In many regions of the US domestic violence is actually supposed to preclude you from obtaining firearms, which works about as well as you’d think.
5 Likes
Not at the CDC there’s not. But maybe that’s just my opinion.
2 Likes
Yes, but remember those same background checks are often done on the person who doesn’t have a DV charge which gets around the system. Plus, many people either don’t report such things or the police in/actively suppress the reports therein. So I guess my thought is that there’s an majorly underreported segment of DV that probably correlates well with gun violence beyond the typical armed robbery or suicide. Someone who has no qualms with hitting another person habitually won’t have much problems killing (eventually).
Note this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t regulate guns more closely. This is more about the question of what’s driving the violence itself beyond the gun. If there’s a larger problem beyond loopholes and sloppy background checks then we have to address that before it’s too late when there’s no drive to fix it (because why fix a thing you can’t detect or refuse to see?).
4 Likes
This is called a “straw purchase”, is illegal, and again, the illegality of it is enforced very poorly. It’s almost as if firearms should have more restrictions on their purchase/transfer than “can hand money over and pass a 30 second background check”.
…is irrelevant if the gun is not obtainable. Which is easier than breeding a special group of mind-reading psychics to be the only members of society who can sell guns.
5 Likes
You don’t need mind reading to deal with DV and related social norms which allow for violence of all kinds. It’s called therapy. I speak as someone from a family that has experienced quite a bit of DV with respect to my mother and sister. Also, I prefer an integral approach to problems that lead to mass shootings rather than just regulating the guns alone. We can walk and chew bubblegum at the same time with regard to this problem. So why oppose dealing with both cause and effect?
5 Likes
One is a simple matter of enacting regulations. The other is a long drawn out process that involves direct interaction with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people.
Prioritize, triage. Put the effort into the most immediately effective solution, then worry about furthering the mitigation of the problem beyond that. And don’t give certain types an out where they can claim to be attempting to be solving the problem by claiming to be concerned about mental health when in reality they do not care about mental health except in one single area which just happens to benefit organizations which have coincidentally given them millions of dollars.
1 Like
I don’t think there is a relation between DV and mass shooters, but in reading annual reports of large cities, DV is generally the 2nd leading cause to murder, after being involved in illicit activities. Indeed DV is the one thing that can get your right stripped even temporarily with out a trail. But as others pointed out, the law and enforcement are two different things.
That is an excellent question and IMHO the right frame of mind. In my research, my conclusion that the bulk of murders are criminals killing each other over other illicit activities. Drugs are one aspect, but there is a lot of other crimes outside and peripheral to that. Most murders occur in predominately poor ares. The US excels at segregating the poor, which means you have an area that just festers and gets worse and worse. Opportunities dry up, lack of public transportation means they can’t hope to get a job out side of their area, and the systemic racism doesn’t help either. I believe these things and more account for why the US is so violent overall. If you look at the worse cities for homicide, you will see that if the break it down by district, it is only certain areas that are awash in violence.
Now, that said, the homicide and violent crime rate has been going down since the mid 90s. Why? I have seen Roe v Wade taking some of the credit. The reduction of environment Lead taking credit. The massive incarceration taking credit. The reality is, we don’t really know for sure. But I am a firm believe that attacking social ills and providing opportunity is going to reduce crime and violence overall.
4 Likes
I’d be cautious about assuming anything from states like Wyoming. The population is so small that it is really easy to swing the numbers. The latest high profile school shooting would move Wyoming up 1 to 2 colors on the map.
1 Like
Civilian AR & AK Platforms are Semiautomatic - ie one bullet per trigger pull. Now, semiautomatic rifles are not simply constrained to ‘assault rifles.’ There are plenty of guns that are for a hunting market that are semi-automatic. But those rifles are typically expensive and not popular.
AR rifles are so popular because of their modularity and their accuracy/price ratio. I can buy one AR lower receiver (which is the serialized “gun” by ATF definition) and in seconds swap the barrel for a different caliber and/or optic/sight. This is really convenient and more importantly cost effective because I can have one rifle that can be for shooting pop cans, protecting my livestock from coyotes, hunting deer(if I was a hunter), protecting myself while hiking in bear country, competing in a long range shooting competition… You won’t find another rifle in the world you can do that with.
the civilian AR platform has created a huge industry of companies that make different components, from barrels all the way down to trigger springs. The AR has essentially become the firearm equivalent of the Honda Civic.
It is already difficult to get them. In my state a federal background check is required for every gun purchase. While the federal background check is instantaneous, if you want an AR/AK or any handgun, in addition you need to apply at your local police department for an annual permit where they perform another background check. That process takes about 2 weeks minimum. (If you feel you’re endangered, and the police agree, they can grant you an instant permit )
Not every state does this, and if they don’t, they should.
2 Likes
And if we made it more difficult for anybody to obtain firearms? Like in Japan? Is that where you were going, or where you just trying to deflect the argument away from the restrictions on firearms like every single argument crying for increased mental health care from every single other republican after every single mass shooting? The usual crocodile tears about “inner city violence” and “drug wars” and other dog-whistles?
4 Likes
Deaths by guns are a public health issue. The “agenda” they are pushing is a more peaceful society. Not a bad one, on the whole. And BTW, figuring this stuff out doesn’t equate with necessarily banning guns, which is I’m going to assume what you think the CDC is trying to do. KNOWING this information helps us to be better informed citizens and more able to decide who we want to represent us in congress and on the state and local level.
11 Likes
Not cool dude. I completely disagree on gun control issues with @Mister44, but there isn’t any need to be personal on the issue.
7 Likes
You’re on the wrong web site for that discussion, I’m afraid.
2 Likes
Super interesting. That big pink rectangle in Minnesota caught my eye, but I bet it’s really a small pink dot over Duluth, and it was probably a bar fight between a few longshoremen.
1 Like
Yes, please try FB or 4Chan.
1 Like
I concede that law was largely political. I wouldn’t have a problem with it being lifted. At the same time, I get why it was passed and I remember the attitudes of the time. Let us remember the current position of the FCC and the agenda they are pushing with Net Neutrality.
Like I said, I don’t have a problem with people not liking it, or wanting it changed. But stating it banned them from doing all research isn’t the reality, and thus I will correct as we go.
I also disagree that the law is really holding anything back. I don’t know what statistic people are clamoring for that will answer a pressing question. Maybe if I knew what that was I’d change my mind on the issue.
2 Likes
I think more people are upset (I am too) about the situation. You’d think after the Los Vegas shooting there would’ve been some legislation passed but it seems the NRA has that side of things locked up so tight that anything short of an LBJ style President could break the impasse. And it’s really sad because it’s not like a few well placed regulations wouldn’t reduce the numbers (they would). But I think there’s more room to look at a larger program to tackle the problem.
3 Likes
How about 17 dead kids? Or is that just “we need greater mental health care” too?
4 Likes
A poor comparison, since the FCC is pushing an agenda which is in active opposition to actual gathered data, and everyone with two brain cells to rub together is acutely aware of their shitbaggery. Yes, agendas can be bad. But if your definition of “bad agenda” extends so far that it encompasses “advancing policy proposals that are broadly in accordance with the data being gathered”, then there’s literally no way for actual evidence and reality to assert itself anywhere in policy-making, and we might as well just start howling at the moon for all the good it’ll do us.
7 Likes
Looking at the map @Barradeno posted immediately below your comment, it seems that may not entirely be the case.
Handguns may be the most involved in gun homicides, but some states seem not to fit with the correlation of handguns to overall gun deaths
- Montana, Wyoming, and Alaska, with quite high gun ownership and death rates, but lowish gun homicide rates
- California, with quite low gun ownership and death rates, but middling gun homicide rates
(all figures “low” “high” or “middling” relative to the US’s overall incredibly high rates of everything gun related, from the perspective of this non-US American)
3 Likes
