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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)

#711

Post by oakesm9 »

BobbyJo wrote: post #685

I think a good first step everyone can agree on to stop gun violence is: stop it's gamification. Almost every mass shooting in the last decade was someone looking for media attention and high score. And yet, every shooting is followed by detailed biography and a tally of bodies. Something as simple as a one month moratorium on information for anyone outside the community would probably work wonders, as the public eye…

Only 10% of the domestic news reports on the mosque shootings in Christchurch, NZ in 2019 even mentioned the shooter by name[0]. News reports in other countires didn't follow suit, but there's at least one example where an effort was made to deny the shooter a platform.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8547820/

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

#712

Post by v-erne »

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…

>> Making guns illegal won’t stop anyone touched enough to shoot up a school/gay bar/concert/grocery store. They’re going to find a way to do it.

Somehow in my country (Poland) and in most of Europe they do not find a way to get the guns. Most of incidents of this class is done with knife or with some kind of vehicle (car or truck). I think that throughout history we had like literally one or two shootings in schools and I don't think in any one instance there was automatic weapon involved.

To think that this kind of prohibition of gun possession does not work You have to be really ignorant of what really is happening in other countries.

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

#713

Post by tcspence »

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#714

Post by gsibble »

Thorentis wrote: post #202

I honestly think precedent and copy-cat syndrome are hugely to blame. "Shooting up a school" has just become synonymous with going on a shooting rampage. How do we go back from this? Even if we ban guns, how do we stop the determined from getting their hands on a gun so that they can shot up a school? It think it's incredibly tragic that we have gotten to the point where killing multiple primsry school aged children…

It's precisely because we all act like this and essentially glorify the shooter. If we ignored it, it would go away.

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

#715

Post by confidantlake »

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…

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.

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

#716

Post by SigmundA »

YATA2 wrote: post #511
taeric wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels silly. Explosives are general arms for an armed service. Good luck stockpiling c4. Or having a military vehicle. Cannons that can shoot depleted uranium? Surface to air missiles? All arms that would be needed to fend off a real threat. So the idea that guns are special is idiotic. You can already get in trouble for using a gun with too many rounds when bird hunting. Is that actually illegal?

Those are considered destructive devices, not arms, and are regulated totally differently. They are by definition not considered "arms".

Arm: a means (such as a weapon) of offense or defense.

Firearm: a weapon from which a shot is discharged by gunpowder.

Small arm: portable firearms, especially rifles, pistols, and light machine guns.

The second amendment as strictly read says only "arms" the definition which has not changed since it was written only the lethality of the arms has increased through technological advancement culminating in nuclear arms.

A "destructive device" is a type of arm as defined by the 1934 Firearms act nearly 150 years after the second amendment was written.

A machine gun is not considered a destructive device but is still regulated and obviously still a type of arm.

So clearly you are ok with adding restrictions on arms not specifically laid out in the constitution if you are ok with the regulation of "destructive devices" and "machine guns" semantic word games aside. Otherwise if you strictly adhere to the wording of the amendment then there should be no regulation on the type of arms a citizen may own up to including nuclear arms.

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

#717

Post by stewx »

BobbyJo wrote: post #685

I think a good first step everyone can agree on to stop gun violence is: stop it's gamification. Almost every mass shooting in the last decade was someone looking for media attention and high score. And yet, every shooting is followed by detailed biography and a tally of bodies. Something as simple as a one month moratorium on information for anyone outside the community would probably work wonders, as the public eye…

How would you contain the spread of information? Maybe you could do so 30 years ago, but I think that ship has sailed. It is very difficult to contain information these days.

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

#718

Post by engramps »

pvg wrote: post #155
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…

Serbia is smaller in population than NYC and has a fairly recent history of war. NYC hasn't had school mass shootings either. Mass shootings have happened in Serbia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDiti%C5%A1te_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velika_Ivan%C4%8Da_shooting Serbia's gun laws are much closer to those in NYC than to those in Texas. It's not really much of a comparison or illustration that the pro…

Neither of those serbian shootings were in schools. NYC has had shootings though not that many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shootings_in_New_York_...

Also isnt there recent history of people going to different states to buy guns to shoot people in another state? Its not like there are border police checks

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

#719

Post by NovemberWhiskey »

tcspence wrote: post #713
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.

Quoted post unavailable.

How about because:

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.

... is no longer either a true or useful statement?

I think I'm probably happy to toss the Third Amendment on a similar basis:

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Does this speak to the problems that the republic faces today, any more so than does the Second?

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

#720

Post by artificialLimbs »

xnyan wrote: post #703
gmadsen wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ah so the ruling class with be armed, while the rest are not. sounds great

That’s already the reality. By definition the ruling class rules, this of course includes armed forces. All the privately owned weapons in the united states are a joke compared to the weaponry possessed by state. If private weapons were a threat to the state, they would not be allowed.

How do you envision that going down, exactly? The army as a whole is generally pro-gun ownership and took an oath to defend the people.

General: "Commander, send the tanks to blast the protesters. They're exercising their constitutionally protected right to carry arms, for gods sake!"

Commander: =|

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