Mental illness, mass shootings, and the politics of American firearms (2015) • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by mahastore » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #257

a_square_peg wrote: post #221

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think this is a part of a larger trend of a declining empire - its inability to solve problems that have already become non-issues in other societies. From big issues like healthcare to small stuff like getting rid of pennies, I'm amazed at how the US is beholden to special interest groups under the guise of democracy and freedom, as well as its exceptionalism. One can see this in dysf…

I honestly don't see this as a symptom of that. Economic and tax base problems, where our best knowledge can point to us doing the "wrong" thing, or at least not doing the "right" thing, sure. Those objective things that we mess up are indicative of systemic issues. Some people just aren't scared of guns, or of a world where everyone has one, regardless of the real risk such a world would entail. Differences within t…

You can burn a lot of words for sure. This culture also exists in other places and owning an automatic military grade gun in the society is perfectly acceptable. Want to know the name of this place? It is Afghanistan , Sudan and a host of places like that. They may be highly cultural but not exactly civilized society as per our norms and not something we ever aspire to be. We want to reach for the mars ? First let us learn to not empower people to kill each other.

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

#272

Post by pdonis » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #191

artificialLimbs wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well no one has said it yet and I don’t have a precious study to trot out, but: My >80 year old friend has suggested to me that this kind of problem didn’t exist before we started handing out pharmaceutical drugs of the variety that ‘handle’ mental illness. Sidebar semi-related story time: my wife got her Masters in childhood education and went directly to work for a public high school after. She was a.. I forget, co…

Mental illness, mental healthcare and pharmaceutical treatments are a thing in Europe too. The US is not a special outlier when it comes to bullying and mental health. But you don't see children being gunned down every other week in Europe. The problem is guns.

> The problem is guns.

No, the problem is guns in the possession of people who can't use them responsibly. Guns aren't magic. They don't take over a person's mind and make them shoot other people. The people who misuse guns would misuse any other weapon you gave them. Or even things that you might not think of as weapons.

But the vast majority of gun owners are not such people; they are responsible law-abiding citizens. So any policy about guns, at least in the US where we have the Second Amendment as part of our Constitution, has to be based on letting responsible, law-abiding citizens have guns. Otherwise you are punishing responsible, law-abiding citizens for the misdeeds of a very small number of people who are not responsible or law-abiding. That's not a good idea.

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

#273

Post by philistine » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:19 AM UTC

a_square_peg wrote: post #221

Maybe slightly off-topic, but I think this is a part of a larger trend of a declining empire - its inability to solve problems that have already become non-issues in other societies. From big issues like healthcare to small stuff like getting rid of pennies, I'm amazed at how the US is beholden to special interest groups under the guise of democracy and freedom, as well as its exceptionalism. One can see this in dysf…

When I first visited the US, I was in a burger shop and complaining to my wife to the tune of: "Urgh, her come the pennies again. I'm so happy to be rid of them." The cashier was incredulous that Canada had gotten rid of pennies.

That something so mundane and annoying, pennies, is impossible to solve for the the US is eerily similar to Caligula playing music while his city burned.

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

#274

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #220

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…

I see many comments already default to "guns are the problem". I was hoping for a more nuanced discussion. As a non US resident you can't help but think that is a massive part of the problem. Many other countries have problems with bullying, mental health, radicalisation. We've also had mass shootings. But our tolerance is so much lower for that kind of BS. One shooting and it's over. The populace will support furthe…

[deleted]

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

#275

Post by donsupreme » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

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…

I have always maintained that children growing in this generation with social network and influencers is way harder than any generation before. For instance, growing up I knew that we weren't rich but never fully aware how much poorer I was than my classmates. Simply I have no access to the information of my classmate life after school is over. Sure I had TV and all that but almost everyone I knew growing up are more or less like me, from what I can see. Nowaday even for grownups, you have a hard time constantly comparing yourself to others with what you see on FB or IG, your "peers" who are better or whatnot. Can't imagine for kids without the maturity and fully developed brain can process that. All that is to say, the feeling of insecurity and being "not enough" is so much more amplified for kids than ever before. Nothing makes you feel even more lonely and miserable than seeing other kids having a seemingly great lives on their vacation with their loving parents or kids having so much fun at parties that you are not invited to. So glad that I didn't grow up with social network.

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

#276

Post by danielmarkbruce » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

steinjones wrote: post #180

beloch wrote: post #83

Canada is the U.S.'s neighbour and is probably closer, culturally, than any other nation. Gun ownership is also high in Canada. In terms of guns per capita, the U.S. is #1 by a long shot, but Canada is #7 [1]. In Canada, guns owned per capita is one third of what it is in the U.S.. Canada also has mass shootings. The annual deaths from mass shootings per capita in Canada is 0.032, which is about one third that of the…

Correlation is not causation. How many times do people need to hear it?

If X & Y are correlated, it absolutely can be because X causes Y. And if X & Y are correlated, it's more likely X causes Y than if they were not correlated.

Parroting "correlation isn't causation" every time someone trots out an argument which isn't water tight is dumb.

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

#277

Post by natsup123490 » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:20 AM UTC

xvector wrote: post #183

maxerickson wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can an 18 year old Serbian walk into a store and buy whatever guns they want? Can they buy a large amount of ammunition? You hand wave away ease of access, but it probably matters. It certainly matters at the margin.

The problem is so obviously guns. It boggles my mind that people can ask questions like "what is the solution" and "we need a nuanced discussion" when the US is the only country in the world where schoolchildren get gunned down every other week. It is plainly obvious to any US citizen that has spent a significant amount of time outside the US, that the problem is guns.

I'm a US citizen that has spent a significant amount of time outside of the US. 35 years in the US, and 16 years now in New Zealand. And it's not plainly obvious to me. Bowling for Columbine movie pointed out that Canadians have just as many guns, but much less shootings.

I'm in New Zealand. New Zealand has guns. You need to take a class and be approved by the police who interview you and inspect your gun safe. Pistols are much harder to get. More than 10% of people have a gun license. There is almost no culture of using guns for self-defense against other humans. Farmers consider them necessary tools on the farm, hunters use them to hunt food, and DoC workers use them to cull pests (so do farmers). I also feed my dog about one-third of her diet by shooting rabbits and possum. Recently certain semi-automatic weapons were prohibited, but even before that we didn't have school shootings. Sometimes a family household would be slaughtered by a member of that household. Last night in Auckland seven houses were shot up in gang related violence.

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

#278

Post by ShivShankaran » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:21 AM UTC

KerrAvon wrote: post #38

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…

> It is a multi-faceted problem with a lot of complexity It really is not. There are too many guns available, too easily obtained, to too many citizens who have not been properly indoctrinated with a sense of civic responsibility, let alone trained in the proper ways to handle a gun. The answer isn't to throw more guns at the problem or to blame inadequate mental health facilities. It is to reduce gun availability. A…

It's weird how the absolutely right answer is yours, as in, reduce the guns and take away the guns but almost all comments that talk about gun reduction is either downvoted to hell or flagged.

if the supposedly intelligent HN can't arrive at the conclusion that reducing guns is the right answer since it was already successfully done by Canada and Australia then what chance do the rest of the US have?

it's been instilled from their birth that will be born with and die with guns. No amount of persuasion will change their minds. It's absolutely 100% futile to argue with Americans that guns are the root of all evil.

It's a fucking straight forward issue. Gun violence is increasing so reduce gun. Even for this linear problem every American is blaming everything else from Saturn in retrograde to bullying /mental health (as if its not an issue across the world)

so aggravating.

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

#279

Post by bediger4000 » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:21 AM UTC

mountainriver wrote: post #149

bediger4000 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an amazing amount of "anti-bullying" education that goes on. I've got 4 kids and they all got many hours of anti-bullying. The issue there is that the solution is (at least in Denver Public Schools) that the burden is put squarely on the students. The message is that only students can prevent bullying. My experience is that teachers and administrators absolutely will not intervene. One of those 4 kids was get…

Yup this is a lot of the problem, we stopped being able to discipline kids and they can be really nasty when left unchecked.

Denver Public Schools will discipline kids, just not for bullying. Apparently the victims are supposed to deal with it, which I think is logically inconsistent. If the victim could deal with it, they would. Victim is still getting bullied, therefore they can't do it.

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

#280

Post by mahastore » Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:22 AM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #253

tomrod wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ray Dalio's Changing World Order is a good read. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8

I think Ray Dalio does a good job talking about the decline of the American empire, but I'm not sure his huge bets on the rise of China are well-placed. India also appears to have a good case for "next big empire" and it is often the case that when two world powers fight, they destroy each other. For example, the UK and Germany in WWII - the UK won the war, but ended up in huge financial trouble that caused its decli…

India and China had the highest GDP 250 years ago. So it is not surprising that they will grow back again.That necessarily does not mean USA people have to kill each other. There is enough room for global prosperity if only we have the patience and the right attitude. To start with - stop killing each other.