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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)

#101

Post by trs8080 »

akomtu wrote: post #77
bitwize wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia has had three mass shootings since 1996. The USA has had 52 mass shootings in April of 2021 alone. If it's such a "complicated issue", why did the frequency of mass shootings in Australia drop to negligible levels after they took the simple step of enacting a comprehensive gun ban? Ban. The. Guns. It's that simple.

If we give up a right every time someone commits a crime using this right, soon we'll be left without rights. The next obvious target is speech: it's often used to incite violence at scale, and strict speech control would prevent that. But I'd rather live in a free country and accept the risks.

Sacrificing other people's children at the altar of "freedom" isn't "accepting the risks." What risk have you taken?

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

#102

Post by yedava »

bifrost wrote: post #87
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.

I think it is possible to entertain the notion that these laws are not some inviolable physical property of the Universe, but something we made up and so are also something we can undo.

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

#103

Post by buscoquadnary »

bogwog wrote: post #91
whatever1 wrote: post #6

We need gory pictures from the executed kids everywhere. Until we understand the magnitude of the horror. I look at my FB and see proud gun owners cracking jokes and I really cannot comprehend how it is possible.

The way I see it is this: if you're against gun control, you're either A) Devoid of empathy B) A lunatic Because if one of your kids/loved ones is killed in a mass shooting like this, and you're still against gun control, then you're a lunatic. If not, then you're just an asshole with zero sympathy for the families that have lost loved ones. I don't know about you, but regardless of the politics, I would not want any…

See that's part of why we can't have a discussion on the issue as long as one side keeps believing that the other side is a members of the globohomo communist conspiracy and the other side views everyone else as morally impaired nut cases we won't get anywhere.

We'll keep having nothing happen and keeping getting madder and madder.

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

#104

Post by johnmarcus »

settrans wrote: post #24

Let's see what happens when you apply critical analysis and derive conclusions from data instead of rhetoric: Real Talk about School Shootings – where show how school shooting numbers are a terrible thing around which to craft policy. https://hwfo.substack.com/p/real-talk-about-school-shootings > The Gun Solution - where we fix the entire gun problem. https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-gun-solution >

> They’re (school shootings) not even a blip on the radar screen in the overall “gun deaths” problem.

LOL. Um, IDK, some people might disagree. Some people - like those innocent childrens' parents - might think it's like 99% of the problem.

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

#105

Post by buscoquadnary »

yedava wrote: post #102
bifrost wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it is possible to entertain the notion that these laws are not some inviolable physical property of the Universe, but something we made up and so are also something we can undo.

In this case in the US it requires a constitutional amendment.

Although in all honesty even if an amendment did occur the faith and trust in the government at this point is so low it would probably just encourage rather than convince gun owners.

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

#106

Post by dragonwriter »

settrans wrote: post #24

Let's see what happens when you apply critical analysis and derive conclusions from data instead of rhetoric: Real Talk about School Shootings – where show how school shooting numbers are a terrible thing around which to craft policy. https://hwfo.substack.com/p/real-talk-about-school-shootings > The Gun Solution - where we fix the entire gun problem. https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-gun-solution >

A solution narrowly focussed on school shootings (changes to how schools are constructed, changing policing in schools, etc.) is bad for that reason.

OTOH, school shootings as a vivid call for action on policy that address the drivers of firearms injuries (generally or among children specifically) — currently the leading cause of death in children in the US — do not become less valid because school shootings are themselves a small slice of that problem.

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

#107

Post by Zak »

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.

> we actually can do something about the number of guns in our country

Can we? AnimalMuppet already mentioned the legal barriers, but there's another issue: the US is currently suffering from extreme political polarization which has already led to an insurrection. How do you think that would interact with an attempt at mass confiscation[0] of guns?

I fear such a policy any time in the near future would spark a civil war, leading to many times more deaths than all the school shootings added together.

[0] I read your post as implying mass confiscation. Simply restricting the purchase of new guns would take many decades to significantly reduce the number of guns in circulation.

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

#108

Post by settrans »

johnmarcus wrote: post #104
settrans wrote: post #24

Let's see what happens when you apply critical analysis and derive conclusions from data instead of rhetoric: Real Talk about School Shootings – where show how school shooting numbers are a terrible thing around which to craft policy. https://hwfo.substack.com/p/real-talk-about-school-shootings > The Gun Solution - where we fix the entire gun problem. https://hwfo.substack.com/p/the-gun-solution >

> They’re (school shootings) not even a blip on the radar screen in the overall “gun deaths” problem. LOL. Um, IDK, some people might disagree. Some people - like those innocent childrens' parents - might think it's like 99% of the problem.

Surely then, we ought to ban pools, wall off access to the beaches and lakes, and generally prohibit human contact with water, as drowning is 100x more likely to kill than school shootings. And any parents of innocent children who have drowned are no doubt incensed by the outcome!

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

#109

Post by [deleted] »

rajin444 wrote: post #64
KerrAvon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity It really is not. There are too many guns available, too easily obtained, to too many citizens who have not been properly indoctrinated with a sense of civic responsibility, let alone trained in the proper ways to handle a gun. The answer isn't to throw more guns at the problem or to blame inadequate mental health facilities. It is to reduce gun availability. A…

> too easily obtained, to too many citizens who have not been properly indoctrinated with a sense of civic responsibility Banning guns is not the answer. Instilling that civic responsibility is - the benefits are astronomical.

[deleted]

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

#110

Post by freediver »

rco8786 wrote: post #52
KerrAvon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity It really is not. There are too many guns available, too easily obtained, to too many citizens who have not been properly indoctrinated with a sense of civic responsibility, let alone trained in the proper ways to handle a gun. The answer isn't to throw more guns at the problem or to blame inadequate mental health facilities. It is to reduce gun availability. A…

Basically this. No other country comes remotely close to the US on availability and ubiquity of guns.

How does this explain the urge to kill innocent children? And where does it come from? It explains the means but not the motive.

Uvalde shooter locked himself in a classroom than proceeded to kill 18 ten-year olds and their two teachers. Why?

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