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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)

#411

Post by guelo »

jstream67 wrote: post #324
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.

Nobody was talking about reducing access to cars after that guy ran over a ton of old folks in Kenosha a couple months back. In fact no one is talking about it at all as he does not fit the correct political narrative

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

#412

Post by simon1ltd »

School-Cotton wrote: post #322
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.

> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s…

I don't want gun violence, but I 100% want the 1986 National Firearm Act repealed.

I believe fully automatic assault weapons and machine guns should be available for purchase, new, just like any other weapon. (Fully automatic weapons are legal to buy and own right now in the US, if you pay a $200 stamp tax and wait 9 months for the ATF to process the paperwork, but you can only buy "NFA" regulated machine guns that were registered in 1986 or before ... which means they're all collectors items now, and the cheapest machine guns are $15-20k and up).

Most people I know would like to see the existing laws enforced, and don't want anything new passed or put in place.

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

#413

Post by shepherdjerred »

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.

> What you are suggesting is illegal.

Unless the law is changed, which is what many are trying to do.

The constitution and bill of rights weren't handed down by God himself to the founding fathers. There's always room for improvement, e.g. allowing women to vote, or outlawing slavery.

I'm not saying that this is or isn't the right move -- merely that "it's in the constitution" isn't a very good argument any more than "this is the way it's always been done".

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

#414

Post by remarkEon »

paulcole wrote: post #390
School-Cotton wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. In practice, how do you plan on achieving this? What steps can we take to “rewrite the constitution” (other than an actual revolution overthrowing the current political system, which… would require guns and even then would probably be impossible)

There are literally very clear steps to amend the Constitution. It’s not like Steve grabs a pitchfork and YOLOs his way to no second amendment. > An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/our-governm... It’s not as rare as you might be imagining. Th…

You're not really following this through to it's logical conclusion.

If you want to get rid of the 2nd Amendment, yes there is a process for this. So let's fast forward and imagine that, somehow, you've gotten enough people and States on board with changing the Bill of Rights, and to keep it simple the 28th Amendment simply says "the 2nd Amendment is hereby REPEALED".

But then what? Pass laws that do, what, exactly? Confiscation?

>It’s not like Steve grabs a pitchfork and YOLOs his way to no second amendment.

Well ... the original founders of this country did, in fact, YOLO their way to a new one. They did it with guns though, not pitchforks.

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

#415

Post by LoveGracePeace »

Aeolun wrote: post #389
School-Cotton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s…

If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. If people haven’t gotten motivated enough after literally decades of this shit, I find it really hard to blame the law.

No post body was provided.

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

#416

Post by MisterBastahrd »

School-Cotton wrote: post #322
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.

> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s…

We only have more anti-gun-violence activists because we have more gun violence. I forget where we are on the murders per capita scene, but I think we rank somewhere around Uruguay and Cameroon.

Great company while pretending to be "the leader of the free world."

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

#417

Post by gitastrophie »

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…

Maybe a hot take, but as others have identified, these violent outbreaks are at least in part due to social isolation, which may have something to do with lifestyle, city layout, and ease of access to public parks/things to do. Cities in the US have been set up to support cars, creating widely spread out and large landscapes, inconvenient for those who don't drive. Finding niche groups to fit in with on the internet has become easier, but irl in the US, much harder. This is independent of age group, but obviously impacts kids in a huge way. IMO, we need more places for people in communities to get together and just talk about things, engage in continued education, and have fun. Would be interesting to see if there's a correlation between after school programs, or proximity of public spaces and violence.

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

#418

Post by MisterBastahrd »

monkeybutton wrote: post #228
mulmen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American I hope when your country suffers a tragedy people don't go out of their way to tell you it doesn't matter to them.

As a non-American this statement is hilarious.

Thoughts and prayers, man. Thoughts and prayers.

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

#419

Post by randomtwiddler »

Aeolun wrote: post #395
elforce002 wrote: post #135

As a foreigner I find this subject very complex since the right to bear arms in on the US constitution. To change or "rewrite" the constitution trying to deal with this subject could dissolve the US. Banning guns altogether (rather improbable) will only leave law abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals. More protection in schools could be a starting point to address these awful events. I'm still in favor of law ab…

> Banning guns altogether (rather improbable) will only leave law abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals. How do you imagine this works? I’ve been ‘at the mercy of criminals’ my entire life, but I’ve never had to fear getting randomly gunned down in my school, or on the street, or in a bar brawl. I do not see how a sensible person would ever choose the alternative.

Your fear, or lack there of, may or may not reflect reality. It's not really a good basis for an argument.

The right to bear arms is based on the idea that a person has the right to defend themselves, their life, loved ones and property.

This basis is plenty sensible. Plenty of history is filled with violent criminals, governments, invaders, marauders, rioters, pirates. And it is sensible to suppose that, even if not present now, the future will have them too.

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

#420

Post by guerrilla »

_carbyau_ wrote: post #400
calvinmorrison wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the solution really is obvious. Well, from a programmers perspective - it's all about what you are optimizing for. We can end all car related deaths as well by outlawing all automotive vehicles. We can eliminate or curb most sexual diseases by regimenting who one can have sex with. We can end homelessness, by quartering local vagrants in the homes of the citizenry. Solutions are easy. Side effects are less so. If w…

What are uncoordinated individuals with handguns or even rifles going to do vs modern combined arms of the most powerful military in the world?

Ohhhhh you must mean that military defeated by the Taliban using AK-47s, RPGs and tacticals, right? The same one defeated by the Viet Cong? Your argument is trash.

How's Saudi Arabia doing against those shoeless Houthis (i.e. 8 years later)?

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