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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)

#211

Post by jstream67 »

greatwhitenorth wrote: post #76

India has 4 times the population of US and I've never heard or read about a school shooting or a mass shooting. There is way worse poverty, mental illness, lawlessness, corruption at every level in India. The only difference is easy access to guns. Not sure why it's so difficult for gun worshippers in US to understand this.

"There is way worse poverty, mental illness, lawlessness, corruption at every level in India. The only difference is easy access to guns."

Sounds like we should keep the guns ??

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

#212

Post by anothernewdude »

yucky wrote: post #175
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…

I suspect identity politics are too blame, since the rise of that correlates to the increase in shootings. A big part of identity politics is to demonize "the other" and if we're being honest, to shift the blame for all of societal ills onto males. Younger males may not be able to shrug those pressures of as easily as others. I think this also helps explain why girls never shoot up schools, despite having the same ac…

You've got an axe, and you love to grind it. Shootings predate Identity politics.

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

#214

Post by loonster »

xvector wrote: post #183
maxerickson wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can an 18 year old Serbian walk into a store and buy whatever guns they want? Can they buy a large amount of ammunition? You hand wave away ease of access, but it probably matters. It certainly matters at the margin.

The problem is so obviously guns. It boggles my mind that people can ask questions like "what is the solution" and "we need a nuanced discussion" when the US is the only country in the world where schoolchildren get gunned down every other week. It is plainly obvious to any US citizen that has spent a significant amount of time outside the US, that the problem is guns.

The problem is cowardice of those with guns to stop the threat. Instead of risking their lives to save those without protection, they hid and waited for backup. Cowards.

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

#215

Post by Acrobatic_Road »

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 if guns were treated similarly to cars?

Then we'd have to get rid of a LOT of gun control laws. You sure you want that?

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

#216

Post by colechristensen »

mikewarot wrote: post #88

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…

If you want to start on a personal level to fix this, yelling about politics is not the solution.

Be kind to people, especially people who don’t seem to fit in and are alienated by the world. Teach your children to be kind to people and encourage others to be too. A common thread in so many of these events seems to be someone breaking in an unkind world and lashing out violently.

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

#217

Post by robofanatic »

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.

you have full right to live your life dangerously but you have no right to put others lives in danger.

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

#218

Post by dendriti »

sneak wrote: post #141
soneil wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself the middle. My mother is right-leaning American and my father is left-leaning European. Long story, to say the least. I maintain the US has a bruce willis problem. An ethos that a good guy with a gun is the solution to all problems. It may even be, the issue is when someone thinks they're the good guy with a gun, and they're not. They think they're bruce willis, and they're not. They think they're r…

> I maintain the US has a bruce willis problem. An ethos that a good guy with a gun is the solution to all problems. I think this is a commonly held belief, and that it is also false. Why does Japan have a swat team? Why is the US sending antitank weapons to Ukraine?

A US Senator from Texas literally said yesterday that we should station "good guys with guns" (armed security guards) to prevent school shootings.

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

#219

Post by softcactus »

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.

This is part of why a sensible discussion cannot be had. "Shall not be infringed" has become axiomatic to many gun owners.

Disclaimer: I am a gun owner. I like guns very much.

Here's the 2A in full:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I am not a historian but I believe that this quote from James Madison in The Federalist Papers helps give some context to the second amendment:

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

The idea is that a federalist country needs a power equalizer between states who wish to self-govern, and a federal government that seeks to grow its power. The gun ownership is tied to the idea of a well-regulated state militia, which we have now called the National Guard-- which is a reserve force of the US Military because in the Civil War we basically decided that a federal system was kind of stupid.

All of this to say, the second amendment is not scripture from the hand of God. It is a law written with historical context from a different time, by men whose beliefs would disgust most people alive today. It's not Orwellian to discuss licenses or background checks, it's our modern society outgrowing laws from a bygone era.

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

#220

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

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…

I see many comments already default to "guns are the problem". I was hoping for a more nuanced discussion.

As a non US resident you can't help but think that is a massive part of the problem.

Many other countries have problems with bullying, mental health, radicalisation. We've also had mass shootings. But our tolerance is so much lower for that kind of BS. One shooting and it's over. The populace will support further gun control and stricter measures. This seems sensible to me since curing the underlying causes takes time. So why would you give firearms to people that aren't in the right state of mind to use them responsibly?

I think the real question is, why is the tolerance of Americans as a population, so high with regards to mass shootings? Are the lobby groups really that powerful they are changing the minds of regular people?

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