A gun IS statistically more dangerous than a car. We are not measuring it properly. Danger implies people. SO, if we could measure the number of people we are around when we are driving a car, vs. the number of people we are around when holding a loaded gun with the safety off, then we’d have a valid measurement. And we’d see that cars are MUCH safer than guns.
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I come at this from a slightly different angle (and that’s not to say I’m not in favor of some gun control…):
I look at why these people are shooting others- and I have to believe it’s because they feel like it’s their only option to address some grievances they have. They feel powerless or like they’re out of options- they’re desperate. So I’d ask: How do we address that desperation?
I’d argue that there’s a pretty shitty safety net in this country- lose a job, and there’s very little to keep you from not having a place to live or food to eat or health care access. What if we addressed that, in a fundamental way? What if it wasn’t easily possible to end up deeply behind the eight ball if your luck turns?
Maybe universal health care?
Maybe a guaranteed income?
Maybe a better way to voice opinions (and feel like you’re actually being heard)?
Something to help keep people from bottoming out so hard that they feel they have no other options.
I’m not so foolish as to think that this would eliminate all this- but I have to think it’d help. If you’ve got a safe place to stay, food in your belly, and a couple of coins in your pocket, even hard times can feel manageable.
But none of that will happen, because “we can’t be giving handouts” and “people need to earn their keep” and whatever. I’m crazy to think that humans deserve some basic level of dignity.
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Your argument is a like comparing home kitchen knife deaths to gun deaths, chainsaw deaths to gun deaths, lawn mower deaths to gun deaths…
Lawn mowers, chainsaws, kitchen knives, and cars all can be deadly weapons when used IMPROPERLY, but their intended purpose is something non lethal entirely.
Guns are manufactured in two forms and with two intentions. One gun type is used for hunting. The other is used in offensive and defensive human interactions (ie. Security, War, etc.). in ALL cases with guns the intended purpose is death. The evolution of guns in the U.S. has been an industry of engineering marvel to create more deadly and efficient killing machines. this is not up for debate. this is the reality, it is cold hard fact.
Guns are not kitchen aides. Guns are not transportation vehicles. Guns are not used to fell lumber and brush. Guns are not used to keep a trim lawn. Guns are manufactured and bought with the intent to harm another living creature. Any reasonable person can see and understand that guns for hunting are acceptable. Much like driving a car at safe speeds and under proper state of mind is also acceptable. Semi Automatic military grade weapons like the AR-15 are (if I can borrow your analogy) much like a drunk driver getting behind the wheel of a car and driving recklessly and well over the speed limit down a busy street.
So. No, its not simply people are scared of guns. As an Army veteran RET, I am willing to bet I have fired more weapons than you can even name. I am not scared of guns. I am scared of PEOPLE who have guns.
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If the priority is[quote=“AnthonyC, post:38, topic:70138”]
I’m sure many, maybe most, of those things are ineffective at reducing gun violence, but they’re good ideas anyway
[/quote]
Thanks for clearing that up.
If the manufacture and sale of guns were to be banned entirely in the USA
(a) it might work as well as the ban on marijuana and cocaine
(b) inside of five years, fully functional semi auto (and probably full auto) guns will be 3D printable using relatively cheap hardware (hurray for general-purpose computing!!)
(c) there is an existing universe of some 270 million guns in civilian possession (and imagine how gun sales would skyrocket before that ban was finally validated by the courts)
Decades could pass before such a ban had any significant effect on gun deaths. You want to cut gun deaths rapidly, you have to go and take away guns from those who have a propensity to use them.
The vast majority of those people are criminals. Common sense 100.
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I think he meant directly. The rest of his comment pretty clearly implied that these policies would indirectly decrease gun violence.
I tend to agree. I mean, you’re obviously really against gun control, but the proposal here is to decrease gun violence without a gun control policy and you still object. But your own ideas certainly leave something to be desired. How does confiscating weapons decrease criminal violence when, by your own admission, there are too many guns for banning to have any effect? Jailing people doesn’t seem terribly effective either, considering the recidivism rate or the fact that a felony conviction pretty much guarantees you’ll never be successful in life.
Then again, it always seems as though your goal is to prove you’re smarter than other people rather than actually contribute to the discussion, so I guess carry on.
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So you’re advocating doing fuckall, then, yeah? That’s working awesome as you can see the the very headline of the post. Unless you can think of some solutions, you’re part of the “oh, well, nothing can be done,” problem.
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Here’s some data on this assumption, comparing the US (where guns are relatively easy to acquire legally) and France (where guns are not at all easy to acquire legally).
France:
Number of firearms per 100 people: 31.2
Homicide rate, 2008: 1.4 per 100,000
Firearm-related Homicide rate, 2009: 0.22 per 100,000
United States
Number of firearms per 100 people: 112.6
Homicide rate, 2009: 5 per 100,000
Firearm-related Homicide rate, 2013: 3.55
(the numbers above are from Wikipedia and The Guardian; The Guardian pulled its numbers from a 2011 UNODC report on Global Homicide)
The number of illegal firearms in France is estimated to grow at a rate over 10% per year, according to Al Jazeera article. And the Toulouse, Hebdo, and Paris attacks all utilized illegally obtained weapons.
Cory’s claim that 2015 is the deadliest year in US History seems false. I’m not sure where that info is coming from. Most years in US History were more deadly than 2015, so far. The mass shooting tracker only has data for 2013 through 2015, so I’m not sure how we compare to the rest of US History. While there are well-reported homicide spikes in several US Cities (Baltimore and St. Louis, for example), there are less well-reported drops in other US Cities. Moreover, those spikes and drops do not seem to reflect the overall trend in the US for 2015.
The violent crime rate in the United States fell 50% between 1990 and 2014 (https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/table-1). My thinking is that we should just keep doing what we’ve been doing, but try to do it better.
So here in the state of Victoria, Australia, road safety is looked after by the TAC (Transport Accident Commission). It recently ran a new road safety ad series, campaigning for a zero road toll. The main tv ad posed the question ‘what is an acceptable number of people dying in vehicle accidents?’ by showing how many people are directly and peripherally affected when someone dies in a road crash. Of course, the only possible answer is ‘zero’. I think the same thinking can be applied to America’s gun death toll.
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Sweet. Can we start with the police? They’ve killed <a href=“http://killedbypolice.net"target=”_blank">1092 of us this year as of yesterday. (At least that’s the number that have actually made it to some form of journalistic-type media. There could be more.)
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Based on reading between the lines in the OP, Cory seems to have meant deadliest in terms of raw count of mass shootings.
#CertainLivesMatter
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Just curious, but in this scenario how would “gang” be defined? A group of three or more non-white males between the ages if 18-35, or ?
Would it include any defined group with a hierarchy and gun ownership, so as to include white militias & white extremists along with many church congregations and any “grouping” of white Christians who are also, predominately, gun owners? Or is this idea just for minorities?
While you’re on the subject, why not focus all the time, effort & expense such a program would represent and instead focus it on why gangs exist in the first place and instead do something about creating a set of policies that attack the roots of institutional poverty such as joblessness, education, mental health (lack of availability & stigma) & many many other causes vs just cracking down on the symptoms.
Boing.
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Don’t forget you also get drivers education in school.
Why we don’t provide basic gun safety education in our schools is beyond me. Oh wait, it’s the same reason we don’t provide good sexual education. Nutters who believe that if they don’t teach it then the wee will never be exposed to it.
Where in reality, they are exposed & just unprepared. Results include teen pregnancy & accidental shootings. Yay.
Most every kid has genitals. The vast majority of Americans have no personal interest in owning a gun. If anything that kind of class should be mandatory for people who want to own a gun, not for everyone else.
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Remind me again why Americans are so afraid of Muslims and foreigners…
Gun safety education isn’t going to reduce mass shootings.
These aren’t accidents.
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Yea, cuz only gun owners are the only ones who ever come across guns & kids in school already know if they’re ever going to own a gun or be in a house with a gun. Don’t be foolish.
Not to throw a trump, but I speak from personal experience. A friend of a friend threw a party, someone found his dad’s gun & a mate got shot in the chest. The shooter had never held anything other than a water pistol before and his parents were adamantly anti-gun, so curiosity of the proverbial forbidden fruit got the better of him. It’s the first parable in the timeline of the book people. C’mon!
Until we realize the only cure for ignorance is education we’re doomed to commit foolish acts.
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Didn’t say it would. It wouldn’t make more tho would it?
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I disagree.
I live in Canada, where the probability of me acquiring and owning a gun is quite low, so I don’t think we need gun classes up here.
However, in the States, the process of “not wanting to own a gun” to “wanting to own a gun” to “owning a gun” can take under a week. That doesn’t seem likely to change.
If the NRA won’t let you restrict gun ownership to those who are properly educated, then ensuring that all potential gun owners are properly educated seems to be the next best thing.
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