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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)

#821

Post by SamuelAdams »

bluGill wrote: post #747
paulryanrogers wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Guns add little value to people's lives Spoken like someone who lives in a city where you can't use a gun. There is a reason why guns laws are unpopular in rural areas: guns are very useful in rural areas. There is no way to safely shoot a gun in a urban area (except a few gun ranges), so any possible use is dwarfed by the danger.

> guns are very useful in rural areas.

For a more concrete example. My father in law lives in Michigan. His house is seated next to 40 acres of forest. There are often coyotes and other wild animals that will approach his house when they're hungry. If you're unaware, coyotes will hunt, stalk, and kill cats, dogs, and small children.

To protect my children (3-5 years old) and his dogs, he shoots them.

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

#822

Post by pnutjam »

dgfitz wrote: post #677
bko wrote: 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…

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 if it just stops one in ten. What if only 20 kids are saved and 100 families are not changed forever.

Pro-tip: you're wrong, it would take time, but it would help. I think handguns should be highly regulated, along with magazines over 10 rounds. If you are licensed to own them, you need to have them in a secure location with some way to ascertain they have been tampered with and you are responsible if they are mis-used.

There is plenty of low hanging fruit, but we go after stuff like silencers or "assault style" weapons instead of good common sense rules like limiting ammunition that can be purchased without being consumed at a range.

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

#823

Post by tablespoon »

dgfitz wrote: post #677
bko wrote: 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…

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…

> 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.

Also cable TV news. The need to drive viewers to consume a surfeit of airtime probably lead to a lot of socially damaging choices. I'd say it's a qualitatively different thing than the nightly news.

Another important question is what things did exist in 1969 that don't exist now (or are far, far weaker).

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

#824

Post by bjt2n3904 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #744
NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #701

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…

The "well regulated militia" of the 2A is a prefatory clause. "... The right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". The right belongs to the people. Any attempt to limit this civil right to a militia is an argument from ignorance.

This is VERY well established, both in law, in judicial review, and in debate. It's an argument that has died, like "violent video games". And yet, people earnestly continue to make it...

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

#825

Post by throwaway894345 »

dogleash wrote: post #786
throwaway894345 wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Being laughably wrong doesn’t stop people from proffering their opinion these days, in my experience. :)

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

#826

Post by chmod600 »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #640
chmod600 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Where many U.S. states permit concealed carry of handguns, handguns are virtually illegal to carry in Canada. Transporting them from your home to the range is legal, but they must be unloaded, locked, and permits are required for the transport." I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. The other policies you mention may be more relevant, but it goes…

I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. If the guns are illegal, they aren't as easy to get. They aren't in everyone's home. If you break in somewhere to steal a gun, you'll not get a handgun. You know, because most folks aren't willing to hold onto an illegal gun. You aren't going to go to a gun show and buy an illegal gun because those folks don't…

"If the guns are illegal..."

That was not in the list of policies I quoted. The policies mentioned had to do with concealed carry and transport.

Your reply is based on a misread.

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

#827

Post by Spooky23 »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #694
Spooky23 wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The school shooting club thing is an example of how regulation works. Just as you don’t see soldiers on military bases walking around with guns on their hips for fun, there were strict rules around high school shooting ranges - kids didn’t take guns home and had strict protocols around handling, etc. The big difference now is you have a fetishization of guns combined with a low intensity insurgency. If you ask a more…

The school shooting club thing is also an example of how education works.

Not in a way relevant to this. We aren’t stopping spear violence by having javelin as a track event.

Guns are just tools. I have a few shotguns and rifles for skeet and hunting. No different than golf clubs.

What is different is the context. Check out an “American Rifleman” magazine from 1969 and compare to today.

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

#828

Post by second--shift »

My hot take on the issue: Don't regulate the guns per-se; regulate the bullets. An adult (only adults should be shopping for ammunition?) must take end-to-end responsibility and ownership of each bullet the purchase, and subsequently fire. You own the bullet from the time you take it home to the store to the time it comes to rest after firing out of a gun.

The guns, other than as a mechanism for firing bullets, are not particularly harmful; certainly not more harmful than a baseball bat or a car. It's really the bullets coming out of the gun(s) we as a society are worried about.

If your bullet (out of your gun, or any other even) harms property, you as the bullet/gun owner have financial responsibility of that damage. Your bullet harms a person, intentionally or not, you are responsible. Doesn't matter if your kid took it to school, or someone stole your gun & bullets; you are responsible. Many these firearm "accidents" and negligent discharges, kids getting into the guns, etc would go away if the customer at the gun store was made very aware of exactly what liability they were taking on, complete with stories and anecdotes about how irresponsible gun owners have been (financially, or otherwise) ruined by their carelessness.

If we held gun owners to the responsibility they are supposedly taking on simplicity when choosing to own a firearm, this conversation would be much easier. Why are we not crucifying the parent(s) of this most recent shooter, who were the owner(s) of the gun and bullets used in the school in Texas?

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

#829

Post by CSSer »

tablespoon wrote: post #766
pc86 wrote: 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.

Am I the only one sensing sarcasm in this?

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

#830

Post by injb »

cout wrote: post #756
dgfitz wrote: 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…

Social media as we know it today didn't exist in 1999 when the Columbine high school shooting happened. That's the first mass school shooting in my memory, though Wikipedia lists several before that, as far back as the late 80s.

The first of that kind of shooting that I know of was in the 60s in the University of Texas. Before that there was a school massacre in the 20s but they used a bomb.
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