Availability yes but on a cultural, social and economic level we should be looking at Western European nations as well as Japan.
Saw thing on guns on netflix. I think Japan is strictest…they even inspect your home & make you take phyc tests…gun laws so strict even Yakuza enforces stuff on its guys because they dont want gov problems.
There isn’t much of a correlation between the availability and access to guns and murders. Look at Switzerland, their gun laws are similar to the US. A few excerpts from Wikipedia:
-The Weapons Law recognises a qualified “right to acquire, possess and carry arms”
-The Small Arms Survey of 2016 placed Swiss gun ownership per capita at 24.45%
- Swiss citizens and foreigners with a C permit over the age of 18 who are not psychiatrically disqualified nor identified as posing security problems, and who have a clean criminal record can request such a permit. (Is that significantly different from the USA? You need a permit, but it doesn’t sound like it’s hard to get and only fully automatic weapons are banned.)
-homicide rate of 0.50 per 100,000 population
Now look at the countries with the highest murder rates in the world, Honduras, El Salvador, Jamaica, and Venezuela. They all have significantly more restrictive gun laws and less guns (illegal and legal) in circulation and the murder rates are more than 10x that of the USA, and 100x more than Switzerland. Mass shootings are obviously not a good thing, but if all of a sudden only the criminals have guns then you will have other things to worry about. It like they say, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. Take away legal access to guns and people will still find a way to get guns if they are determined, or maybe resort to bombs, running people over with trucks, etc.
Here in Ottawa we are having more gun crime than ever, in the first 3 weeks of the year there was something like 14 shootings. There is no law they can pass to reduce the gun violence because all the guns used in these shootings are illegal. There are factors influencing crime and violence that legislation can’t control.
It does, but I’m not sure if the “they blow off angst differently” does a good job of explaining the outlier problem - i.e., why the US doesn’t track like similarly situated countries. I think that suggests a “conditions” explanation.
I see a lot of folks say on social media “hey, it ain’t access to guns - it’s God being out of classrooms, not being compassionate enough toward the marginalized, the lonely, etc.” and on and on. As in, the problem is something social.
Ok, I’m willing to listen. But these other Western countries don’t have more God in the classroom, and they are, by and large, more liberal and more secular.
Not enough compassion toward the isolated, troubled kid? Ok, that’s definitely a cultural problem - but we just had half the country (and a strong majority of the “it’s not a gun access problem”) vote for Trump (not you, I know), so they’re as much a part of the problem as anyone if it’s a lack of compassion.
There’s something different about the U.S. here, and it’s past time we find out.
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Bull. Most speech is absolutely unnesecarry. Should we only protect “needed” speech? No stand up comedians, no movies or music. Only radio broadcasts with essential news? Welcome to 1984. All speech that isnt slander/inciting violence is protected. Especially un-needed speech.
Needing “free speech” as a concept and needing the speech as substance aren’t the same thing.
They also don’t put everyone on SSRI’s if they’re sad for 5 minutes, or other psychoactive drugs if the boys are too active. Europe has it’s fair share of truck attacks, Paris concert shooting, London bombings, Jokela etc… So they have sociopathic young men as well. I don’t really care what drives the sociopaths to kill (whether it’s ideology or not being hugged enough).
To your point European culture was way more prepared to handle the sexual revolution and the upheaval of the 60s. They’ve had libertines since the 1700’s so it didn’t disrupt their nuclear family near as much. They are having more trouble now assimilating migrants. But I digress.
To the thread’s point I would go for:
End/cut back on “war on drugs” for pot at least.
Redeploy some armed/trained officers to every public school.
Lockdown procedures.
Metal detectors, every staff member and student goes through every day. Make schools not soft targets anymore.
Something like 67% of gun deaths are suicides. Don’t care. You want to punch your own ticket have at it.
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Okay. Zecarlo told usmc that he didn’t need an AR. Extending that logic means that some benevolent authority gets to decide what guns you need. The same logic applied to speech doesn’t work. They were arguing about the bill of rights not being a bill of needs.
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How old were the shooters as Las Vegas, San Bernadino, Orlando, Aurora, D.C, Texas (Ft. Hood and Sutherland), Binghamton NY?
How about a 5yr old girl?
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I’m an atheist and I mostly agree with this notion, but I choose different words than religious folk do. “Lack of God” doesn’t explain the motives of every person who decides that mass murder is the way to go. Nor will you hear me talking about God’s will or anything like that. I still think the Christians are on to something when it comes to values.
What sort of values are we imparting to our young men in America? What sort of ideas about masculinity are being cultivated? Traditional notions of masculinity, along with traditional expectations for how men should conduct themselves have been torn down and replaced with nothing.
This is by no means the root cause of all evils done by men in the world, but I believe it is a contributing factor for the dysfunction we see among men. Men need a purpose, just like everyone else.
I agree. The USA has a Second Amendment, which means people who wish harm upon others will have a means to do so that is probably more convenient than massacre by fire, vehicle or explosives.
Some parts of the United States seem to do just fine with our liberties. My state of Maine is among the most peaceful places you’ll find anywhere in the Western world. Fully automatic machine guns are legal here. I can walk into a gun store, buy an AR15 and a 100 round drum mag along with 1000 rounds of ammunition and be out before my lunch break is over. I can carry my unregistered Glock concealed on my person without any sort of permitting process, and I’m perfectly free to stuff my 33 rd magazine down my pants and let the ladies wonder what’s under there.
Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that Maine, NH and Vermont are not the primary drivers of violence in America. What are we doing different up here while we suffer through our cold and dark winters?
Why look to Europe when we can look within our own borders to find societies where violence is not common but liberty flourishes?
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Several solutions that come to mind:
Raise the minimum age to purchase all firearms and ammunition to 21.
Universal background check system without registration. I don’t think registration is necessary for the UBC to be effective. There is already a massive trade in illegal guns, and this won’t affect that one way or the other, registration or no. A UBC will deter private sellers who are otherwise law abiding citizens as the fear of selling to an undercover cop would at least stop sales to strangers. People may still sell to friends or family members but I doubt that is much of a problem.
Prosecute straw buyers as accessories to crimes committed, when they can be identified.
Prosecute bureaucrats who fail to do their duty. There are states that fail to report convicted felons to the national background check data base. The military failed to report the Texas Church shooter to the database. Assign blame. Fire people. Prosecute them for dereliction of duty. Fine the states.
Amend HIPAA so that people who are being prescribed anti-psychotic medications are flagged and prevented from purchasing firearms. This should include people under the age of 18. If they have been seeing a therapist, and been off the anti-psych meds for three years they can appeal to get their firearms rights back.
There could be a federal CCW permit, separate from the state permits, that requires 40 hours of classes and 4 hours of CE every five years. States could still have their own permits with their own standards and reciprocity agreements with other states, but the federal permit would work for all 50 states. I would encourage the NRA to get ahead of this and with their instructors make the required training widely available. The NRA could also create a charity to help train and arm low-income women.
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Thank you for the thoughtful post. I need to give it some thought before I craft a reply.
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Why?
Living in a state where this is already law I can tell you you are partially right. Most people still sell to their friends no questions asked, and plenty still sell to strangers. Like you stated, the only real threat is fear of selling to an undercover.
Again, being in a state where this is law I can tell you it has unintended consequences. I see you wrote “purchasing firearms” which makes sense on the surface, however it is usually attached to confiscation as well. People afraid of having their guns confiscated or losing their ability to purchase are less likely to seek psychiatric help.
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I’ll address in more detail, but one problem I see is your conflating different issues. We’re not talking about “gun violence” broadly, which is dominated by urban violence connected with other forms of crime, and which is also connected to conditions not found in leafy northeastern states like VT, NH, and ME.
Mass shootings aren’t really that same species of gun violence you see in Chicago or Baltimore. It’s different, caused by something different, and they happen in the suburbs and are not connected to other crimes. They are mass murder for mass murder’s sake. So the usual take on “Why Baltimore but not Bangor?” isn’t germane.
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Guilty. I’m going off topic in my own thread.
I’ve got faith in the lad. He’ll figure things out just fine.
Lady. I believe she now prefers “lady.”