Guns are still America’s religion

GermanSuplex said:
One thing about it is, as guns and mass shootings become more prevalent, so will things like these…

www.tmz.com

Dog Shoots And Kills Owner In Car While On Hunting Trip

A man was tragically shot and killed in a bizarre hunting accident -- one where his dog reportedly pulled the trigger while they were driving.
www.tmz.com www.tmz.com
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Well there goes my idea of getting rid of the people. The dogs will keep the killing going after we’re all gone.

This is a case where there are so many guns that even dogs are literally tripping over them.

We have 120 guns for every 100 people. The UK has 4 guns for every 100 people. Coincidentally, while America had 39 mass shootings just this month (and January has another week left), the UK has had 7 mass shootings THIS CENTURY. What a weird coincidence, amirite?

This problem can be solved, and has been solved by many other nations. Meanwhile, America has 6-year-olds, toddlers, and even dogs shooting people. And “it’s not the guns” is still being put out there? Get real. Or maybe we just need more good dogs with guns to protect us. That ought to do it.

Leading killer of children in America is GUNS. Not any illness, not drownings or traffic accidents… GUNS. This is completely immoral and we need to stop pretending we can’t solve it.
 
Yoused said:
Guns are not themselves the source of the problem, but more guns with less regulation is only going to make the problem worse.
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The problem of gun violence is inextricably linked to both guns themselves and people. When the extreme sides of this debate boil it down to one or the other, it fails to address the reality at hand. Addressing one component may have limited benefit, but inadequate in truly stopping this madness. And frankly the feasibility of effectively addressing either one component alone effectively is not realistically feasible.

No amount of mental health resources or family friendly video games will prevent gun violence. But given how many guns exist in the US, how many people there are who own guns who aren’t supposed to, and how most places have little to no record of who owns what (tracing them down would be impossible), I find banning guns to be not remotely feasible.

I think it’s better to advocate for tighter restrictions since they have a better chance of happening than an outright ban. But the restrictions actually have to be informed and have a meaningful impact, not these dumb laws that have no teeth meant only to create the illusion of taking action. The states loosening restrictions strike me as being insane- like TX after Uvalde.

If it means grandfathering in existing gun owners to exclude them from new policies or having laws temporarily in place until it’s proven effective, I’m all for it if it provides a chance for meaningful changes to occur. There could be more creativity in the strategy to get these laws passed.

For example- Moving forward, make the minimum age to buy a pistol or semi-auto rifle age 25. People under 25 who already own them can keep theirs. Keep this law in place for the next 6 years, after 5 years spend a year reviewing if the law had any impact on gun violence, and then decide to keep it or not at the end of the 6 year period- or have the decision be dependent on the outcome of the statistics based on a predetermined metric of efficacy.
 
This is based on some numbers I saw posted by Robert Reich

9A5EB009-4A02-40EE-9234-7AE9A650140B.jpeg

Presumably "mass shooting" is based on the standard of 4 or more fatalities, usually but not always one shooter. If there is validity to these numbers, it would suggest that gun access, mental illness or violent RPGs are not primary proximal causes of gun violence, as those things have not changed at a rate that tracks to the trend.

One thing that does track similarly (though not identically) is the increase in wealth disparity over time. I continue to assert that the real, underlying cause of this and other ills we are dealing with is primarily socioeconomic.
 
Yoused said:
This is based on some numbers I saw posted by Robert Reich


Presumably "mass shooting" is based on the standard of 4 or more fatalities, usually but not always one shooter. If there is validity to these numbers, it would suggest that gun access, mental illness or violent RPGs are not primary proximal causes of gun violence, as those things have not changed at a rate that tracks to the trend.

One thing that does track similarly (though not identically) is the increase in wealth disparity over time. I continue to assert that the real, underlying cause of this and other ills we are dealing with is primarily socioeconomic.
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Actually, the rise in sales of assault-style weapons, generally used in these mass murders, does track.

abcnews.go.com

Inside the rise of AR-15-style rifles in America

The use of assault weapons is on the rise. In the last three years, 67% of gun massacres were with assault weapons.
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com

From 8.5 million in 2004 to 20 million today. If anything, it outpaces the increased rate of mass shootings slightly.

www.businessinsider.com

America has 20 million AR-15 style rifles in circulation, and more guns than people in the country

There are 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the US, enough for each person in the country to own one with 63 million left over.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com

Other countries have wealth disparities and similar or worse socioeconomic factors.

It’s. The. Guns.

All other factors have a minuscule effect when compared to the amount of guns.

PS - I get it that we all want this to be solvable in some way other than making it harder to get guns. Because we have seen that one of our two political parties has an extremist position on the issue, unlikely to change anytime soon. So, don’t ever vote for that party. Encourage others to never vote for that party. We can vote them out and change the gun laws. Or they will take the hint and soften their stance instead of watching their voters slip away.
 
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AG_PhamD said:
The problem of gun violence is inextricably linked to both guns themselves and people. When the extreme sides of this debate boil it down to one or the other, it fails to address the reality at hand. Addressing one component may have limited benefit, but inadequate in truly stopping this madness. And frankly the feasibility of effectively addressing either one component alone effectively is not realistically feasible.

No amount of mental health resources or family friendly video games will prevent gun violence. But given how many guns exist in the US, how many people there are who own guns who aren’t supposed to, and how most places have little to no record of who owns what (tracing them down would be impossible), I find banning guns to be not remotely feasible.

I think it’s better to advocate for tighter restrictions since they have a better chance of happening than an outright ban. But the restrictions actually have to be informed and have a meaningful impact, not these dumb laws that have no teeth meant only to create the illusion of taking action. The states loosening restrictions strike me as being insane- like TX after Uvalde.

If it means grandfathering in existing gun owners to exclude them from new policies or having laws temporarily in place until it’s proven effective, I’m all for it if it provides a chance for meaningful changes to occur. There could be more creativity in the strategy to get these laws passed.

For example- Moving forward, make the minimum age to buy a pistol or semi-auto rifle age 25. People under 25 who already own them can keep theirs. Keep this law in place for the next 6 years, after 5 years spend a year reviewing if the law had any impact on gun violence, and then decide to keep it or not at the end of the 6 year period- or have the decision be dependent on the outcome of the statistics based on a predetermined metric of efficacy.
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There have always been crazy, irrational, insane and dangerous individuals. Everywhere, throughout history.

It's the guns. It's the culture here in America. I'm not saying all gun culture is bad, but when toddlers are waving around guns, when dogs are stepping on guns and killing their owners, when deranged individuals are able to amass hoards of weapons and kill several or even dozens of people - regardless of the presence of other armed individuals and/or law enforcement - at what point do we stop trying to look at everything except the guns?

Mental health should always be one of many priorities regardless of guns and the laws surrounding them. But the truth is, republicans only want to talk about mental health when it comes to two things: gun violence, or LGBTQ people. They've done nothing outside of using mental health as a rebuttal to show that they have any true intent on doing anything about it.

We can make this a 2A debate, but the conversation is going to have to come down to the guns themselves.
 
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SuperMatt said:
I get it that we all want this to be solvable in some way other than making it harder to get guns.
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Do we? I certainly have no love for guns or any desire to see our laissez faire ways kept in place. I am entirely in favor of tighter restrictions on sales of guns and ammo, along with ownership impositions (if your gun is used for violence by someone else, you are also at fault, even if you just sold or gave it away without following proper recording procedures – including allowing it to be stolen).

I just feel that we need to take a look at the bigger picture, because dealing with the other contributing issues would have a broad positive social impact beyond reduced violence. But, working on addressing those things is difficult and, it is easy for those who do not want us to to make us feel uncomfortable about ever looking at those issues.
 
Yoused said:
Do we? I certainly have no love for guns or any desire to see our laissez faire ways kept in place. I am entirely in favor of tighter restrictions on sales of guns and ammo, along with ownership impositions (if your gun is used for violence by someone else, you are also at fault, even if you just sold or gave it away without following proper recording procedures – including allowing it to be stolen).

I just feel that we need to take a look at the bigger picture, because dealing with the other contributing issues would have a broad positive social impact beyond reduced violence. But, working on addressing those things is difficult and, it is easy for those who do not want us to to make us feel uncomfortable about ever looking at those issues.
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IMO, those issues should be separate from the gun debate. Because every country has similar or worse problems with those issues, but not the mass shooting issue that we have.
 
SuperMatt said:
IMO, those issues should be separate from the gun debate. Because every country has similar or worse problems with those issues, but not the mass shooting issue that we have.
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No kidding. In the USA we routinely (I think that's the short form of "decade after decade") tolerate three times as many firearm homicides PER YEAR as occurred at the hands of the 9/11 attackers in 2001.

Sure, other means of homicide are possible. 471 murders were committed in the USA by "hands, fist or feet" in 2021, for instance... but over 12,000 homicides were via firearms that year. 2014 was a "better" year: just 7,800 or so...

www.statista.com

Number of homicides by firearm in the U.S. 2021 | Statista

In 2021, 12,520 recorded murders in the United States were committed by firearm.
www.statista.com www.statista.com


Whatever the "reason" for these homicides, the plain fact is that they occurred by use of a gun that was available, whether legally or illegally purchased, properly stored or not... and regardless of whether up until that moment the person firing the gun had been a perfectly law abiding gun owner, a common thief or a deranged ex-employee, ex-lover, angry child...

We let ourselves be distracted by the 2A debate and the hysteria over the spectre of having our guns taken away. Meanwhile children are being murdered on the way home from school. Teachers murdered in classrooms. Colleagues murdered on the job.

And the NRA and gun lobby still suggest that the way forward to deter firearms homicide is to arm more people. This despite the fact that there are enough guns owned in the USA right now to give more than one to every man, woman and child. Most people don't figure they need one. They're right until some moron who didn't need one gets one anyway and lays waste to a fellow human being BECAUSE HE CAN.

www.cnn.com

What studies reveal about gun ownership in the US | CNN

As the nation continues to endure devastating mass shootings and increasing homicide rates, guns remain a fixture of American culture. Here's what polls and surveys conducted in recent years tell us about who owns guns in the US.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com
 
Nothing will happen until there is sufficient collective will to counter the NRA, the gun lobby, politicians who cater to both, and the millions who believe it's their god- and 2A-given right to arm themselves. People who think the "good guys with guns" will protect us against the "bad guys with guns" and don't themselves pose a problem ignore human nature. It's much more nuanced than that. As others here have pointed out, the difference between the U.S. and other first-world countries with much lower gun homicide rates is the ready availability of firearms, including some that have no legitimate defensive purpose.

It's illuminating to compare the U.S. to Israel, where you can't go anywhere in public without seeing many people carrying assault rifles. But they're all soldiers or guards. I've been there many times and felt safer than many places here. Getting a gun permit is actually quite difficult, requiring background checks, medical reports, annual practice, and a job deemed appropriate.
 
Roller said:
politicians who cater to both, and the millions who believe it's their god- and 2A-given right to arm themselves. People who think the "good guys with guns" will protect us against the "bad guys with guns" and don't themselves pose a problem ignore human nature.
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but they have all the guns
 

He was sitting in the front passenger seat, hunting gear in back. The dog stepped on his rifle, causing it to fire a round, killing him on the spot. This is what is known as due diligence combined with proper equipment handling. Damn sniperdogs.
 
McCarthy has allowed his caucus to vote to allow guns in committees. Yeah, just what I’d want, to sit next to Boebert or Gosar while they’re packing heat. 🙄
 
Chew Toy McCoy said:
www.vox.com

It’s now legal for domestic abusers to own a gun in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi

We’re starting to see the fallout from the Supreme Court’s most recent Second Amendment decision.
www.vox.com www.vox.com
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I predict Texas will be the first to experience a predictable negative outcome from this decision and it will happen sooner than later. Maybe give it a month.

I think there are several philosophies behind this. First is lawyers who don’t give a fuck about the safety and betterment of society. All they have is tunnel vision on law and how they can manipulate it in their favor. It’s a game to them. Second there are people who feel we need a certain percentage of probable gun criminals on the streets so they can promote their more guns and good guys with guns solutions propaganda.
 
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