I’m sure this has been done before. Hell, I may have even started a thread on it. I’m not trying to advance any political/social agenda - I’m just trying to get my mind around how to think about the shootings that seem to be in the news so often.
So I guess there are a couple of questions. First, is this a problem. And second, if it is, what, if anything, can or should be done about it?
Re: 1 - I recognize the possibility that I might be conflating multiple different types of violence. The recent shootings in Paris may well be influencing my perspective, as might the recent shootings in Chicago - including by cops. Other than that, this week we’ve seen a planned parenthood shooting and today’s San Bernadino. So I don’t even know - are US shootings actually up, or does it just seem so to me. My impression is that the US enjoys a higher level of most types of gun violence than most other developed nations, but I have not checked the statistics. And I don’t know if there might be different categories of gun violence that call for different responses.
Second, if there is a problem with shootings at health care facilities, schools, etc, what if anything ought to be done about it? I’m interested in possible solutions that might have SOME chance of being enacted and SOME chance of having some effect. Is the correct answer to have EVERYONE armed? I’m not sure what meaningful restrictions could be politically feasible. As a civil libertarian, I could not favor confiscation - even if that were feasible.
The only solution I see as realistic would be to increase education - with the hope of lessening people’s hatred and intolerance of others, combined with increased treatment available to the mentally ill. But I’m not terribly confident what impact those would have at what cost and how soon.
Or do we just have to figure that, however many shootings there are, in terms of population the odds are in my favor that I won’t be shot on any given day. Should we just accept it as a risk of living “the American way of life?”
So I don’t even know - are US shootings actually up, or does it just seem so to me. My impression is that the US enjoys a higher level of most types of gun violence than most other developed nations, but I have not checked the statistics
Yup. Americans love their mass shootings.
If we can figure out how to teach a bit of empathy even towards adversaries that would help. Combine that with an increase in mental health care and you might make a little dent in incidents. Highly efficient killing tools combined with suicidal users is a tough nut to crack. I’m not for highly effective gun control due to the fact that governments are responsible for murders in the 10s of millions.
should anything be done about it? yeah, i think so. from afar it doesn’t seem like whatever real and imagined benefits the US gets from having easy access to firearms is really worth the price you are paying in lives.
can anything be done about it? from afar, seeing the attitudes the US have towards the words of your founding deities, your second commandment and militant attitudes it seems like you’re stuck with it for a long time.
One thing which might help is encourage media outlets to downplay these incidents as much as possible. It’s well known that a lot of spree shooters are aimless losers with delusions of grandeur who want nothing more than for the world to give them the attention they believe to be their due. Make the coverage as boring and uninspiring as possible and the notion of going out all guns blazing will seem less appealing. Of course, this won’t happen, because the media cares far more about dollars and clicks than it does about the human cost of their reckless sensationalism.
Another idea would be for news media outlets to mercilessly mock and slander the perpetrators. Instead of simply saying “A young man named Elliot Rodger (for example) murdered five of his fellow students in a shooting rampage in Isla Vista today”, say something like “Failed student, failed human being, and suspected pedophile Elliot Rodger killed five real people today in an act which shouldn’t have surprised anyone, given what a creepy little weirdo he so obviously was. Here’s Tom with the weather. Hey Tom, what’s the difference between an egg and Elliot Rodger? An egg get’s laid before it cracks!”
Admittedly, this idea is incredibly stupid, but it would be rather satisfying
When there is no hedge against the monopoly of power acquired by certain governments the number of dead goes into the 7 figures instead of the 2. I suppose societies that have gulags and industrial ovens are somehow more civil?
10-15 dead per week takes a lot of weeks to hit over 6 million. And let’s not forget what a Mao, Stalin, etc were able to do to a defenseless population.
Your comments more properly belong in a thread about “Can/should anything be done about governmental murders by Hitler/Mao/Stalin?” rather than a thread about “Can/should anything be done about US shootings?”
Kind of like how we never heard about all the black youth being killed by cops until people started putting it up on YouTube? Yeah, that’d work great.
I’d like to see fewer incidences of gun violence. I’d like to see a lower body count. I don’t think more guns is the solution, and I don’t think fewer guns is a workable solution. People point to Australia as some bastion of anti-spree-killing wonder, but the reason they haven’t had a spree killing isn’t the gun control; it’s just that nobody has gone on a shooting spree in a while.
I think this is my favorite 2nd amendment defense. I generally have two thoughts on hearing it:
Just how effective do you think your average 2nd amendment guy and his/her buddies would do against the 82nd Airborne?
At what point do you decide that it is your right/responsibility to take up arms against the government? And who do you attack? Local police? Fort Hood (which brings us back to #1)?
Well, why not? You can point at lots of countries that have had shooting sprees–the U.K, Norway, Australia, Canada–but none of them, and I mean NONE, have shooting sprees at the level and frequency that the U.S. does. What’s the difference?
would it be more correct to say ‘there were a couple of countries where tons of people got killed and we have absolutely no idea if a partially armed middle class could have done anything about it’? have you just listed the exceptions rather than the rule? this sounds like rhetoric at the moment. and not particularly appealing to people not socialized into accepting this line of thinking.
**Can/should anything be done about US shootings?
**
Not really, it’s the price of doing business.
The freedoms resulting from a free flow and use of arms means that frequently people who you would rather not use guns can do so.
Gun nuts arguments are generally dubious to bogus ----- which is common in most polemics ---- but they do have the saving grace of allowing individuals to make their own choices. If one doesn’t like those choices maybe it would be better to raise the culture level to where blowing people away is more a regretful last resort than an exercise in personal assertion.
Plus of course the ordinary mass will never wear any form of disarmament: it is astounding that American Liberals worry so much about things that are not going to change, have immensely rich resources profiting from the status quo, and are inbred to the marrow of the American Soul. This includes reforming healthcare. Better to concentrate on things one can win.
Rommel had an army and still committed suicide. What makes you think an average member of one division isn’t susceptible to the same pressures? And it’s not about defeating a fictitious monolithic US military. It’s about increasing the costs of tyranny by having diffuse power.
Plus if I’m not mistaken Paris and California have gun control.
