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Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

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Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#81

Post by bifrost »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #73
jonp888 wrote: post #40

As a foreigner, I do not see it as productive to seek any explanation or expect any reaction when yet another news story like this comes along. It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live, and it is their perogative to do so.

As a foreigner, I have an impression that americans can buy a gun at 18, but cun buy a cigarette at 21. Maybe I’m wrong, but still... Call me an “old-timer” but I do think you could use better psychological tests before letting them buy a gun.

Its because buying a gun is a civil right.

Smoking is not.

That said, the 21yo requirement may be unconstitutional as well.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#82

Post by recursive »

lastitude wrote: post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

We maybe have some hope of doing something about mental illness. Not so much for the condition of male-ness. If the demographic is the intersection of mentally ill and male, it's the illness dimension that's potentially treatable.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#83

Post by beloch »

Canada is the U.S.'s neighbour and is probably closer, culturally, than any other nation. Gun ownership is also high in Canada. In terms of guns per capita, the U.S. is #1 by a long shot, but Canada is #7 [1]. In Canada, guns owned per capita is one third of what it is in the U.S..

Canada also has mass shootings. The annual deaths from mass shootings per capita in Canada is 0.032, which is about one third that of the U.S. (0.089) [2].

As a Canadian, it's actually shocking to see that Canada's rate of mass shootings correspond well to the U.S.'s if you simply control for population and the number of guns owned by that population. I'd have expected us to be doing better. Where gun ownership laws vary wildly in different U.S. states, Canada's laws are under federal control and are, hence, consistent. Where some U.S. states have virtually no requirements of testing or training to own guns, Canada requires gun owners to have mental health checks and complete firearm safety training courses. Gun owners undergo regular background checks and will have their guns confiscated in short order if they ever commit a criminal offence. Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport.

With all of these additional precautions, Canada really should be doing better. The harsh reality may be that the number of guns per capita floating around really is an important factor.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g... [2]https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/mass-shoo...

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#84

Post by adgjlsfhk1 »

devmunchies wrote: post #31
lastitude wrote: post #12

Quoted post unavailable.

> actual problem as i mentioned in another comment, male violence is largely a product of no fathers or strong male figures present.

are children of lesbian parents incarcerated at a higher rate?

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#85

Post by jka »

dragontamer wrote: post #63
onesafari wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root cause may be bullying and ostracization combined with the media contagion effect. This is a repeating pattern. Bullying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/25/uvalde-texa... The gunman in Tuesday’s elementary school massacre was a lonely 18-year-old who was bullied over a childhood speech impediment, suffered from a fraught home life and lashed out violently against peers and strangers recently an…

Are there no Bullies in say, the United Kingdom? The big difference between UK and USA is the number of guns we have in our country compared to theirs. We probably can't stop bullying, but we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country.

Supporting dragontamer's claim regarding number of firearms:

According to a report[1] by Small Arms Survey in 2017, there were an estimated 120 civilian firmarms per 100 people in the USA:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

That's almost twice as many as the next-closest nation.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20180620231909/http://www.smalla...

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#86

Post by seiferteric »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #28
freediver wrote: post #2

I sincerely hope this does not descend into a flamewar. We can't have discussion about this in an intellectually stimulating way in congress, we can't have this discussion in the media, we obviously can't have this discussion on social media so HN is the last bastion of hope. It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity. The fact stands that USA has a school shooting problem [1] unlike any other country in…

Take social media activity into account during background checks. Increase the age to purchase to 21. 1 month waiting period. I'm a gun owner btw. I also wonder what interesting things would happen if in order to own a gun you must drill with a militia.

My personal view is that anyone can own a gun but should be required to take mandatory "militia" training courses twice a year (like 8 hours). This alone will probably limit the number of people wanting to go through the process. Another thought is that people could keep their guns in their locally ran armory that they could go and practice whenever they want and checkout guns for hunting purposes. Also no semi-auto for hunting (so no need to checkout a semi-auto from the armory), we already limit shotgun capacity to 3 for bird hunting so maybe this could happen.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#87

Post by bifrost »

krnlpnc wrote: post #79

What if guns were treated similarly to cars? Mandatory training, License w/ renewals, registration w/ renewals, insurance mandatory, yearly inspection mandatory, etc. Personally I feel people should be able to defend themselves while at the same time deterred from stockpiling and accessing mass casualty capable arms.

What you are suggesting is illegal.

Its illegal to license a right.

We shouldn't penalize the hundreds of millions of legal gun owners in the US because we're unable to catch psychopaths before they kill people.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#88

Post by mikewarot »

1. My ratio in this manner is awful... I need to do better How often do you:

a) discuss issues with someone from the other side of the political aisle in a calm and rational manner?

b) give in to the emotional urge to scream at those people?

2. Money is at the root of this, in so many ways

a) Lobbyists have captured the Federal Government, degrading our faith in Government, as they have stopped representing us, and allowed increasingly dangerous failures of society to occur. This degrades trust in society.

b) Advertising driven mass media, and social media, both maximize "engagement", which for the most part happens to be gut level emotional response.

c) The political parties use wedge issues and false choice to divide up the voters, and suppress actual reform, especially rational voices calling for reasonable compromises. They do this to remain in power, and keep getting that sweet sweet stream of money from their donors.

3) I think we have to start on a personal level to fix this.

None of the larger system issues can be fixed before we fix the base issue, broken trust. We need to call each other out when we notice our friends talking about "those people". We need to try to agree on reasonable compromises, instead of fear of slippery slopes forcing us to say insane things to defend our "position"

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#89

Post by librish »

It's time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. Yes, if everyone was responsible perhaps it would be OK for all of us to own firearms. But so many people are utterly irresponsible, and guns make that irresponsibility lethal.

People should safely store their fire-arms, but they don't and guns get stolen and sold illegally, or used by their teenage child.

People shouldn't point a gun at someone unless their life is in danger and they're prepared to take a life, but they do and people get shot by accident, or road rage turns deadly.

Not to mention the suicides. If you own a gun ideation can turn into action in less than 30 seconds and it can seem like a painless, easy way to go.

And when everyone is armed everyone wants to be armed. Cops pull their guns quickly out of fear of armed criminals. Regular people want to own a gun because they feel like everyone else does, and they're now less safe unless they also get one.

Growing up outside the US I never saw any guns. I don't know of anyone who had a gun. I don't know of anyone who knew anyone who had a gun. I remember seeing military members in parades carrying guns because it was one of the few times I'd actually seen one. Cops didn't walk around armed. There are other ways to kill people but guns are an especially effective, intuitive, and easy way to do so.

Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)

#90

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

smt88 wrote: post #5
freediver wrote: post #2

I sincerely hope this does not descend into a flamewar. We can't have discussion about this in an intellectually stimulating way in congress, we can't have this discussion in the media, we obviously can't have this discussion on social media so HN is the last bastion of hope. It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity. The fact stands that USA has a school shooting problem [1] unlike any other country in…

Only a very small number of Americans can't have this discussion. Most Americans (and people living elsewhere) can have it easily and think the solutions are obvious.

> "Only a very small number of Americans can't have this discussion."

It's unclear why people keep claiming this. According to https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own... , in 2020 while rural firearms ownership was ~48%, urban and suburban firearms ownership was 23% and 25% respectively in the US. That's a minority, to be sure, but it's not by any means a "very small" minority.

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