As someone who comes from a family with at least one gun owner with a history of mental "issues", I would like to see both an assault weapon ban & mental health screenings. I'm the only member of my family that doesn't own a firearm & isn't preparing for race riots &/or some other form of supposed apocalypse. I think that one week alone with my family would change the mind of anyone that doesn't want either of these things. You simply have no idea just how many scary people there are that have access to enough weapons & ammunition to level a mall or two full of people.

Sometimes it's easy to get jaded by hearing awful news. Not just about this sort of thing, but about the feeders that gather around this sort of thing. The WBC in particular, I often find myself in a rut saying "What awful thing have they done now?"
http://www.humanevents.com/2012/12/15/westboro-cult-plans-on-protesting-sandy-hook-funerals/

-This goes a bit beyond that. When I read this, I had a genuine physical reaction, just a... complete loss, I can't really phrase it properly.

yeah...I know that a more morally refined person might say those guys are not worth the energy it takes to hate them. But i really do.

That might do some good, but it's pretty debatable as to whether the problem is even big enough to be warrant the effort. Decreasing media hysteria would likely help even more, and have the added benefit a not exacerbating our willingness to be emotionally exploited by sensationalism (which is really a much larger issue here).


If we are honest with ourselves, it's pretty hypocritical to call things like this a crisis. It's only shocking because it gives privileged, secure people a very tiny bit of empathy with the kind violence that the nation's impoverished minority groups have to deal with on a daily basis. It's pretty dumb to waste our time attention and money on problems that are statistically about a smaller danger to society than kiddie pools. If we can't step back and look past reactionary hype, we will just become a nation of easily manipulated, sentimental hypocrites. It's ok to acknowledge a particularly horrible event, but if we allow that to destroy our sense of perspective we become dangerous fools. 9/11 was a pretty big deal, but it wasn't so big that it justified a decade of paranoid invasions of every country that looked at us funny.

It's only a crisis if the people deem it so. Many folks are easily affected when kids it's kids in an elementary school that are affected. (I'll also point out that it has nothing to do with race or class, and that if an all black school were shot up in a similar manner we'd hear about it in the news.) Anyway, the isolated event may not matter statistically, but it would be retarded to just forget about it. As Rahm Emanuel said, "never let a serious crisis go to waste". If you don't want to make a crisis out of this, nothing will be done, which would be what the NRA wants. (I'm guessing you're not an NRA supporter.)

I'll also add that it so obviously is a crisis in objective terms if the United States is so far ahead of every other country in the world in terms of gun violence. Perhaps an unsolvable crisis, but a crisis nevertheless.

And, please don't tell me you were comparing the overreach of the military following 9/11 to increased gun control. **** the second amendment for all I care; how the heck is more regulation comparable to military overreach / slaughter in foreign lands?

If a poor school were shot up in a similar manor it would be all over the news, but many poor kids have to suffer equivalent violence in a manor that isn't very newsworthy. Nothing needs to be done about mass shootings because they are sufficiently rare and unrelated to more pressing issues as to not warrant very much attention. "Fixing" mass killings is not going to help the extremely high level of violence that exists in the US, even if such a fix could be effectively achieved. It's a bad use of effort, and it only will only reinforce the hysteria that provides the motives for mass killings in the first place.



Mass shootings have little to no connection to the types of crime that account for nearly all violence. Secondly, the US is *not* ahead of every other country in the world in terms of gun violence. Where on earth did you get that idea? It is ahead of most first world countries for both violence and gun violence.

Focusing on guns is focusing only on the symptoms. There are plenty of demographics in the US where violence of any kind isn't a big issue, because they don't suffer from the underlying social issues that are driving violence in the US. We need to be worrying about the social issues, not dicking about with methods for treating the symptoms that have only unscientific, casually intuitive support. How about biting the bullet and spending the money to fix ****ty inner city schools? How about starting a huge sex ed campaign to prevent teen pregnancy? How about social programs designed to let kids relocate to get away from dangerous and destructive social environments? How about sweeping and progressive prison and police force reform? I'm normally more of a Laissez-Faire kind of guy, but our government's racist policies are directly responsible for creating this problem, so we can damn well pay some taxes to fix it.



Please put more effort into your reading comprehension. That *entire* paragraph did not mention guns at all, nor was I making a point about guns. I was talking about how sensationalism compromises our ability to rationally question the direction of national policy.

Sorry about the sloppy claim re: U.S. rank in the world. I should have made the comparison to Canada, Australia, and Europe alone.

Even if stopping massacres with increased gun control wouldn't decrease violence in general, don't you think it would be worth implementing (if only the stupid redneck states would for once value human life over their ideology)?

Well, what sort of gun control are you referring to?

Well, even if it would completely stop them, no. Why? There are any number of other things that we could also ban to get a similar or greater savings of life. Even banning kiddie pools would save many more lives than eliminating mass killings, and with a lot more certainty to boot. If your goal is to legislatively prevent all possible deaths, you could put restrictions or taxes on just about every single aspect of life. I and probably most other people don't think that giving up our various freedoms is worth the marginal gain in our survival probability. Some things are worth regulating or banning, but I think you have to draw the line somewhere. And if you disagree, that's fine, but there are many, many other things that you would also have to ban or restrict if you want to be consistent. Deaths due to mass killings aren't even going to be very high on the list.

Nobody on the left is seriously talking about banning all guns. What I don't understand is how limiting the availability of high magazine, rapid fire rifles to insane people is a violation of our "freedoms". To even talk about this in terms of trade-offs is ludicrous, since the sensible policy is not "inconsistent" in effectiveness vs. sacrifices, but would merely resemble what most western European countries have implemented. The only folks standing in the way are the NRA and the radical right.

I don't know if any gun control policies would actually work, but I personally would be willing to sacrifice my "right" to cheaply, quickly, and painlessly obtain any sort of weapon that is able to kill more than a few people in short order. I don't know what kind of background checks are currently required to purchase a high powered rifle or semi-automatic handgun, but from the discussions here I think it's clear the policies need to be made stricter if they are to work at all. Beyond that, it would be great if it were impossible to obtain even semi-automatic weapons, but this is probably impossible.

Finally, if it weren't for the second amendment, it would be nice if the policy were more like that in the UK.

Man, what the hell is going on this month? We have a mall shooting in Oregon, some guy in China slashing kids, and now some guy in Connecticut shooting up Elementary school kids.

well, within California where i live there are some of the strictest gun control laws in the US*. However California also places number 13 in highest number of gun murders per 100,000 people**. granted there are probably a large number of those committed with handgun that were NOT obtained through legal avenues. We also have a fairly extensive set of regulations regarding mental health and firearms***.



* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California
** http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state
*** http://www.mabpro.com/resource/docs/cal_firearmsProhibitionForm.pdf

I wouldn't argue that steps taken to limit the number of massacres would decrease gun violence in general. That would probably require a pistol ban, which is not something this country would accept or adjust to under any circumstances. The better route on this avenue would be to follow Obi_Kwiet's sentiments on reducing "inner city" poverty, the allure of "gangster" lifestyle, the glorification of pistol brandishing thugs in television, etc.

I would be curious to know, however, whether there have been fewer massacres in California. I did come up with this, which was in the `80s and involved an uzi.

Actually, Wikipedia seems to have a list of massacres by state:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_California#California

It would be interesting to look for correlations with massacre victims per capita and the level of weapon availability. Of course, the weapons may have come from out of state or through illegal means....

Hmm, looking at that list, the recent Oakland school massacre involved a semi automatic pistol. I think it would be very very difficult to regulate the trafficking of pistols, short of controlling the production of all ammunition (banning handguns in a city would be a joke, and by the supreme court isn't an option anyway).

I don't think it would ever be possible to control the flow of ammunition in a spatially vast place like the U.S., however... if that ever happened, there would certainly be massive smuggling from Mexico, and instead amplify the crime problems in our cities. It kind of seems our crazy gun culture is forever.

i love how they keep repeating it on the news. like seriously report something that's actually relevant...and i love how the politicians are using it as a excuse to strip some of our 2nd amendment rights away. heartless bastards.

indeed, just look at the statistics for Washington D.C. It's number one in the nation for murders(by firearm) per 100,000 residents and guns are all but outright banned.
Again, I am not advocating that nothing be done.
However, I don't personally think that European style gun control where it is nearly, functionally impossible to own a handgun a reasonable direction. You want to register the gun, require a license and mental health and background check with a waiting period before i can actually take the weapon home? Great! Make it so!

That sounds like a workable plan. One aspect that might be tricky would be to ensure that individuals don't lend a firearm to a non-licensed family member. Recusant mentioned that the in the UK the threat of losing one's license deters this, but conservatives would surely be "up in arms" if their ability to treat their weapons in a very casual and informal manner were in any way hampered by "government bureaucrats" and paperwork.

OTOH, forcing them to do this might actually promote good gun safety practices (designating an owner and keeping the firearm locked and unloaded), ultimately reducing the number of 6 year olds in Texas who accidentally shoot themselves.

I DON'T CARE THAT THOUSANDS OF HANDGUNS ARE USED EVERY YEAR TO MURDER OTHER PEOPLE! I HAVE HANDGUNS AND I DON'T MURDER ANYONE WITH THEM. MY RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE LIVES OF OTHERS!

I believe it's already illegal to sell guns to insane people, but it's not well enforced. A mental health check doesn't sound like a bad idea, but it could have issues when it comes to implementation. What would the criteria be for determine that someone can use a firearm? How could they be consistently standardized? Would those criteria perhaps discourage people from sharing their problems with health professionals? How difficult would they be to fake by the type of person we are trying to thwart? How much would it cost? Ect, ect. "Making things stricter" is a meaningless mandate that tends to be made by people who want results from a system that they haven't really give much consideration, and often causes a large number of issues while failing to address it's goal.



That could be said about alcohol, fast cars, a number of sports, privately owned pools, and a lot of other things that don't immediately come to mind.


A cover charge might work. People who commit violent crime are going to tend to be poor, so a one time 3000$ license would probably keep prevent a lot of undesirable sales. You could do all the private transactions you wanted, but only to people who have the license. Certian people would be able to get exceptions, and in return, we could get rid of that stupid 1986 automatics weapons ban.

Sorry Antony. I just don't agree with you on this one. As much as some people will try and say this makes me a bad person, no, it does not.

Yes, because contact sports between consenting individuals, powerful cars, swimming pools, and a lot of other things are all created specifically to kill other things.

I like your apples. Here are some oranges for you to compare them to.

Yeah, it's already illegal. By federal law it's illegal to sell firearms to people who are identified as "mentally defective" but to my understanding the law does not define what constitutes a mentally defective person. Someone with MS? Someone who was prescribed antidepressants as a child? The definition is meaningless to the point where the law is useless.

Another problem with the current approach is that firearms sellers depend upon public databases to determine if someone has a history of mental illness. At least in the VT, Aurora, and Tucson shootings, this information was never entered into a database (for VT the shooter was professionally evaluated but his history was never properly reported, for the other two they were expelled from school over concerns but not professionally evaluated). So, obviously, the current enforcement practices are not effective even where the law should be.

I think it's pretty obvious that, in order for mental health screenings to be effective, they need to be an active part of firearms licensing and not just part of a passive background check.

The reason people suggest making things stricter is because it's, at the very least, a step forward. America's love affair with gun violence is a cultural problem. How do you fix a defective culture and stay tolerant of bad behavior?

I don't think that those things are analogous to firearms. Also, all of the above are regulated to some extent, though maybe not seriously enough. The key difference being that firearms have a primary purpose--to kill. Granted--they can be used for other purposes (e.g. sports) & there may be an argument in support of defense (personal & community) & hunting, but we can ban those weapons that aren't necessary for the participants of the above without violating the SCOTUS' interpretation of the 2nd amendment.

Good luck defining any of those terms to the satisfaction of more than like, four people.

Wow, two posts and this thread turned into exactly what I had hoped it wouldn't.

****heads.

this thread has gone full retard

"What it was created specifically for" is irrelevant. It isn't as if guns have no other purpose than to kill people. Target shooting, hunting and historical collecting are all competently legitimate sports and activities enjoyed by huge numbers of people. What matters is whether taking away those activities from people can reasonably be expected to save more lives than are lost by other, similarly popular actives that are also tolerated.



It's not necessarily a step forward. It's not like there's any real science connecting gun control with lower violence rates. It's all just silly conjecture. Simply being stricter about things is just an attitude that wants a solution now but doesn't care how or if it will work, or what the secondary consequences are.

You don't have to take away those recreational activities. They can be done in sanctioned spots, just like drinking, contact sports, and racing cars. If you can't deal with the fact that you have to go to a special place, then engage in safety protocols to enjoy something that is fundamentally dangerous, then you don't deserve the responsibility of doing it to begin with.

Edit: Nevermind, not worth the post. Agree with Antony. Gun control, and especially bullet control, would do nothing to affect the casual "gun user"

You could always institute a background check along the lines of what it takes to get a top secret security clearance, and make the applicant pay for it.

And I'm going to agree with mscbuck, as well as the president in saying that if changes result in ONE LESS death, then they're worth it.

Edited my post and screwed over Antony, but yes, I did say that. Increased gun control has minimal to no cost, but a bigger than that marginal gain. It's about making people wait before they take their actions, not about anything to do with guns. It's giving them the time to dwell on their actions and seek help, which if it were more freely available, would happen a lot more.

But it's mah god given raight to own a raffle iffen ah wants to!

This is kinda interesting:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/ten-country-comparison-suggests-theres-little-or-no-link-between-video-games-and-gun-murders/

Scary how far up the US is on the death chart =s

Countdown to some non-statistics-getters saying "oh ho there's actually an inverse correlation!"

lol, from the wapo article:


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I love it when wrongposters tell other people to get educated.

Seems like we should really be focusing (long term) on preventing people from becoming so mentally unstable the feel the need to kill everything around them. Maybe we can start with eliminating the bullying that leads to emotionally damaged adults that have been marginalized their entire lives.

Yes, let's start a war on bullying! I'm sure we can find a place for it between the war on drugs and the war on terror.

I didn't say it was practical, but everyone wants a scapegoat to point a finger at and an easy fix so they can feel satisfied that it's "taken care of." There are far more complicated systemic issues than availability of guns. But, that's an effective short term fix.