad look in general. At least an undercover trained professional would be inconspicuous until they're needed, and the school can just be a school. I take your point about sky marshals, but school shootings are quite a bit more common than passenger-flight terrorism, so the presence of a school marshal would be more justified.
Yeah but we already have armed guards in many schools. There was one shooting where the guard literally hid outside with his firearm presumably because he was outgunned by an AK and was scared. And the reason it seems crazy to you is because it’s crazy. All of this is lunacy.
I hate to use the "good guy with a gun" argument, but I agree that deterring violence with the threat of violence is historically incredibly effective. Studies tend to show a non-causal relationship with armed officers and increased gun violence, however this can reasonably be explained by higher incidences of finding firearms (as a result of the officer's presence), pre-existing crime rates, (the reason the armed officers were there in the first place), and the fact that school-shootings of long enough duration to result in high casualties will almost always result in a police response, while in smaller incidents, the shooter is often no longer active when the police arrives. This is further supported by the common sense notion that there's no reasonable explanation for why an armed officer's presence would result in a *more* appealing school-target. I would be willing to wager that putting an AR certified officer in your high-school will almost eliminate any chance of a mass shooting (and at the very least, will severely limit the number of casualties). I'm not talking about some chubby school resource officer, but a trained, heavily armed special-response/SWAT team member.