Legislation won’t change anything. <the war on drugs has entered the chat> 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. To think otherwise is ignorance.
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.
Now I'm sure my friend had to go through more extensive vetting than they have in the US. But here's the strange part: many US mass shooters would pass these checks anyway. Not all, certainly. But many would. So when you say "they do not find a way to get the guns", you're suggesting that the potential mass murderers are out there, looking for a way, but failing to get the guns. But clearly they should be succeeding occasionally, the legal way. And yet we don't see it. Why not?
We need to know what else is different about the US. But why complicate things by comparing the US to vastly different countries? Why not compare it to a mostly similar country: itself from the recent past. The US has had essentially the same gun laws forever. There have been 2 major overhauls to US gun ownership: one in the 30s and one in the 60s. Other than that, basically no changes. But these mass killings are fairly new, having started in earnest in the late 90s. Why? It's not surprising that the body count has increased, since AR-15s are more deadly than the kind of guns Americans used to commonly own 30 years ago. They have become incredibly popular in recent years and are very cheap and accessible now. But as I pointed out earlier, there's nothing stopping anyone from racking up a huge number of victims using the kind of semi automatic pistol that has been around for over 100 years, and we do see this in the US.
This question weighs on my mind all the time. What is different about the US? I feel as though I know the answer, but it's ephemeral, hard to put words on it. Everything is more extreme here. Success, failure, happiness, misery, love, hate. So in a sense it's not that surprising that the crimes are more extreme too. But I know that's not a very useful observation. I just know that it's 100% possible for people to be able to own guns, and for this stuff to not happen. Hopefully it's possible in America too.
You are heavily underestimating how comparatively hard is to get any kind of gun here. Literally no one in my family and not one of my close friends and event my neighbors in my apartment block have access to ANY kind of gun. Sure there is possibility if You have lots of time and money and if you are relatively stable person to get a gun (I used to know a guy who was a member of shooting club and thus was able to buy himself a gun), but this process has so many hoops that it is actively discouraging from obtaining one just because you fancy one (as an impulse buy). And thus I believe that it makes it a lot harder for unstable people to get hands on them when they got the impuls to do some damage (I believe that planning and persistence required to get gun here is antithesis to what makes those people go on killing spree).
>> So when you say "they do not find a way to get the guns", you're suggesting that the potential mass murderers are out there, looking for a way, but failing to get the guns. But clearly they should be succeeding occasionally, the legal way. And yet we don't see it. Why not?]
I think that's because they are a lot persistent that You believe them to be. Emotions and planning do not go together well. And there is also social element here - You have to be in a sport club and be vouched by others to get to the guns. This two things put together seems to eliminate almost all individuals that would otherwise blow out tunneling their anger through guns.
You can simply take a quick drive just about anywhere and notice it. There is some kind of sickness that has taken hold. I couldn't even begin to list all the reasons why I think this has happened, but American society to me seems so far past the point of no return. One example I have is that I commuted a good bit before the pandemic - anecdotally I noticed an uptick in road rage in that politically charged circa 2015/16' + year range. I'm not sure if the data would back it up, but things seemed to be spilling over into real life to me.
Going off on a tangent here, but I am prior military and also a gun owner with permit to carry concealed. I do armed security once a month and some extra days for special events here and there. I was raised around weapons and I vividly remember going out by myself at 12 years old with a rifle and plinking, hunting and whatnot. At this point I own mostly sporting rifles and do some occasional reloading. Everything is locked away and if something happens to me they will have to grind the safe open. It is safe to say that I respect guns and their capabilities a lot, but I don't feel that's true with a large amount of the gun population. I personally know several.
If there was some kind of miracle opportunity presented to me that all this violence would magically stop if Americans got rid of their firearms, I would take that offer no questions asked. I have small children myself and have had tears in my eyes several times this week thinking about the horrific act in Texas.
I've racked my brain several times over the years about this and have no clue what the solution could be on a grand scale. I don't think our politicians are capable of realistic debate to any kind of solution either - everything is so politically charged anymore and that tribal stuff defeats the whole purpose. I agree with certain points from both sides of the spectrum, but either way seems hopeless. I don't want to see anymore senseless killings, but I also need to have the ability to protect myself and my family in this increasingly sick country.
Stay safe out there.
According to this, the current gun homicide rate is actually lower than at the end of the 80s.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-da...
What gun control proponents miss about the US is that we literally have more guns than people.
I don't know of a feasible way to take even a meaningful fraction of those out of civilian hands, just at a practical enforcement level.
Never mind the political nightmare taking guns away en masse would produce. It might just actually trigger a civil war here.
It's like with this old saying about how You eat an elephant (a piece at a time). Same here - this can be done slowly and gradually. It does not have to be done out right.
They could start with limiting current sale of guns (by bringing some control over to who can buy what and when). Introduce some sort licences (but maybe for guns bought after the law was introduced). And than taxing the shit out of bullets (for personal use). Prohibit trade of guns between people (only b2c, this could be quite hard and unpopular but could address the problem of existing guns). And then start to buy guns of people with sufficient premium on price.
This could be costly but I believe that over the time would eliminate this strange culture of mass gun possession.
The Uvalde shooter purchased his a few days prior to the attack. Who knows what might have happened if he hadn't been able to.
> Social media
>> All countries have that
> Violent video games
>> All other countries have that
> Media reporting on violence
>> All other countries have that
> Mental illness
>> Other countries have it worse
> Lack of Religion
>> Some other countries have that
At some point we are left with just one variable that is different from these other countries
We should also adjust for known dependent variables, like population, population density, crime rates, number of guns in circulation (i.e., we would intuitively expect fewer mass shootings from a small, sparse, low-abiding country with few guns in circulation irrespective of gun laws)—Australia has only 8% of the US population and only 10% of the density—not sure about crime rates. I also suspect there were fewer guns in circulation prior to 1996, so even if officials could get the same share removed from the US market, it would likely leave more guns in circulation than in America (even adjusting for population, etc)—I also doubt Americans would be as willing to give up their guns as Australians were in ‘96, so the odds that America could get the same share of guns off the market as Australia did seems unlikely.
That said, I’ve read that Australia’s gun count has crept back up to pre-96 levels (not sure if that is per capita or not), which is interesting—potentially it suggests there’s something else going on: either it matters what type of guns are banned (e.g., semi-automatic handguns), or perhaps there’s an altogether different reason or hidden factor behind the decline in Australian mass shootings.
In any case, mass shootings is probably the wrong metric, but rather we probably want to look at number of mass murder deaths overall (presumably some people switch to stabbings or arson, but both of these are probably result in fewer fatalities). It’s also not clear to me why we fixate on mass murders/shootings rather than homicides overall—is it really worse when 10 people are killed all at once rather than 10000 people killed individually?
The UK for example changed gun laws after a mass school shooting 26 years ago. Not a single one since.
I would “only” expect gun control regulation to deter impulsive killings (including a lot of suicide). But it won’t deter criminals who are savvy to the black market, and it’s plausible that they might be more emboldened to victimize more people from the “civilian” population (as opposed to police or rival criminals) if they have more assurance that they’re unarmed. That effect is probably exacerbated in an era of de-policing (if criminals can rely on a hamstrung police force and a disarmed civilian population, they’re probably going to be even bolder).
Apparently you've never been to Baltimore and/or forget what it was like to be 18. Show me a law prohibiting or vastly restricting something and I'll show you a very healthy black market for said thing.
This guy clearly had spent months saving up for a fucking Daniel Defense (gucci) AR on fast food wages, he absolutely had the time and dedication to have found another equally lethal method. If ARs didn't exist he'd have undoubtable used something else equally lethal.
Again, this goes to my original point. What does this mean? You can't just hand-wave policy.
Mass distribution/encouragement of antidepressants.
https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/ajp.147.2.2...
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
Edit: In case you're busy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3513220/
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).
Neither did the US, before cable TV news.
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.
With bigger population you'll see a greater number of rare events
