Step 1: repeal the Second Amendment.
There's never going to be useful progress here until America unsticks from the idea that the right to arm yourself belongs in the same category as the right to free speech or due process.
Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
701–710 of 1001 posts
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#702It'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…
> It's time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. I would take anti-gun people more seriously if they actually paid attention to what this entails. For one, anti-gun enthusiast would stop going on about "assault rifles", because only around 200 people a year in the US are killed by rifle homicides. It's totally negligible. Less frequent than blunt instrument homicides. Yet, that's…
Sometimes you have to eat an elephant one bite at a time. If guns weren't such a charged issue then more of us would advocate to directly outlaw private gun ownership. Guns add little value to people's lives and are likely to amplify poor decisions into death and serious injury.
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#703Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or just tax bullets and gunpowder so they cost $10k per shot.
ah so the ruling class with be armed, while the rest are not. sounds great
That’s already the reality. By definition the ruling class rules, this of course includes armed forces. All the privately owned weapons in the united states are a joke compared to the weaponry possessed by state.
If private weapons were a threat to the state, they would not be allowed.
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#704Earlier quoted context omitted.
Before fire arms being invented people took other's lives with knives, swords or clubs. Or poison. Or bare hands. What makes you think that not owning a gun will make people less murderous?
It's an issue of volume. It's hard for an 18 year old to kill 20 people with their bard hands, or even knives, without being subdued.
No, not really that hard. Guy killed 11 woman with a car only 4 years ago in Toronto.
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point of a gun is that it's a simple machine that works when you need it. Geofenced microcontroller safeties somewhat compete with this and would not be a popular idea.
I’ve seen plenty of sci-fi that leads me to believe that the future of this is some sort of finger print reader on the trigger that only allows the designated shooter to shoot.
The recent incidents involved "designated shooters."
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#706Earlier quoted context omitted.
> empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals The problem with a lot of anti-gun measures is that the proponents readily admit that they would not have stopped any particular shooter. For instance, people talk about background checks, but this shooter and many others did not have a history and were not known to police. They would have passes a background check. Often times the person acquiring the gun already broke a…
I was talking to my wife about this the other night and we came to the same conclusions as the points you made. What we posit at this point is: what didn’t exist in 1969? Social media. The internet. Legislation won’t change anything. Proponents of stricter gun control are being idealistic. Having kids in school right now, we are both quite concerned about the current state of affairs when it comes to school shootings…
That's not consistent with the reality of the rest of the world. Australia banned guns in 1996 and has had one mass shooting since, compared to 66 in the US in April of this year.
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#707Earlier quoted context omitted.
> empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals The problem with a lot of anti-gun measures is that the proponents readily admit that they would not have stopped any particular shooter. For instance, people talk about background checks, but this shooter and many others did not have a history and were not known to police. They would have passes a background check. Often times the person acquiring the gun already broke a…
I was talking to my wife about this the other night and we came to the same conclusions as the points you made. What we posit at this point is: what didn’t exist in 1969? Social media. The internet. Legislation won’t change anything. Proponents of stricter gun control are being idealistic. Having kids in school right now, we are both quite concerned about the current state of affairs when it comes to school shootings…
>> what didn’t exist in 1969?
Mass distribution/encouragement of antidepressants.
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#708Earlier quoted context omitted.
If at all, perhaps allow geo-fenced guns, which don't work in and around schools?
The point of a gun is that it's a simple machine that works when you need it. Geofenced microcontroller safeties somewhat compete with this and would not be a popular idea.
What if your adversaries have the same problem?
Also, we put our lives in the hands of tech all the time.
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#709As a non-American I found Heather Cox-Richardson's recent substack newsletter post [1] to be useful in understanding how the US has got to this point. She's a history professor at Boston College and she does a good job of describing how gun ownership and control came to be (intentionally) politicised, and how the NRA's role has changed over time. Honestly, I don't see how the US is ever going to dig itself out of thi…
Regardless of the gun issue, there’s a glaring issue that seems more obvious to me: mental health. The solution seems to be a much better mental health system and safety net. If we got rid of all the guns in the world, psychopaths would make pipe bombs, etc. Getting rid of guns would help, no doubt. It would add friction to the process of pulling off massacres. But the real, root problem seems to me that we have comp…
Gah! I can’t edit my comment, but evidently, this “mental health” thing is a Republican talking point. Let’s see if they put their money where their mouth is. (I doubt it.)
Re: Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015)
#710It'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…
Some points of interest: -60 percent or more US states have no gun registration, I know as I live in Indiana which changed to a no gun registration state despite objections from their own citizens and cops. -Among religious right guns are seen as a male status symbols -Can we cure this economically by requiring liability insurance in addition to gun registration? It work by, if you have a past history of danger signs…
Liability insurance just means rich people have guns. the people who would most benefit from guns for self defense, low income people in high crime areas, would be excluded from gun ownership due to excessive costs. The police also aren't the answer as they have no duty to actually protect you, and have shown repeatedly that they will simply wait for overwhelming force while a shooter is killing people.
Gun registrations just tell the government, or anyone who can access the registration where to get guns. Registrations don't stop anything and only serve to create more criminals from otherwise innocent people if they don't file paperwork on time. Also, in the U.S. any form of government list of people is heavily suspect regardless of guns, a vast majority of people simply don't want anything that can let the government easily track them. Social Security is barely tolerated for keeping massive amounts of seniors from starving to death, even then the creation of the SSN was hugely controversial.