Lol these fucking people think they are in a video game. — Streetlight
he yelled from his glass prison. — Tzeentch
Mental health problems exist in every country. Access to guns is the distinguishing factor.specifically at gun control. My point is why everyone is obsessed with this debate rather than focusing more carefully on what drives someone to kill in the manner they do in the US whilst in other countries this kind of thing is rare. — I like sushi
But there is one quirk that consistently puzzles America’s fans and critics alike. Why, they ask, does it experience so many mass shootings?
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.
The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns.
...
Worldwide, Mr. Lankford found, a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds it would experience a mass shooting. This relationship held even when he excluded the United States, indicating that it could not be explained by some other factor particular to his home country. And it held when he controlled for homicide rates, suggesting that mass shootings were better explained by a society’s access to guns than by its baseline level of violence.
...
If mental health made the difference, then data would show that Americans have more mental health problems than do people in other countries with fewer mass shootings. But the mental health care spending rate in the United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita and the rate of severe mental disorders are all in line with those of other wealthy countries.
A 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues. And Mr. Lankford, in an email, said countries with high suicide rates tended to have low rates of mass shootings — the opposite of what you would expect if mental health problems correlated with mass shootings.
Whether a population plays more or fewer video games also appears to have no impact. Americans are no more likely to play video games than people in any other developed country.
Racial diversity or other factors associated with social cohesion also show little correlation with gun deaths. Among European countries, there is little association between immigration or other diversity metrics and the rates of gun murders or mass shootings.
...
America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds with differences in gun ownership.
Americans sometimes see this as an expression of deeper problems with crime, a notion ingrained, in part, by a series of films portraying urban gang violence in the early 1990s. But the United States is not actually more prone to crime than other developed countries, according to a landmark 1999 study by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California, Berkeley.
Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed, that American crime is simply more lethal. A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process.
They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns.
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.
Real world experience shows that it does make a difference. See this.Like I said, what if guns were taken out of circulation yet the degree of violence continued with cases of stabbings that effectively made little difference to the kill count? — I like sushi
I'd say history and in recent times the track record of the United States military (the world's most advanced military) speak to the contrary.
Peasants with rifles are apparently not so easy to get rid of, no matter how much barbarism one is willing to resort to. — Tzeentch
Can you explain how making it easy for people in violent neighbourhoods to get guns makes them less violent? It seems you are making the argument for gun control here. — Baden
Government serves us by enforcing a system of social relations that's conducive to mutually beneficial interaction and general personal security. The cost is we play ball and obey the law. Overall, it's a reasonable trade. — Baden
Fretting about Mad Max scenarios, or fantasising about vanquishing tanks and planes with guns is a sad and delusional way to live, and completely unnecessary. — Baden
Because you're afraid to give up the Call of Duty simulator in your head. — Streetlight
It is exactly what would stop it. — Tzeentch
My point is why everyone is obsessed with this debate rather than focusing more carefully on what drives someone to kill in the manner they do in the US whilst in other countries this kind of thing is rare. — I like sushi
Like I said, what if guns were taken out of circulation yet the degree of violence continued with cases of stabbings that effectively made little difference to the kill count? — I like sushi
we all want these shootings to stop but the enforcement aspect is very very difficult. — Moses
No it isn’t. — Xtrix
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