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

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741–750 of 1001 posts

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

#741
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody was talking about reducing access to cars after that guy ran over a ton of old folks in Kenosha a couple months back. In fact no one is talking about it at all as he does not fit the correct political narrative

Literally everyone was talking about it, making exactly the same point you are now. People parroting this take was basically all of social media for a week. You’re not uncovering some logical inconsistency in liberal logic any more than “oh you’re pro-life, but you support the death penalty hmmmmmm” does for conservatives. This shit spreads like wildfire because it sounds like a gotcha but it relies on putting words…

Well put.

People should be taught about Strawmanning and Steelmanning in elementary school, sad to see it needs teaching on HN

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

#742

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!).

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

#743

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…

I wonder if John Carmack feels any compunction about first person shooters and their proliferation.

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

#744

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/nra-russia-f...

Because the US doesn't have a gun problem so much as a stochastic terrorism problem, blatantly sponsored and encouraged by a hostile foreign power which is known for encouraging extremely destructive cultural subversion.

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

#745
post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If at all, perhaps allow geo-fenced guns, which don't work in and around schools?

Or Walmart. Or churches. Or music festivals. Or your workplace, so all workplaces. Or your grandma's house.

Yes, those too. Perhaps allow guns to work only in the owner's home or around it.

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

#746
post #691

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…

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

There are already plenty of laws blocking certain kind of information from news. Minors that are crime victims for instance.

It's so realistic that it's already a real thing.

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

#747
post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's time we start legislating based on empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals. I would take anti-gun people more seriously if they actually paid attention to what this entails. For one, anti-gun enthusiast would stop going on about "assault rifles", because only around 200 people a year in the US are killed by rifle homicides. It's totally negligible. Less frequent than blunt instrument homicides. Yet, that's…

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.

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

#748
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…

Handguns proliferate in the cities, trafficked from the U.S., quite easily in Canada. This is where the mass shooting rate comes from.

Your results will be starkly different if you search for school shooting rates, and not mass shooting rates. Gangland homicide of several individuals is still considered a mass shooting. It spooks the city-dwellers somewhat, but nationally no one cares. They care about school shootings, or more broadly, mass shootings of innocent bystanders. Canada fares way, way better than the U.S. in this fashion.

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

#749
post #369
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are suggesting is illegal. Its illegal to license a right. We shouldn't penalize the hundreds of millions of legal gun owners in the US because we're unable to catch psychopaths before they kill people.

> We shouldn't penalize the hundreds of millions of legal gun owners in the US Yes. Yes we should.

What does history teach us about the outcomes of disarming an entire population?

(collective) Do you think Ukraine would have been invaded if they didn't unilaterally give up their nuclear weapons?

(individual) Does the bully pick on the child who stands up for themselves?

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

#750
post #721

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.

How do you enforce that in the era of 3D printers and consumer grade CNCs?

Repealing the Second Amendment has nothing to do with enforcing anything; it just acknowledges that the modern American experience does not need armed militias for the security of the free state, and that where we do have militias they are seldom well-regulated nor do they tend to promote security, and that perhaps arms being what they are today, and America being what it is today, maybe we could decide that there isn't today a right to bear arms.
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