Mass Shootings Are a Bad Way to Understand Gun Violence – FiveThirtyEight
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Actually there is a single solution, just because it may be difficult doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Look at what Australia did after the Port Arthur Massacre or the UK after Hungerford and Dunblane. There is an easily identified solution but most US politicians are either too cowardly (want to be re-elected), too corrupt (taking lots of money from NRA) or too stupid to make the connection.
How do you remove 400 million active firearms from the entirety of the nation? The situation with Australia is not analogous, you cannot map that one solution to a completely different context.
Constituents do not want to have their firearms taken away, the politicians aren't corrupt in this situation, they're doing exactly what they were elected to do. NRA's contributions to politicians aren't that impressive, what's impressive is that the organization has millions of members who very actively vote for their interests.
How do you explain a Breivik that happened in a heavily regulated country like Norway?
What do you want to do about trucks? Should we ban them too?
One can't say much good about Breivik, but he was committed. Most of the mass shootings in the US are done by some "looser" who a semi automatic from his mom.
You can't prevent murder, but you can make it harder.
Locks don't stops theft, but they sure make it harder.
People act like guns are only useful for committing crimes and mass shootings. Guns are a tool; we have a cultural problem, not a simple gun problem.
You have: a gun problem; poverty; a lack of opportunities (education); (mental) healthcare problems; police violence/murder; drug problems; prison condition problem; a sentencing problem; money in politics; issues with due process; ... the list goes on.
These all contribute to people feeling powerless, which presumably causes things like this. You should fix these issues, the rest of the civilized world has.
But hey, an obvious start to fixing this is strong regulation of firearms.
You're also imposing your cultural norms onto others. Guns and violence are simply a way of life for millions of people. Good luck taking those guns from your ivory tower.
> In an Age poll of 2058 Australians taken on 3-5 May 1996, 90 per cent of those surveyed supported a national ban on all automatic and semi-automatic firearms, 88 per cent supported firearms registration, 73 per cent thought that gun owners should pay an annual registration fee for each gun they own, and 69 per cent thought that gun owners should be required to store their guns at an armoury or with the police.
- http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departm...
Gun bans and buy-backs are much less successful if people won't willingly cooperate.
Forget "politically", gun confiscation cannot be successful on a practical level.
Note that the US Constitution doesn't grant the right to arms; it merely recognizes it. By what authority does would a government seek to take a right that it never had the power to grant?
I suggest you look into the stastics of shooting deaths in the U.S.. You'll quickly see that banning "assault" rifles is statistically insignificant, especially when considering the benefit of arms.
Do you require evidence? :) haha
- sorry, for bashing the US, but you make it so easy..
And if you are pointing at the election: It seems they feel they had two bad choices.
Could you elaborate on this? How would they be unified, and what would be the impact on gun violence?
Unified in terms of more economic equality. I think reliably good broadband could help for remote work. I think it would take several “New Deal” type projects.
Reducing the number of guns could have a significant impact on suicide rate by lowering the ability of people to end their lives within that brief window.
You dont think there will be minorities clinging to their guns?
Dont you think your comment is a bit racist?
Gun control in America has always been a racial issue. Black people have never been able to own guns as freely as white people, from the Black Codes to the Mulford Act to Marissa Alexander and Philando Castile today.
> You dont think there will be minorities clinging to their guns?
That there will be is entirely the point of my comment!
> Dont you think your comment is a bit racist?
No. I think America is a lot racist. And I think that will have implications on enforcement if gun control policies are enacted, and so we need to keep that in mind when considering what to enact.