According to nos there's no such thing as a community. Forget governments -- they're always gonna muck things up. Etc.

It really betrays a kind of ignorance of local governments. They do a fine job -- I like a lot of them. They run the water and keep the garbage collected and things like that.

Isn't it funny how a concrete issue like gun control measures has to get diverted to aspirations about mental health and "libertarian" rantings about "natural rights"?

In the real world, in the US, right now, we have a government that can enact gun laws that prevent children from being killed. We know this. Other countries have done it -- we've had some of the laws in place before as well. We see it on the state and local level as well. Whether "statist" or "anti-statist," this is the reality. So do we want to enact these laws so that less kids get shot, or not?

The answer for those (very sincerely and impartially) concerned about mental health, or about "individual rights," etc., at the end of the day: No.

We don't want these laws. We want to do nothing, or put MORE guns out there, with the ultimate goal that we're all armed 24/7 in the 1/10,000,000 chance that there's a school shooting.

Is that how you protect someone’s right to life, by begging the government to restrict our rights? — NOS4A2

Not begging, demanding. Demanding the government protect the individual right to life by restricting the ability of every nut who wants a gun. Like every other country without the mass shootings we have. Morally on par with restricting the freedom to drive a car without training/license. That's a just use of lawmaking, yes.

Or we can pretend the government can do no right and so resign ourselves to the inevitable fact that we're gonna have mass killings regularly. Nah.

Or in other cases, abortion control, the right to life via not being chopped up in a womb and sucked out with a vacuum. — NOS4A2

So you're in favor of abortion on principle and in favor of schooling shootings on principle. At least it's consistent. I'd prefer not having dead kids if possible.

What kind of weapon would you use to protect your children, should the need ever arise? Ballots and petitions? Beg a politician? — NOS4A2

In the dystopian world you live in, where I guess this is a very real threat at any moment, I suppose I'd want whatever works best.

So I guess in your world a criminal entering my home negates the act of petitioning government. Once again, the logic is astounding.

Restricting my rights to own a gun does not protect the rights of anyone else, for I have not violated anyone’s rights. — NOS4A2

For god's sake, the world doesn't revolve around you.

Over 300,000,000 guns out there, how would one start to deal with the sheer numbers? — jgill

That’s a good question. Again, it’s good to look to other countries. There are buyback programs. I think Australia used something like this.

I think the sheer number is important — because with numbers that high, there’s bound to be more leakage— assuming we had rational gun regulations.

But since we don’t even have that, I think it takes priority before even thinking about lowering the number.

But to that end: Making guns more expensive, taxing them, etc. Like cigarettes. Not outlawed, but greatly discouraged (and I don’t necessarily agree in that specific case). That’s another idea.

The self-centered, myopic view is that gun control violates individual rights. Does it? The majority of people favor gun control. The prevalence of guns violates their right to life. Right now, judging by government inaction, the state and powerful special interest groups such as the NRA are aligned with the interests of individuals who oppose gun control. — Fooloso4

Exactly. What about THAT special interest group?

Well, it’s because he’s in that group, so it’s cool.

I am down for any law that is just and protects the rights of the individual. — NOS4A2

Cool, like the right to life- via not getting shot.

Laws that protect the state, its own interests, or some other interest group [like the NRA] are unjust and do not protect the rights of the individual. — NOS4A2

Absolutely. So good, I’m glad we’re both in favor of petitioning the state to protect an individual’s right to life, in this case via control control measures.

Well, I never claimed I was a "truly impartial observer" - I just asked a question about mental health and why the subject seemed always conspicuously absent from these discussions, and was treated to your tirades — Tzeentch

“Just asked a question.” Yes, the question every NRA member, bought politician, and gun not happen to raise every time gun control is brought up. If that’s “conspicuously absent,” you’re living in complete ignorance.

“Tirades.”

So should universal background checks and gun training be required before buying an AR-15 or not? Let’s make it concrete.

I don't have particularly strong opinions on gun control in America, since I don't live in America. — Tzeentch

But you have an interest in American mental health? Why America? Why not Argentina or Japan?

Oh yes, it’s because the topic is mass shootings, of which America is an outlier. Not an outlier in mental health issues, as has been shown. Given this, a truly impartial observer’s first question would be, “Why does America have so many mass shootings?”

Then maybe the 400 million guns and the fact that anyone can get their hands on one would be of interest to them. In which case they’d say, “Why does the US have so many guns and such lax gun regulations?”

That would be genuine discussion.

Go on then, what do you believe that you know about me? — Tzeentch

You’re right, it’s just a complete coincidence that someone who continuously spews libertarian ideology just happens to want to talk about the “mental health” factor on a thread about gun control.

I’m sure you’re sincere. You’re fooling yourself, but that’s OK.

Sean Hannity wanting to talk about Hillary’s emails on a thread should Trump’s crimes is also just good faith questioning as well.

hostility — Tzeentch

Not hostility, but impatience. Impatience with NRA talking points about “mental health” being spewed disingenuously on a thread about gun control, to avoid talking about gun control.

We get it: no gun control measures, because the “real” issue is mental health. Carry on.

take into account human nature — NOS4A2

An interpretation of human nature you mean. A fairly sick one, too.

deep-seated authoritarianism — NOS4A2

Says the Trump voting corporatist. Maybe Freud was on to something… :chin:

Ayn Rand fails once again. Keep trying.

So why, in a discussion about gun control, is it not OK to remind everyone that mental health (in the broad sense) is also a major factor. — Isaac

Because it’s mostly disingenuous when the topic is gun control. If it’s not, then yes, I repeatedly acknowledge the obvious point that people driven to kill people is a problem.

Insinuating that anyone talking about mental health is associated with NRA "talking points" just makes you look weak and doesn't help the argument at all. — Isaac

But it is an NRA talking point. Given what I know about Tzeentch, it’s no coincidence that this is the angle he wants to emphasize. I don’t buy “hey I’m just asking questions about mental health” nonsense for a second. If you do, then have at it.

It works against specific drugs, but because the root causes aren't addressed it's a matter of time before the next one comes along. The problem never truly gets solved. — Tzeentch

The problem of quaalude addictions certainly was solved. Banning or heavily regulating guns could work too, as they do everywhere else in the world. Sure, people could use knives or whatever — but that’s not the topic. The topic is guns— which is why we have the number of mass SHOOTINGS that we do.

Do you not see mass shootings as a problem?
If you do think it’s a problem, what is the solution?
If it’s vague aspirations about solving the problem of mental health, then we’re going in circles. If you want to discuss sensible gun control measures, by all means give your ideas.

If you have no ideas on this issue, then stop with the NRA diversions. Not interested.

You make rules for family. Very good. You can govern your own household. Except it doesn’t follow that you or anyone else ought to have the same authority of over people who are not your kin. — NOS4A2

The same principle applies, whether to my family or anyone else. Just because they’re my family doesn’t give me the right to “govern” them any more than anyone else. Either it’s just or unjust.

rule of some people over others, what with politicians with constituents in the millions. — NOS4A2

Yes we all know your tired, boring views on majoritarianism and general hatred of democracy in general. Has nothing to do with me.

restricting their rights — NOS4A2

(1) Rights are made up. (2) Rights being restricted isn’t the issue— the issue is whether doing so is just.

Gun “rights” don’t exist any more than the right to drive a car. Except there’s training involved in driving a car.

You participate in the charades of the greatest monopolies known to history, and advocate for corporatism of the worst kind. — NOS4A2

Says the guy who voted for, and has passionately defended, Donald Trump at every turn. :rofl:

Hard pass on your paranoia delusions. Read more Ayn Rand and keep trying.

The reason most countries can afford to disarm their populace and claim moral victory is because American weaponry protects them while they sleep.

Worth highlighting how stupid this statement is, lest it slips through the cracks.

Nearly every country on earth has a military, whether aligned with the US or not. Every other nation on earth has less mass shootings than us. You can have a peaceful country, a military, and legal domestic gun use.

Ukraine wasn’t attacked because its people weren’t allowed to stock up on AR-15s. It has a military. To somehow get all of this mixed up with domestic gun policy shows how far one must go to make sure kids continue to be murdered because you think Murray Rothbard is cool.

More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed countries, among American states, among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries.

…

After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 shooting. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.

That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart.

“In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate,” Dan Hodges, a British journalist, wrote in a post on Twitter two years ago, referring to the 2012 attack that killed 20 young students at an elementary school in Connecticut. “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html

So yeah, maybe it really is a mental health crisis after all: the mental illness of gun worshippers that enable this to happen.

failure to acknowledge the importance of anyone but yourself. — Fooloso4

Ding ding ding. That one.

I think all our thinking is in dualsitic terms — Janus

Well it depends on what kind of thought. My junk thought doesn’t seem dualistic in any sense. When I’m contemplating myself or my world I’ll schematize the world that way, but that’s not my typical state.

It’s not that we have more bad people, it’s that the bad people we have can go into a store or a gun show and purchase one of the 400 million guns in the US with ease and then go shoot up a school.

illegalizing drugs — Tzeentch

I don’t want to make drugs illegal. I don’t want to make guns illegal.

This shooter bought a gun legally, incidentally.

But “illegalizing” drugs does work in some cases. I don’t hear about many Quaalude addictions anymore…

The “war on drugs” was never about drugs anyway. It was about criminalizing minority life. Ditto “law and order.”

In my family, often enough. Plenty of them.

Otherwise I vote for rules directly via referenda, and I elect others to do so. Those others are also people. If I don’t like what rules they create, I vote them out. There are other ways of creating rules as well, at the local level.

But I guess the point there was supposed to be something about “statism” blah blah blah

People make up rules for many reasons. Sometimes they're justified, other times they're unjust. Some are commonsensical, others are aren't. I'm glad that we have made rules that punish people who break them.

True, we don't need a state for this. But to argue against any and all rules is absurd. — Mikie

To argue that only those in power get to make rules is absurd. No man is good enough to be another’s master — NOS4A2

Nothing in what I said suggested any of that. People create rules, not some elite class of people, not "those in power," not the deep state. People. In any society. In hunter gatherer societies. People make rules all the time. Rules are a good thing, and so is authority -- provided they can be justified.

So I repeat: to argue against any and all rules is absurd.

I'll repeat the example, with bold:

If fentanyl deaths skyrocketed in country Z, and it turned out country Z was an outlier not in drug use but in the amount of, and ease of access to, fentanyl -- then call me crazy, but my first priority would not be to discuss the prevalence of substance abuse. It would be to restrict the amount of, and ease of access to, fentanyl.

It's not a war on drugs or guns. It's saying that, all else being equal, country Z has a problem with this particular object. Other countries don't have the fentanyl deaths we do not because they don't have more potential drug abusers, but because they don't have the amount of fentanyl. Pretty simple.

A flawed example, of course, because it's harder to get fentanyl than it is to buy an assault weapon. Now imagine saying, "What we need to do in order to fight fentanyl deaths is to increase the availability of fentanyl." That would be absurd.

And if all those restrictions disappeared tomorrow would you start driving through red lights and murdering your fellows? — NOS4A2

I'd probably go through more red lights if I thought the rule wasn't enforced, sure. Murdering people, no.

People make up rules for many reasons. Sometimes they're justified, other times they're unjust. Some are commonsensical, others are aren't. I'm glad that we have made rules that punish people who break them.

True, we don't need a state for this. But to argue against any and all rules is absurd.

Maybe you can, but I cannot abide by controlling people’s lives and letting them control ours. — NOS4A2

I'm not controlling anything. People can do anything they want. You can go shoot up a school, obviously. Is that your idea of true "freedom"? Is creating laws that discourage or punish those acts "controlling"?

What a strange view of the world.

no one’s rights should be restricted — NOS4A2

My rights are restricted every time I drive a car. My freedom, my liberty, is restricted. If I want to go through a red light or drive on the left hand side of the road, I could be punished for it. Those are the rules, the laws. People create laws. People in government, voted in by and supposedly representing its citizens. That's how societies work -- at least republican style democracies.

By all means voice your opinion for why we shouldn't have any rules whatsoever. You'll be laughed out of town, and deservedly so.

Because they are there to benefit society as a whole not you personally. — Baden

And this really summarizes the heart of the matter, the taproot belief from which these absurd analyses emerge: a weird kind "individualism" a la Ayn Rand and company.

I guess the same people aren't in favor of stricter voting ID laws, or even registration. Why should I be inconvenienced when I've never committed voter fraud, and don't intend to?

Why should I have to sit in line for a driver's license, when I've never been in an accident and don't intend to?

I don't recall anyone asking ME if this was OK.

take them away almost entirely, like a vast majority of the nations in the world. — NOS4A2

Indeed paranoia -- at least to those like you who view this as some kind of nightmare scenario. In my view, way too HOPEFUL. It won't happen.

But if it did, can you imagine? We'd be more like that hell hole Japan -- practically no mass shootings or gun violence. What a dystopia. But wait -- even Japan doesn't fully ban guns. Ah well.

I guess requiring a driver's license was also government overreach, on their way to banning cars for its citizens. What came of that? Guess it may happen eventually, and isn't paranoid at all to think it will...

How has that approach been working out? — Tzeentch

Quite well, in terms of guns.

As the U.S. gun control debate intensifies, some Americans are looking overseas for ideas on how to prevent mass shootings. Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world. There were more than four firearm homicides in the U.S. per 100,000 people during 2019, compared to almost zero in Japan.

As CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports, Japan's strict laws on private gun ownership have surprising origins in the United States. She met Raphael, a well-known Japanese YouTuber who decided to take skeet shooting lessons. Despite being ex-military, he had to jump through all the same hoops that any Japanese civilian must clear to get a gun license.

There's mandatory training. You have to pass a written exam, plus a physical and mental health evaluation. Even then, the police will go and ask your family and friends whether you have any violent tendencies.

All said and done, Raphael told CBS News it took him a year to get his license, during which time the police even interviewed his wife.

Japanese police do carry handguns, but they're the only ones who can have them, and they're rarely drawn.

I wouldn't argue for even something as strict as this, but it goes to show...

(If you meant literally fentanyl, which was only an example, it's still being smuggled in illegally to the US from China through Mexico, so the amount is still quite abundant in the US.)

Why do the chosen nobility and their armies get to defend their borders but a single man cannot? — NOS4A2

Why do the rich get to drive cars and a single man cannot?

Oh wait, a single man can -- if he has the means, and goes through the proper training. It's almost as if the claim that a "single man cannot" is paranoid. :chin:

Well, so far you haven't shown a great deal of interest in the iceberg of suffering that underlies these killings either. — Tzeentch

I have -- in Deaths of Despair and elsewhere. Places where it's appropriate to highlight or emphasize the issue of mental health. Making mental health the focal point in a thread about gun control or when the topic is mass shootings is, as I mentioned, an NRA talking point and diversion tactic.

If fentanyl deaths skyrocketed in country Z, and it turned out country Z was an outlier not in drug use but in the amount of, and ease of access to, fentanyl -- then call me crazy, but my first priority would not be to discuss the prevalence of substance abuse. It would be to restrict the amount of, and ease of access to, fentanyl.

All the armaments of the United States armed forces--from ICBMs to pistols–do not contribute to the peaceful relations among our fellow citizens. What maintains peacefulness in society is the collective desire to avoid conflict as one goes about one's life. Internal peacefulness is not maintained by 300,000,000 guns either. — BC

Absolutely, and not only is paranoia used to justify having a gun (you know, to "protect yourself against the government" and "criminals" -- which is absurd enough), but it's also used to justify REGULATING guns. How? Well, any talk of gun control becomes the slippery slope: you want to BAN ALL GUNS and "disarm" your fellow law-abiding citizens!

Actually, there are a number of rational things to do:

* Requiring licensure and training, similar to driving a car (or truck, or motorcycle, or plane, or operating complex/dangerous machinery).

* Universal background checks.

* Wait periods.

* Banning assault weapons (except in rare circumstances)

* Better regulate gun shows and private selling.

* Harsher penalties for non-compliance.

Etc. etc. Plenty of sensible ideas, many of which are used in other countries who, lo and behold, have less gun deaths and whose governments haven't capriciously attacked its citizens.

I agree and would add that it is not just guns but a "gun culture" that promotes the idea that guns are the solution to two major threats, the government and criminals. — Fooloso4

True -- they go hand in hand. We wouldn't have the amount of guns nor the ease of access if it weren't for this gun culture, which has been deliberately manufactured over the years by gun companies -- but even if we had the gun culture with less guns and rational regulation, there would still be less shootings.

Perhaps if guns were banned and a sharp rise in school stabbings was observed, it would get people's heads out of the sand, hm? — Tzeentch

The health of the nation is important, no doubt. The same people who argue for more guns also argue against medicare-for-all and other programs that would help people, so pretending to care about "mental health" is laughable coming from them.

But yes, if we're serious about less violence overall, we should try creating a better society. In the meantime, guns need to be regulated rationally. Give me a nut with a knife over a nut with an AR-15 any day -- just ask the Uvalde cops.

As to owning a gun to defend myself and my family against criminals, it is not as if they are going to wait until I get my gun, load it, and point it at them before they point their loaded gun at me or a family member. Perhaps you sleep cuddling a loaded gun, but I think it far more likely that a gun in the house will do me or my family harm than good. — Fooloso4

As has been shown over and over again. To a paranoid gun manufacturing shill who's convinced himself that the government is nothing but evil, you have to be ready 24/7, carrying around a weapon at all times. Too many wild west movies as a kid (which were part of the gun propaganda, incidentally).

Anyway, yeah it's a ridiculous position. Not only paranoid, but also failing to look at other countries and failing to see that if the government wants to arrest you, they will. Daydreams about insurrections aside. It's just a life based on fear and a pathetic notion of "freedom."

Different types of mental illness manifest in different parts of the world, often relating to their culture. — Tzeentch

Yes, but you act as if this hasn’t been researched. It has— and the conclusion: it’s the guns.

Why are so many people depressed in Argentina? Thailand? Canada? Those are good questions. But the question, “Why do we have so many mass shootings in the United States?” is what I’m interested in.

Perhaps, some speculate, it is because American society is unusually violent. Or its racial divisions have frayed the bonds of society. Or its citizens lack proper mental care under a health care system that draws frequent derision abroad.

These explanations share one thing in common: Though seemingly sensible, all have been debunked by research on shootings elsewhere in the world. Instead, an ever-growing body of research consistently reaches the same conclusion.

I needn’t spell out what that conclusion is. So let’s talk about gun control. Hard to do if we’re distracted by NRA talking points about mental health.

There is, however, a very serious societal problem if that large a number of people are pushed that often to mass murder. — Isaac

Yes, which is why I dedicated an entire thread to it here.

Not sweeping it under the rug. But the issue here is gun control, and since other countries don’t have the mass shootings we do, despite the same problems with “mental health,” we should be emphasizing that.

And I don’t see the gun lobby pointing out the US’s outlier status. If they do, they talk about mental health. It’s simply the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” slogan masquerading as concern for healthcare — which the same people want destroyed.

Each dot is a country. If I told you the y axis was number of mass shootings and the x axis was number of guns, what do you think a rational human would conclude?

Any guesses on what country the top right dot is?

If the answer were no, wouldn't we expect to see similar events carried out with other weapons happening in the UK? People have committed massacres with common household objects like kitchen knives. Stomach churning to think about it, but alas there it is... — Tzeentch

In China, about a dozen seemingly random attacks on schoolchildren killed 25 people between 2010 and 2012. Most used knives; none used a gun.

By contrast, in this same window, the United States experienced five of its deadliest mass shootings, which killed 78 people. Scaled by population, the American attacks were 12 times as deadly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html

Its hard to settle on a specific breakdown of contributing factors but it seems to me that mental health is a significant factor yet gets ignored by and large. — DingoJones

On the contrary, it’s the go-to argument of the NRA-owned GOP. It also happens to be completely bogus.

In fact some research suggests that mental illness was a factor in 4% of mass shootings.

Once we get guns into everyone’s hands, as the gun manufacturers want, then at long last gun violence will be solved.

We’ll finally reach the lower levels of mass shootings achieved by…every other nation on earth.

Opioid crisis solution: give EVERYONE opioids!

All of this is a natural consequence of one stupid belief drilled into American brains for decades: everything the government does is bad. This belief was developed by the corporate sector so as to reduce regulations and increase profits.

You don't think kids committing mass murders is a mental health issue? — Tzeentch

Mass murders that wouldn’t happen without powerful weapons. Japan, Italy, Brazil, Britain, France, China…all have people with depression, anxiety, despair, violent ideation, suicidal ideation, etc. None have the rates of mass shootings that we do. Why?

To argue it’s because we have a greater rate of mental health issues is factually incorrect.

One has to really try hard to avoid the obvious: it’s guns.