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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)

#781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 advocating for it but _eventual_ transition to veganism would definitely be a net positive (lower carbon emissions, land and water use, horrors of factory farming, mental health of the factory workers, exploitation of immigrant labor, etc.). Most of the arguments I've seen from the Veganism movement seem to have sufficient scientific backing.

Yes, that is surely the case. Likewise, a great reduction in the need for cars and their usage would also be a net positive for society and the environment. However, what I was challenging was the assertion that mandatory veganism or banning cars were comparable to effective gun regulation as policies based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals.

Veganism to reduce carbon emissions and animal suffering, a car-less society to improve communities and public health, and the right to bear arms for the security of a free state are all lofty ideals. However, we have no examples or reasons to believe that enforcing the first two by decree is even feasible, nor can we imagine the unpredictable side effects. On the other hand, there are many examples of states where gun ownership is heavily regulated, restricted, or virtually banned which however remain secure and free and with no obvious downside.

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

#782
post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enforced by whom? What is the punishment if you break it? This is just not realistic suggestion.

> Enforced by whom? What is the punishment if you break it? The government. We need a comprehensive set of media safety laws that prevent publication of these dangerous reports so they won't fall into the wrong hands.

In the United States, I highly doubt this would hold up in court. Forcing media to not publish about mass casualty events is antithetical to the First Amendment protection of free speech and press

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

#783

Question for the pro-gun folks: where is the limit on what a civilian needs to defend themselves? Assuming you agree civilians shouldn’t have nukes. How about fighter jets. What about tanks. What about bazookas. How do you make that call. If, for example, greater than 5 round magazines isn’t the limit, where is the limit and why?

At the time of the founders, common citizens could legally own cannons. Framers intended for individuals to be able to own weapons as powerful as what was available to the military at the time. I'd say framers wanted us to be able to legally buy tanks (with the gun still operational!).

By that logic then - nukes should be available to the public as well?

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

#784

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.

Enforce the Second Amendment. It starts with "A well regulated militia..." A well regulated militia has absolutely no relationship to selling assault weapons to teenagers and/or fantasists. There is no constitutional "right to bear arms" outside of that context. And while that's being clarified, it would be also be good to investigate the NRA's Russian money problem. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/27/nr…

There's no such thing as a "collective right". Every other right guaranteed in the Constitution applies to an individual.

Also, "assault weapon" is a term that means whatever the gun grabbers want it to mean today.

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

#785

Question for the pro-gun folks: where is the limit on what a civilian needs to defend themselves? Assuming you agree civilians shouldn’t have nukes. How about fighter jets. What about tanks. What about bazookas. How do you make that call. If, for example, greater than 5 round magazines isn’t the limit, where is the limit and why?

When people bring up this I don't think they realize that there are already very few limits on what you can own in the US... if you have the money. There's nothing inherently illegal about owning fighters or tanks, for example [0] [1]. If you browse through [2] you'll find plenty of examples of fully functional civilian owned large caliber cannon and artillery. So if you want your jet or tank to be fully functional that's totally doable. Cannons larger than .50 caliber and any kind of explosive (exploding rounds, bombs, missiles) are perfectly legal, but they're classified as destructive devices that require ATF approval and $200 tax to purchase (that's $200 per bomb or projectile). Of course if you're in a position like Mr. Private Air Force in the first link, you can get to buy these things pretty freely without the tax or oversight.

As for needing more than 5 rounds for self defense, well, it's a bit tongue in cheek but I go along with this logic: https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/comments/am4epf/en...

0: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32869/this-man-owns-th...

1: https://www.hotcars.com/here-are-the-worlds-largest-private-...

2: https://www.forgottenweapons.com/category/artillery/

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

#786
post #662

Earlier 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…

> So the conversation from anti-gun people basically amounts to less guns everywhere, but that genie might be out of the bottle already. There are already hundreds of millions of guns in the US and it would be impractical to seize even a tiny percent of them. And even if we could wrangle the hundreds of millions in circulation, 3D printing democratizes gun manufacture and seems prohibitively hard to regulate. > Wyomi…

> I would be really interested to hear potential explanations debated.

You'll never hear it though. It goes into differences in regional culture and socialization. Anyone that isn't laughably wrong on the topic knows damn well to keep their mouth shut.

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

#787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

Yes, as I pointed out in an answer to a sibling comment, the effects of global veganism and car-lessness could indeed be positive—that's why they are lofty ideals. My answer was challenging the suggestion that “the same argument” from the original commenter could be used to argue for mandatory veganism or the banning of cars. In other words, the forced bit.

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

#788
post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's difficult to take that article with more than a grain of salt when there's clear political bias and a lack of proper sourcing from the start. Of course political bias is inevitable, but to claim that our gun laws are the result of a takeover by "a minority of radical extermists" is ridiculous. Then when referencing hard numbers and talking about the influence the NRA may have had, she doesn't back that up with a…

Indeed. Prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act, you could order pretty much any gun through the mail. The political violence and radicalism of the 60’s drove the legislation. Only automatic weapons were controlled before that. So seems silly to claim “radicals took over the NRA” when any type of gun control is a very recent phenomenon. Hell, even during the 80’s most of the US had incredibly lax gun control laws compared…

I don't understand why "any type of gun control is a very recent phenomenon" means that a claim that "radicals took over the NRA" is "silly". Whats the reasoning?

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

#789
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…

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.

I never found this argument convincing. There are many differences between Australia and the US. It's like saying "American does X and is wealthy and relatively not corrupt, Mexico should just do X". This is the whole "bring democracy to the Middle East" argument repackaged.

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

#790
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.

> Restricting access to guns

Again, this goes to my original point. What does this mean? You can't just hand-wave policy.

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