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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)

#611

Post by yesenadam »

lelanthran wrote: post #554
elementalest wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious.

> Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious. Is it that simple? The is little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/27-years-recorded-crime-vict... That same link shows a slight negative correl…

I don't understand at all what you say about those graphs. Homicide has gone down from 750+ to about 400, which you describe as "little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people". No idea why you say that.

Sexual assault has gone up, according to the graph, about which you say "shows a slight negative correlation between stricter gun laws and sexual assault". Uh what? That graph is nothing to do with gun laws, is it?! Strange. Hmm I can only guess maybe that where you live, sexual assault is usually/often done by someone with a gun? I would guess that's very rare in Australia.

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

#612

Post by scotty79 »

sb057 wrote: post #435
librish wrote: 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…

>People should safely store their fire-arms, but they don't and guns get stolen and sold illegally, or used by their teenage child. This is extraordinarily rare. >People shouldn't point a gun at someone unless their life is in danger and they're prepared to take a life, but they do and people get shot by accident, or road rage turns deadly. Brandishing weapons is illegal in every state and not pointing the muzzle of…

> There's no evidence to suggest that gun ownership causes higher levels of suicide.

Literally 5 seconds to google:

https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-owner...

> Additionally, suicide isn't a crime.

Why would that matter? Restricting access to guns is not aimed at reducing crime, but tragedies.

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

#613

Post by makomk »

anigbrowl wrote: post #560
School-Cotton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s…

The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. Because other people don't have this problem. And when you get right down to it, they have megaphones and placards, while their opponents have guns. Amazingly, the gun owners have more political power. My views on gun ownership are complex and don't fit neatly into existing pigeonholes - I'm very much in favor of the right to own weapons, bu…

The US anti-gun movement seems to be more a part of the culture war than something founded in reality or that could ever lead to a healthy culture around guns, unfortunately. They seem to particularly like pointing to the country where I live (the UK) as proof that their measures work whilst misleading people about what the UK's strict gun laws actually restrict and then pushing for almost the exact opposite. They insist that pooor rural conservatives are deluded if they think guns help with self-defense, but that the powerful, wealthy Hollywood celebrities with the correct political views using their power and wealth to push for gun controls should absolutely get to keep their armed security using utterly nonsensical arguments that are treated as obviously right by the media. (This doubly wouldn't fly in the UK - it's not a legal reason to own or carry a gun and the kinds of guns they use are basically completely outlawed for private individuals.) They're proud of their ignorance of even the most basic aspects of what they want to regulate, and the media supports them in that worldview and spins caring about the actual facts as a sneaky pro-gun trick.

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

#614

Post by pjc50 »

rswail wrote: post #588
cypress66 wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As tragic as these events may be, the probability of your kids dying to a school shooting is still incredibly low, and a few orders of magnitude less than car accidents. Doing some quick math, it seems like it's around 100 to 1000 times more likely that some kid dies to some accident than a mass shooting. But people don't seem to worry 1000 times more about these accidents than school shootings. And it would actually…

On that reasoning, all of the "lockdowns" and "active shooter drills" and all the other bullshit that the US makes its children undertake in school are a complete waste of time. Are you seriously trying to argue that school shootings don't happen often enough to try to stop them? Or that society can't do two things (reduce accidental deaths and reduce mass murder) at the same time? The rationalization of an insane gu…

Worth looking at the NRA's ties to Russian agent, Maria Butina, and this weird little trip to Russia in 2015: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nra-2015-moscow-trip-wasnt-o...

The NRA are incredibly divisive, and it looks like help was offered to keep them doing that.

> The rationalization of an insane gun culture is incessant and foolish. Guns are a tool and the bullshit that somehow the civilian population would "defend" itself against military coups by the US military, or even more ridiculous, against invasion, is an excuse to allow the ongoing fetish of guns.

This - the politics of guns and political violence in the US - is arguably a bigger factor than the guns themselves. The gun does not carry out a mass shooting by itself. And very few mass shooters decide purely on their own to do it; there's a radicalization pipeline. That is why the US has a higher mass shooting rate than other countries with lots of guns.

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

#616

Post by r_c_a_d »

School-Cotton wrote: post #322
jonp888 wrote: post #40

As a foreigner, I do not see it as productive to seek any explanation or expect any reaction when yet another news story like this comes along. It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live, and it is their perogative to do so.

> It's clear that this is the way Americans wish to live That’s not clear at all. The US has more anti-gun-violence activists than anywhere else in the world. There is some amount of friction, different in each country but not zero anywhere, between “what people want” and “what is the law”. Do you think North Koreans prefer living under a corrupt dictatorship? Why don’t they just make the dictatorship illegal? That’s…

As another outsider, I can remember seeing reports of mass shootings in the US every year or two for the last 30 years or so. Each time I thought "this time they have to do something" and yet the pattern continues. So to me it also seems "clear" that there isn't _enough_ will in the US to act on this.

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

#617

Post by MrMan »

chmod600 wrote: post #485
charles_kaw wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I see no mechanism by which those laws would reduce mass shootings. A mass shooter would simply ignore them. On virtue of how many shootings have begun "without warning", the cultural context in canada versus the us is quite different. The expectation of actions when you see a firearm is very different in these two countries! - in the US, someone with an openly carried firearm may be transporting it or any number of…

"The expectation of actions when you see a firearm" The poster to whom I replied was discussing concealed carry and transport in a car . Your reply to me is nonsensical. If someone is intent on harm, they are unlikely to broadcast it with open carry.

school and mass shooters often brandish weapons between their car and the place of the massacre, and more and more they are wearing body armor. not exactly concealing their intentions. and they often shoot people who challenge them on the way in.

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

#618

Post by lelanthran »

yesenadam wrote: post #611
lelanthran wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Interesting. When compared to places like Australia, where guns are highly regulated and barely anyone owns a gun, such that there have been no mass shootings for 35 years, the solution really is obvious. Is it that simple? The is little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/27-years-recorded-crime-vict... That same link shows a slight negative correl…

I don't understand at all what you say about those graphs. Homicide has gone down from 750+ to about 400, which you describe as "little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people". No idea why you say that. Sexual assault has gone up, according to the graph, about which you say "shows a slight negative correlation between stricter gun laws and sexual assault". Uh what? That graph is nothing…

> I don't understand at all what you say about those graphs. Homicide has gone down from 750+ to about 400, which you describe as "little correlation between stricter gun laws and fewer number of dead people".

The decline in dead people is not correlated with fewer guns.

The decline is a trend going down over time that did not start when the guns were taken.

The argument of "fewer guns == safer society" needs to show that when the guns were taken, a decline in corpses resulted. That did not happen.

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

#619

Post by [deleted] »

rswail wrote: post #594
Aeolun wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If enough people actually cared about this, then you’d have people marching on the capitol, like after a certain president was not re-elected. If people haven’t gotten motivated enough after literally decades of this shit, I find it really hard to blame the law.

They have and they do. If you recall, there were marches and protests across the US after the Parkland school shooting. However, there are 50+ Senators, disproportionally representing low population, rural states, that are beholden to the NRA and its illegal funding and mis/dis-information campaigns. There are Senators today suggesting that schools be turned into prison-like places (Cruz with his "one door in and out…

[deleted]

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

#620

Post by andyjohnson0 »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #601
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #593

As 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…

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…

> but to claim that our gun laws are the result of a takeover by "a minority of radical extermists" is ridiculous

Why is it ridiculous? Where are your sources for that?

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