US culture is not like other countries. I am just saying there may be a much deeper problem in US society because it is a cultural attitude held, and impressed, by the ruling body. — I like sushi

It addresses all that. The US is no more violent, has no more mental illnesses, and has no more crime than other developed countries. And even excluding the US, the same pattern emerges; the more guns there are the more mass shootings there are. Which is fucking obvious.

Obviously the ready availability guns eases mass murder — I like sushi

So put in steps to make mass murder harder, e.g strict gun regulations. And then at the same time address the causes.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/woman-fatally-shot-man-who-fired-rifle-into-party-crowd-police/3063451/

"“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett told news outlets Thursday."

So put in steps to make mass murder harder, e.g strict gun regulations — Michael

I wish. Apart from the over abundance of guns in the US is the fact that those guns can last for many generations. It's not like your TV set wearing out and being replaced or your car collapsing and being replaced. Each new gun produced does not replace one that is trashed. But a nation that cannot refrain from indulging in war is unlikely to stifle the production of weapons for its citizens.

But a nation that cannot refrain from indulging in war is unlikely to stifle the production of weapons for its citizens. — jgill

Exactly. Why most gun debates are superfluous.

Yeah … I did say my point/question was probably not relevant to the title of this thread.

for real though, background checks are kind of bullshit....said as someone who has gone through multiple of them.

"are u an unlawful user of marijuana?" "are you a terrorist?" "have you ever committed espionage against the us gov't?"

i guess it stops felons which is good? presumably the background check screens a criminal database but i think thats the extent of it if it does that. presumably if u self report being committed to a mental institution they'll tell you no. the background check is basically just there for you to send the message that you're a good, proper, patriotic american and that if you go shoot up a school the responsibility is on you and not the shop bc u passed the background check.

i guess the most important thing is that they're able to link a gun to a name.

The US is no more violent, has no more mental illnesses, and has no more crime than other developed countries. — Michael

Well … no. When it comes to homocides the US is WAY ahead. I have actually looked at the stats too you know ;)

True, around 80% of those are gun related … would all of those 80% have not found another means to commit murder though? It may well level out at around the same as some European countries. It well not be the case at all that taking guns out of the equation would reduce the homocide rate to something comparable to other western nations.

Clearly more strict regulations in the US are required for gun ownership. Having gun ranges seems okay to me but simply don’t let people take their guns home? The whole thing is completely foreign to me.

Well … no. When it comes to homocides the US is WAY ahead. I have actually looked at the stats too you know ;)

True, around 80% of those are gun related … would all of those 80% have not found another means to commit murder though? It may well level out at around the same as some European countries. It well not be the case at all that taking guns out of the equation would reduce the homocide rate to something comparable to other western nations. — I like sushi

From the article:

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.

The homicide rate is higher because there are more guns. It's easier to kill someone (or 20) with a gun than with a knife. That's precisely the problem.

I wish. Apart from the over abundance of guns in the US is the fact that those guns can last for many generations. It's not like your TV set wearing out and being replaced or your car collapsing and being replaced. Each new gun produced does not replace one that is trashed. But a nation that cannot refrain from indulging in war is unlikely to stifle the production of weapons for its citizens. — jgill

Compulsory buy-backs and ban the sale of ammo. That's what the UK and Australia did.

it is. — Moses

It isn’t. Stop the gun supply, and you lower mass shootings.

blaming it all on gun culture is not accurate. — Moses

he showed many red flags. — Moses

The United States, like every other country, has people with mental health issues. They are often a product of bad conditions and show warning signs.

The difference is the amount of guns. I’ll repeat this as many times as necessary. Michael posted at length an article that cites research on this issue.

The issue is the supply of guns. Government can very easily control and regulate this— as many other countries have done.

The US is no more violent, has no more mental illnesses, and has no more crime than other developed countries. And even excluding the US, the same pattern emerges; the more guns there are the more mass shootings there are. Which is fucking obvious. — Michael

Indeed.

The numbers of deaths caused by gun fire will very likely remain high because there is a surfeit of hand guns, rifles, and assault weapons. GUNS=DEATH.

As for the mental health of Americans, I would think that we are no crazier than people in other countries. At least, most of the people I have met in my life have seemed perfectly sane, even if they held insane political and religious views. I live in one of the states with the lowest rate of gun deaths (less than 10 per 100,000) and a liberal political culture (MN). Maybe if I lived in Mississippi I would think differently.

How much violence occurs in one's vicinity depends on where you live in the US. This map shows the distribution:



"Mass murder by gunfire" accounts for a slim fraction of gun deaths, 38 or 513 out of 19,384 murders carried out one-by-one in 2020, depending. ("Mass murder" is not clearly defined. It might be 20 at one go, or it might be 3, depending on the definition. Of course, it's crazy that we even have a statistic for mass murder, however vaguely defined.)

I like to cite the case of the Bath School massacre perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe on May 18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan, under the category "Nothing New Under the Sun." 38 elementary schoolchildren and 6 adults were killed, and at least 58 other people were injured after dynamite placed in the school was detonated. Kehoe, the 55-year-old school board treasurer, was angered by increased taxes and his defeat in the April 5, 1926, election for township clerk.

Prior to his timed explosives detonating at the Bath Consolidated School building, Kehoe had murdered his wife, Nellie Price Kehoe, and firebombed his farm. Arriving at the site of the school explosion, Kehoe died when he detonated explosives in his truck.

Was Kehoe insane? He was certainly obsessed -- the dynamiting of the school required considerable planning preparation. Apparently losing this election was intolerable (See Trump, 2020).

Are all of you just completely unaware of what an insurgency is and how it works?

We can talk about how likely it is for a government to misbehave to where a large part of the citizenry is willing to take up arms against it, but if that were to happen the army isn't going to stop it.

If the citizenry is unarmed? All you have is hopes and prayers that it never comes to that. An unshakable faith in the incorruptibleness of power structures - one that I do not share.

The power structures of the US and the EU, and probably of just about every other country in the world, are already corrupt. The only question is whether they'll turn violent.

This is a philosophy forum so it might be worth considering that the US has a different culture to other cultures around the world.

I am being rational. — I like sushi

No, you’re being incredibly irrational.

It has been considered, and studied in fact. What you’re asking me to do is ignore the glaringly obvious for the hypothetical. Maybe the US is an outlier for some completely mysterious reason— sure. Maybe that’s it. Maybe God hates us more— who knows?

Anything to avoid the rationality we employ on any other issue that hasn’t been engineered to be controversial by powerful interests.

It’s incredible. In any rational society, it’s obvious what the problem is. Here, it’s “perplexing.” “What is causing this?!”

It definitely has NOTHING to with the 400 million guns.

It addresses all that. The US is no more violent, has no more mental illnesses, and has no more crime than other developed countries. And even excluding the US, the same pattern emerges; the more guns there are the more mass shootings there are. Which is fucking obvious. — Michael

Absolutely.

Take the US out of the picture and ask the same question: is country X exceptional? Why are there so many people who want to kill? Must be video games or culture or …

We should treat people with mental illness. We should have better healthcare. We should improve our culture and conditions. In the meantime: control the gun supply and the availability of guns.

Flood any country on earth with guns and you’ll get more deaths by guns, more mass shootings, etc.

Simple and obvious to any rational observer who hasn’t been sucked into this false “debate.”

Well … no. When it comes to homocides the US is WAY ahead. I have actually looked at the stats too you know ;)

True, around 80% of those are gun related — I like sushi

So maybe it’s not guns, because we’re more violent than other countries for some cultural reason — and definitely not because of guns.

I have no clue as to why you’d want to come to this thread with hypotheticals when this problem is cut and dry. If you’re not a gun fetishist, what’s your point? “Maybe it’s not the guns”? Or “let’s talk about mental health”?

Come on.

We can talk about how likely it is for a government to misbehave to where a large part of the citizenry is willing to take up arms against it, but if that were to happen the army isn't going to stop it. — Tzeentch

There have been plenty of government overthrows in countries that don’t have close to the amount of guns the US does. Besides, guns weren’t needed to take over the Capitol building last year. Just a few thousand imbeciles whipped up into a frenzy.

Bottom line: Control the gun supply and harshly regulate accessibility. 400 + million guns is grotesque.

You would like me to have a fetish for guns I imagine. Would make life easier if everything was black and white.

You bore me. Bye

Are all of you just completely unaware of what an insurgency is and how it works?

We can talk about how likely it is for a government to misbehave to where a large part of the citizenry is willing to take up arms against it, but if that were to happen the army isn't going to stop it.

If the citizenry is unarmed? All you have is hopes and prayers that it never comes to that. An unshakable faith in the incorruptibleness of power structures - one that I do not share.

The power structures of the US and the EU, and probably of just about every other country in the world, are already corrupt. The only question is whether they'll turn violent. — Tzeentch

This is too stupid to engage with further

There's always been a high supply of guns in the US, gun ownership levels are consistent since at least the 1970s; the number of school shootings has increased drastically since the 2010s. Numbers have been very high in recent years. Peak levels. I suspect a mental health crises.

https://www.statista.com/chart/19982/number-of-us-k-12-school-shootings-per-decade/

You bore me. — I like sushi

Says the guy who, after a tragedy caused by the sickening amount of guns in this country, wants to "rationally" inquire about literally everything else.

Be bored somewhere else.

There's always been a high supply of guns in the US, gun ownership levels are consistent since at least the 1970s; the number of school shootings has increased drastically since the 2010s. Numbers have been very high in recent years. Peak levels. I suspect a mental health crises. — Moses

The supply of guns has increased substantially in this last decade, as I've shown in a previous chart.

Guns sold in the last two years went from an average of 1 million a month to 2 million a month. 2021 was the second highest year since 2000 for gun sales.



This has also been studied. The evidence is clear: it's guns. This is why the US is an outlier compared to other developed countries. Your gut feelings about "suspecting" a mental health crisis notwithstanding.

Oh, what part do you disagree with?

Read my previous responses to you, christ almighty

Those did not include any real response to my arguments.

What am I to make of what you said? That you apparently find it hard to envision governments doing unacceptable things to its citizenry? I don't find that hard to imagine at all. In fact, American history has more than a few blemishes that I guess you're quick to forget.

Just put a little bandaid over it and trust that your government won't do it again, eh?

Christ almighty.

History is full of lots of things that aren't coming back. You know, theoretically, we could all go back to riding horses and buggies everywhere instead of using cars, but being concerned about that happening to the point where you feel the need to build a stable in your backyard because IT HAPPENED BEFORE SO IT COULD HAPPEN AGAIN would be irrational. Similarly, if you know anything about how modern governments work, their relationships with business and the creation and directing of wealth, the idea that they would randomly decide to throw all that away so they could kill the consumers that keep laying golden eggs for them is if anything batshit crazier than us all going Amish.

Just put a little bandaid over it and trust that your government won't do it again, eh? — Tzeentch

Sorry to hear that others don't succumb to your persecutory delusions.

The government could come for us, so lets make sure we have a glut of guns, make billions of profits for gun manufacturers (who definitely aren't involved in setting the debate or influencing government), and cling to the fantasy that we'd heroically fend off the military.

Makes perfect sense.

But: ONE TIME SOMETHING HAPPENED SO IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN! YOU ARE NOT RESPONDING TO HIS ARGUMENT!

@Tzeentch

You are not going to be taken seriously nor do you have any actual argument unless you can provide a plausible sequence of events that would lead to the outcome you fear that takes into consideration a cost analysis for the parties involved. The powerful tend to act in their own best interests. That's how they get to be powerful. And that's a presumption that should form the basis of any analysis of their future behaviours, not morality or immorality or anything else. They are not out to get you, they are out to get something from you. So, whatever oppression they inflict is likely to be a bit more subtle than knocking you off.

Are all of you just completely unaware of what an insurgency is and how it works? — Tzeentch

You will never be an "insurgent" kindly go back to playing a video game with your mountain dew instead of enabling the regular murder of children. Comic-con is a far better place to play out your fantasies than the blood-stained walls of classrooms.

On one end we're being asked by Tzeentch to envision a vague government takeover that requires wide gun ownership to counter. Maybe if he repeats the phrase "armed peasants" in a mirror three times it will come true. On the other hand, we're also asked by @Moses to not use political imagination at all! Enforcement is too difficult, we cannot possible stop a determined mass shooter. So we're simultaneously being asked to use the fullest extent of our political imagination, i.e. a government takeover, in order to comprehend the necessity of gun ownership, as well as restrain our political imagination in order to accept the futility of gun control. — Maw

Yep. As long as nothing changes and kids continue to die, these LARPers will simply say anything from one end to the other.

Damn shame we can't even get imbeciles in here to commit to the current wave of psychotic responses for deterring mass shootings measures, all of which evade the direct problem of guns. In the last few days I've seen gun fanatics suggest arming teachers, single entrances in schools, replacing school cops with army veterans since the former are apparently too pussy to engage shooters. Instead we get role players, boooring.