In the 334 days of 2015, America has seen 351 mass shootings (and counting)

[Brainspore]

@jamesnsc

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.

The odds of a kid deciding to drive a car are much higher than the odds of a kid deciding to own a gun. But driver safety classes aren’t mandatory for those who have no interest in getting a driver’s license.

[Brainspore]

@nimelennar

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.

Actually Canadian citizens are about as likely to own guns as American citizens, though there are far more guns-per-capita in the US due to all the collectors and fetishists down here. Your countrymen also tend to buy more hunting rifles and fewer handguns. Something like 60-70 percent of households in the Yukon own guns.

@nimelennar

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.

And that’s why I think gun safety classes should be a requirement for gun ownership and we should have severe criminal penalties for irresponsible gun owners. Leave the rest of us out of it.

[anon27007144]

But there’s only data for the past three years? Or is the additional data somewhere else on the site?

[FunkDaddy]

I’d be against mandatory weapons training for the same reason I’m against police militarization. Normalizing the extreme is bad public policy. Most people have no use, and currently, little interest in firearms.

The NRA, many major media outlets, political factions in and out of government, persons bent on promoting violence all want people to walk around armed all the time. A big tool is normalizing the object. Keep it on you at all times. These people benefit materially, think they do, and always enjoy having their bias confirmed on this hot-button issue that they are willing to base their entire identity around.

They want the tinderbox that results from normalizing extremes, they’ve got the matches and are frustrated each time the kindling doesn’t catch. The rest of us need to keep the wood wet with reason.

And to all you dipshits saying there’s nothing anyone can do, that’s loser talk, GTFO.

[nimelennar]

@Brainspore

@nimelennar

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.

Actually Canadian citizens are about as likely to own guns as American citizens, though there are far more guns-per-capita in the US due to all the collectors and fetishists down here. Your countrymen also tend to buy more hunting rifles and fewer handguns. Something like 60-70 percent of households in the Yukon own guns.

Perhaps - I’m not aware of the statistics - but we Canucks require training before we hand out firearms.

@Brainspore

@nimelennar

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.

And that’s why I think gun safety classes should be a requirement for gun ownership and we should have severe criminal penalties for irresponsible gun owners. Leave the rest of us out of it.

Love to. You get those gun safety classes passed as a requirement for gun ownership, and I’ll stop advocating gun safety for everyone else, the same way that I don’t advocate for it in my home country.

[Brainspore]

@nimelennar

You get those gun safety classes passed as a requirement for gun ownership, and I’ll stop advocating gun safety for everyone else, the same way that I don’t advocate for it in my home country.

I see no reason to believe “all Americans must take gun safety classes” would be easier to legislate than “all American gun owners must take gun safety classes.”

Again, we don’t even make driver safety classes a requirement for all students and Americans are MUCH more likely to seek a driver’s license than a gun.

[wysinwyg]

Dunno, just offering my interpretation of Cory’s statements without editorializing. This is obviously a problematic statistic to use for this purpose for several reasons, so I’m not endorsing it.

[enso]

@anon78706664

But the overarching narrative promulgated by the media and the President of the United States is false.

So we don’t have a mass shooting every day?

[enso]

@lolipop_jones

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.

You’re right. We should do nothing. Let people die. Move on.

See you tomorrow.

[Mister44]

While we are sharing interesting statistics, here is a detailed keeping of the violence in one of our largest cities with some of the worst violence. Largely ignored except for the local news and the occasional national article. I guess poor minorities killing themselves just doesn’t capture the imagination like mass shootings of “normal” folk. The actual bulk of gun crime looks like this:

2018 Stats | Chicago Murder, Crime & Mayhem | HeyJackass!

Fun for the whole family, including a record of the number of people shot in the junk (which seems high. Are people aiming for that?)

[enso]

@Mister44

While we are sharing interesting statistics, here is a detailed keeping of the violence in one of our largest cities with some of the worst violence. Largely ignored except for the local news and the occasional national article. I guess poor minorities killing themselves just doesn’t capture the imagination like mass shootings of “normal” folk.

You’re right. Let’s do nothing because I have yet to see a proposal from you or pro-gun people that lays out your plan to get us out of this hole without restricting gun ownership to some degree and putting more regulations in place. So, what’s your plan?

[nimelennar]

@Brainspore

I see no reason to believe “all Americans must take gun safety classes” would be easier to legislate than “all American gun owners must take gun safety classes.”

I think that it’d be much easier to get the NRA onboard with it, as they think that guns should be ubiquitous. On the other hand, Democrats might get onboard because it would be a step towards preventing gun accidents at home. If it’s marketed well, it might work as a bipartisan effort.

Or it might not: I’m not intimately familiar with the party positions on everything in the States.

@Brainspore

Again, we don’t even make driver safety classes a requirement for all students and Americans are MUCH more likely to seek a driver’s license than a gun.

Yes, but, again, there is some sort of limit on who can acquire and drive a vehicle in the States. There is much less of a limit on who can acquire and use a gun.

Until you can impose such limits, education seems a responsible course of action.

[jamesnsc]

You’re right. Let’s do nothing. That seems to be working.

[Brainspore]

@jamesnsc

You’re right. Let’s do nothing. That seems to be working.

Nothing is the opposite of what I’m proposing we do.

I just don’t see the logic in “there’s too much political resistance to pass a law requiring gun owners to take gun safety classes, but surely we could pass a law requiring EVERYONE to take gun safety classes.”

[nimelennar]

@Brainspore

I just don’t see the logic in “there’s too much political resistance to pass a law requiring gun owners to take gun safety classes, but surely we could pass a law requiring EVERYONE to take gun safety classes.”

Here’s my logic:

Law requiring gun owners to take gun safety classes = restriction on gun ownership

Law requiring EVERYONE to take gun safety classes = not a restriction on gun ownership

The NRA is opposed to restrictions on gun ownership, not to gun education, so this cuts them out. Heck, they might even approve of it.

[Brainspore]

@nimelennar

Law requiring EVERYONE to take gun safety classes = not a restriction on gun ownership

It’s a restriction on everyone, gun owner or no.

@nimelennar

The NRA is opposed to restrictions on gun ownership, not to gun education, so this cuts them out. Heck, they might even approve of it.

Even if they did I prefer not to let them set the terms. Seriously, fuck them.

[Mister44]

My plan would be legalize drugs to help reduce the gang violence. Worked wonders with the end of prohibition.

I would like to see people who fail the NICS check at least reviewed and possibly jailed. If a prohibited person is trying to buy a gun legally and fails, I doubt he/she is just going to give up like that.

Ending the social ills that makes people desperate enough to fight over nothing or kill during an argument would help, but that is a vast complex issue I don’t have expertise to suggest specifics. Violent crime in general though is on a downward trend as is gun crime in most areas. So we must be doing something to affect this, even if it is relatively slow. Racial equality - true equality I think would do wonders, but that has proved to be a struggle as well.

Ironically, the police had to drag an armed guy off the roof across the street from my GF house last night. She lives in a crap neighborhood but crazy shit like that is almost normal she says.

[Mister44]

@Brainspore

I just don’t see the logic in “there’s too much political resistance to pass a law requiring gun owners to take gun safety classes, but surely we could pass a law requiring EVERYONE to take gun safety classes.”

I am all for education. I don’t see the point in mandatory for OWNERHSHIP.

Gun crime isn’t from lack of education on how to use a gun. Hell we are probably lucky that more people aren’t shot as many criminals are not good shots.

Education would help lower ACCIDENTS, but they account to a small fraction of gun deaths. 800 a year (some of those are suicides ruled as accidents), vs 12000 gun crimes and vs 19000 suicides. Education would do NOTHING to stop homicides and suicides.

Furthermore in MOST states if you use your gun in PUBLIC you DO have to take education courses. You have to pass Hunters Safety course for hunting and take a class for Concealed Carry.

[enso]

Don’t tell the GOP. This isn’t in their allowed plan (nor that of Fox News ramping up the paranoia in white folks).

[Shuck]

Note I said “firearm deaths,” not homicide, and not the homicide rate. (I too am annoyed when those things are conflated.) If we’re talking about deaths by automobiles, then comparing to all deaths by firearms is appropriate, not just homicides. (Homicide rates have indeed been going down, along with the rate of gun ownership in this country. On a state-by-state basis, there’s a very strong correlation between gun ownership rates and gun homicide rates.)