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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)

#771
post #585

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. So, ah, what are the Police for? Also, hundreds of millions of people in developed countries without guns around the globe live "at the mercy of criminals" but experience less crime, less violence, less homicides and less gun deaths than people living in America. Your statement makes no sense.

Well, I have first hand experience being at the mercy of criminals. Do you think the police is always available when crime happens? How many cops would any country, let alone a city, need to provide safety for every citizen?

Your statement makes no sense.

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

#772
post #675
post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not pointing the muzzle of a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy is basic gun safety. Are you required to know basic gun safety in order to obtain one?

No, for the same reason you don't need to have basic civility/racial sensitivity training to exercise free speech.

Maybe that’s a problem? Sure, it’d be easy for the conversation to devolve into ‘you can say what the government trains you to say’, but everyone knows you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a theatre.

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

#773

What are guns bringing to the table that makes them so precious? At the very least they don't seem to be capable of feeding people nor preventing attempted insurrections nor preventing innocent people being killed by the authorities. In the situations they are used for self-preservation they are only done so because the adversary has/may themselves have a gun. It defies logic; unless I'm missing something crucial is…

> they don't seem to be capable of feeding people There's many people in this country that use guns to hunt and feed their family every year. Ranchers also use guns to protect livestock from coyote and such.

There are in the UK too, but much much less with time now since mass production of food is vastly more efficient and accessible. And to that point I grew up extremely poor in the 80s (thanks inflation!) and hunting with guns was crucial if we wanted to get by. I would say 90%+ of my meat came from us shooting or trapping it when we couldn't afford the bullets. Additionally we used guns to protect livestock from foxes etc. BUT... we all had gun licenses and extensive security and background checks. And we were in the extreme minority.

My point being; surely the vast majority of Americans consume what they do via an industrial food system... Having more guns than people makes zero sense unless every citizen is using AR15s in their back yards to hunt rabbits for dinner.

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

#774

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.

There is a saying that god may have made man, but Samuel Colt made them equal. The right to use lethal force in defense of self is pretty widely accepted, but we should acknowledge that some of us have dramatic advantages in that regard. Being taller, having been in more fights, having a physically active job, being male... Firearms, more than literally any other weapon, level that disadvantage. So to acknowledge the right but deny it an equitable means seems unfair to me.

And on a less philosophical note, there will be no changes to the constitution until we have a complete party failure on one side or the other. The current polarization does not seem correctable as it self perpetuates. And in this climate even public agreement on normal legislation that both parties privately agree on is rare, because that is seen as conspiring with the enemy.

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

#775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure I agree that that's what the Civil War decided, since it ended with the federal government asserting its power. I am not a constitutional law expert, but the way the second amendment has been interpreted has become its meaning. At this point, I think what would have to happen is the 2nd amendment would need to be replaced with another amendment that better describes the limits on individuals rights to bear a…

When I say federal system I mean a system of having semi-autonomous governing regions (states). A centralized government is not a federal system, but the naming conventions make it confusing.

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

#776
post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most other countries have social media. Few other countries have a mass shooting problems. Restricting access to guns absolutely will lower school shootings. A disturbed 18 year old isn't going to have black market gang connections to get a gun.

I fully believe it will help minimize most school shootings, but I don’t think it would deter the more meticulous disturbed shooters like Columbine or perhaps even this most recent Texas shooter. If you are planning it out in detail, figuring out how to print a gun or buy one on the black market probably isn’t much of a deterrent.

I would “only” expect gun control regulation to deter impulsive killings (including a lot of suicide). But it won’t deter criminals who are savvy to the black market, and it’s plausible that they might be more emboldened to victimize more people from the “civilian” population (as opposed to police or rival criminals) if they have more assurance that they’re unarmed. That effect is probably exacerbated in an era of de-policing (if criminals can rely on a hamstrung police force and a disarmed civilian population, they’re probably going to be even bolder).

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

#777
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would you say about the same argument for mandatory veganism or outright banning cars? The evidence is pretty clear there as well.

Is it? What empirical evidence do we have that mandatory veganism or outright banning of cars would be a net positive, let alone feasible? To me those two ideas sound like perfect examples of the non-empirical lofty ideals that the previous comment was rejecting in the very first sentence.

Not empirical because there's no money to fund such studies, but: Mandatory veganism would almost certainly significantly reduce the healthcare (and food) costs for a society by a large fraction. Banning cars would make the air cleaner, remove a bunch of health problems, and facilitate more social forms of travel which would help form a more cohesive society and probably would reduce a lot of problems which arise from modern urban isolation.

I'd personally like to live in a society where people were mostly vegan, there were no cars, and there were no firearms.

Whether or not we should force that is another question, but it sure sounds nice.

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

#778
post #4

For context: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently attributed all gun crime to mental illness, saying at a press conference that "anybody who shoots somebody else has a mental health problem, period."

He's not wrong.

So the entire US military, who's training is heavily geared toward shooting people and many of who's members have done exactly that, are all mentally ill?

Don't get me wrong, I think there is a case to be made that they might be, but good luck being a conservative politician who says all veterans are mentally ill.

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

#779
post #89

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…

Fwiw, pointing a gun at somebody is considered brandishing a firearm and is illegal. At least that's what I was told by an instructor years ago.

I think I read on HN (!) that it is also assault.

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

#780

One side of the issue is gun availability. The other side is that the American culture has a toxic side which can drive lonely young men to perform despicable acts. Imagine being a lonely young boy, growing up getting bullied all the time, being told you amount to nothing, and it's your fault, and at the same time, while everyone around you is deep into corruption and sin, they preach to you that you should be sinles…

Most mass shooters come from single parent households or dysfunctional family homes. U.S families vary and many don't live near other family members where they can get help and American communities are not like other cultures or countries where they are involved in raising children.

So if a child's immediate family has issues, there isn't an alternative for that child to to go to to help or for a positive role model. And there are very few public positive role models.

The U.S. has the highest number of single parent households of any country. It also has some of the higher number of mental illnesses and lower numbers of mental health workers.

U.S. works longer hours, have less vacation and holidays, so children are left to their own devices more. Our food supply is laden with chemicals that are not allowed in other countries thanks to lobbying and the FDA. (I'd be interested to see how that impacts mental and physical health).

Our public schools are full of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The latter being higher than Catholic churches and not very well reported on by any media.

Couple that with media addiction (old,new, and social) and the phenomenon of media "contagion" where you get mass shootings in clusters due to media coverage and you have a recipe for disaster.

Given the failure of the war on drugs, prohibition and the context above, not sure how gun control or confiscation would work when Americans tend to work around those kind of things. Even without guns, we now have drones so its only a matter of time before someone uses those.

However, all that generally gets talked about is either gun control or more guns e.g. arming teachers rather than the underlying causes. Kids used to bring guns to schools without incidents for decades until the 90s when you started to have many latch key kids coming of age from homes where parents were never around.

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