# Can/should anything be done about US shootings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 2, 2015, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263 "2015-12-02T23:16:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/242 "2015-12-09T15:50:40Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > It is without question that there are at least SOME deaths that would not occur but for the prevalence of guns. Accidental deaths would certainly not occur but for the presence of guns. There are certainly some arguments that would have resulted in someone getting a beating rather than someone (not necessarily the same person) getting shot dead. It is certainly worth investigating whether our abnormally high murder rate among wealthy industrialized nations is caused primarily by the legal private ownership of guns. > > It would be useful to know how many murders are committed by people who legally own guns. > > It would be useful to get a better handle on how many times guns are used defensively every year. > > There are a lot of things that would be useful to know but one thing we do know is that gun control does not seem to stop the sort of mass murders that everyone is worked up about. Most of the guns that are used in the mass murders of white people were not obtained illegally. I agree with this post. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/243 "2015-12-09T15:59:24Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > It is without question that there are at least SOME deaths that would not occur but for the prevalence of guns. Accidental deaths would certainly not occur but for the presence of guns. There are certainly some arguments that would have resulted in someone getting a beating rather than someone (not necessarily the same person) getting shot dead. It is certainly worth investigating whether our abnormally high murder rate among wealthy industrialized nations is caused primarily by the legal private ownership of guns. > > It would be useful to know how many murders are committed by people who legally own guns. > > It would be useful to get a better handle on how many times guns are used defensively every year. > > There are a lot of things that would be useful to know but one thing we do know is that gun control does not seem to stop the sort of mass murders that everyone is worked up about. Most of the guns that are used in the mass murders of white people were not obtained illegally. I agree with this. Guns in America are here to stay, at least for the short and medium term, no matter what the laws are. Just like it’s incredibly easy to get drugs when drugs are everywhere, it will be incredibly easy to get guns as long as guns are everywhere. And guns don’t get smoked or consumed like drugs do. But I think it’s reasonable to look at whether the incredible amount of guns has something to do with gun deaths and gun violence to see what could be done about it in the short, medium, and long-term. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/244 "2015-12-09T16:12:51Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] Really frustrating when both sides end up contesting statistics. Hard to tell what stats are reliable, or even that they are counting the same things - or the RIGHT thing. [/QUOTE] Basically, everyone here is spinning the stats to bolster their argument and either make it look more or less scary. That’s why some are lumping in things like suicide because it pumps up the gun deaths, etc etc. People have a hard time grasping large numbers or evaluating relative risk or putting numbers into context, so it’s a good tactic that works for both sides equally well, and boils down to one’s view point on this (or any) subject. It’s all horseshit. In the end, the only thing that’s important is whether US society as a whole accepts the non-zero risks/deaths associated with allowing for the private ownership of guns. The rest are just the details wrt gun CONTROL legislature and whether it has a small but noticeable effect (say, registration, background checks and restrictions on very vertical types of weapons) or is basically just political horseshit and hot air (such as the Let’s Ban Scary Guns, or AWB). As long as American’s accept that by allowing people to keep and own guns in the US, just like allowing people to buy and use alcohol, there WILL be a non-zero number of deaths, including occasionally headline grabbing ones, all the stats in the world are just so much hot air. Telling American’s that ‘advanced’ or ‘civilized’ nations don’t have guns or restrict them much more than we do is equally a waste of time, except to those already convinced…in fact, it probably does more harm than good, wrt gun control (but then, the gun control types seem bound and determined to shoot themselves in the foot every chance they get, so why not on this too?). Every time this subject comes up (usually after another sensational mass gun shooting) I have to shake my head at the discussion, which can practically be set to music it’s so predictable. Just like on the political stage. Gun control types come out of the wood work, yammering for (in most cases stupid) tighter controls, pointing out Europe and other ‘advanced’ or ‘civilized’ nations don’t do what we do and don’t have the deaths we do and generally make a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing, since the American people, a.k.a. the voting public isn’t ready for large changes to this. And, predictably, this causes the pro-gun types to come out of the wood work and just grasp those guns even tighter, bringing out all of their irrational (and in some cases rational) fears of the gun grabbers taking their right and their guns away from them. Any reasonable, sane and more importantly realistic solutions or legislature gets pushed aside by these opposite forces and in the end, just like all the other times, nothing will come of any of this…or whatever does come will make little or no sense and basically do nothing at all to address any problem or issue. But yeah…let’s see MORE stats on guns! That works out so well and is so refreshing and new in this debate! Can we see more on how bad we are wrt the rest of the world? How barbaric and uncivilized and un-advanced we are?? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/245 "2015-12-09T16:13:14Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Don’t be silly. It’s quite a bit harder to cross a national border with a trunk full of guns than a state line where the only check is whether or not you’ve seen the “Welcome to This State !” sign. > Also a bit harder for the average gun enthusiast to go to Mexico from the DC suburbs to get strapped. > > As I said, the problem will never be entirely solved, nor does anyone expect it to be. But there’s a significant difference between “serious gun control” and “no gun control at all, let’s give up”. Why are so many gun control folks under the ridiculously ignorant impression that there is “no gun control at all” in this country > **[Gun law in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_United_States)** > > In the United States, the right to keep and bear arms is modulated by a variety of state and federal statutes. These laws generally regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories. They are enforced by state, local and the federal agencies which include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). > The private right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment o... This is why some gun rights folks think that gun control folks will never be satisfied, they act as if there isn’t already significant gun control in place. > [@](#): > > Well it makes absolute sense, might be why the argument is popular. No it doesn’t. In the context of the shooting we are talking about. All those guns were obtained in the state of California. No one had to smuggle guns from Nevada to arm those shooters. What law is it that you propose that you think would stop all or even most of this gun violence? > [@](#): > > Toothy prohibition/restrictions of handgun Unconstitutional. Read Heller. > [@](#): > > and semi-automatic sales [ What is it about semiautomatic weapons that you think is dangerous? > [@](#): > > along with melting any and all illegal guns seized by the police to slag would perforce would reduce the supply over time. Obvious enough ? Are you under the impression that cops seize guns and then turn around and sell them to criminals? Why melt down the guns? Are those guns more likely to be used in crime than any other gun? > [@](#): > > True enough, but then any \*serious \*attempt at gun control is always jammed by the gun manufacturer profits’ lobby, I mean the NRA, so. The NRA is not omnipotent. They are not the reason that you can’t pass the sort of gun control that you want. You just don’t have the political capital or credibility (and when you did have the political capital, you wasted that political capital on retarded shit like an assault weapons ban). Claims that the NRA is a lobby for the gun manufacturers does not help with your credibility. The NRA is no more a lobby for the gun manufacturers than NARAL is a lobby for Planned Parenthood. > [@](#): > > Read for comprehension. I said we had 30,000 illegal guns floating around. Not 30k guns total. Despite its reputation as gun grabbing central, France is actually one of the most armed states in the western world at 0.3 per capita. Write more clearly. It will help your arguments. What do you mean by floating around? > [@](#): > > But because we control guns, those ~20 million guns are mostly twin-barrelled hunting or clay pigeon shooting shotguns, 22 LR bolt actions, and the odd handgun among people who have enough time and money to waste to jump through the eleventy billion hoops to secure a carry permit. And nobody, but I mean \*nobody \*has an AK at home outside of criminals and terrorists. Which makes it pretty easy to identify criminals and terrorists. How do you identify criminals and terrorists when they keep their AK 47s at home? And what you have is not gun control. It is effectively a gun ban. It would be unconstitutional in America. I have trouble believing that there are 20 million civilian guns in France even if they are all 22lr bolt action. > [@](#): > > BTW, our modern gun control was enacted in 1949 - back when France was positively awash with WW2 guns and ammo and every two-bit Resistance group (many of which were run of the mill criminals who just happened to shoot at Germans once in a while or said they did) had stockpiles squirrelled away. Yes and we could have done this after WWII as well but we didn’t. As I have stated previously, that was probably the last time we could have rounded up the guns. > [@](#): > > I’m sorry, was your “we have 300 million guns and they’re never ever going away !” not to be understood as “just give up” ? What, then, did you mean ? I think our disconnect is that you think gun control means a near total ban on civilian ownership of guns and confiscation of any guns that you personally do not approve of. I think that there are plenty of effective reasonable forms of gun control that would not involve banning guns or the mass confiscation of guns. Licensing and registration requirements, for example. > [@](#): > > I still fail to see what that has to do with gun control in any way, shape or form. Please advise. It didn’t. It was about terrorism in France. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/246 "2015-12-09T16:14:40Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The 2nd Amendment was written before the US had a standing army, which it was meant to avoid. Seen any well regulated militia lately ? Since those are evidently not necessary to the security of a free State\*, seems to me the amendment is obsolete. > > - You could actually, like many of the Founding Fathers, argue that the existence of a standing army in fact precludes or at least threatens the security and freedom of a State. Which is pretty much true. But then again I don’t really see any of y’alls calling for unilateral disbanding of the armed forces, so. 😉 You are reading the second amendment incorrectly. See Heller v. Washington DC. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/247 "2015-12-09T16:33:02Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > That analogy is so ridiculous that it makes it sound like you never read the 1st Amendment, or at least never read it thoughtfully. The wording of the 1st Amendment makes it the most expansive of all the rights, guaranteeing freedom of religion, freedom of “the press” (meaning journalism), and freedom of speech and expression of all kinds, whether journalistic or not. Whereas the 2nd Amendment narrowly, uniquely, and rather bizarrely speaks of the right to _ **possess an object** _, which is why it’s become the most dated of all the rights, not just irrelevant in today’s world but clearly counterproductive. It’s a lot like if the 1st Amendment really did explicitly grant the right to an 18th century hand-cranked printing press and nothing more, in the mistaken notion that this would somehow resolve all freedom of speech issues, and moreover in a situation where such a device not only became irrelevant in the modern world, but was killing thousands of citizens every year. EVERY constitutional scholar agrees that the right to bear arms is not limited to fucking muskets. Lets say we adopt the notion that the second amendment is only limited to minutemen who can come to the defense of their country when it gets invaded. Are you saying that those minutemen would have to use fucking muskets? Can we move on from this ridiculous bumper sticker argument? > [@](#): > > Which is why almost all modern democracies get by just fine with no such constitutional guarantee, and none at all – not anywhere in the developed world – have the absolutist interpretation that the 2nd Amendment has acquired, to the great and worsening detriment of public safety. Britain once had a constitutional “right to bear arms”, too – it originated with Henry II in the 12th century, and has long since been wisely abandoned. The idea that a gun makes anyone safer is one of the enduring American myths, symbolized by images like Rambo and John Wayne and the ubiquitous fiction of the “Good Guy with a Gun™”, and promulgated by a brazen gun lobby and an apparent contempt for even the most blatantly obvious statistical facts. What obvious statistical facts? > [@](#): > > Yep. Have you read the strongly worded dissent? Have you read the opinions of constitutional scholars which suggest a limited lifetime for such an ill-advised interpretation? You do realize that by its very nature, a dissent means it is NOT the law, right? Whatever criticism you might hurl at Heller (and it is not immune from criticism) would apply equally (or even moreso) to decisions like Roe v Wade. You undermine the legitimacy of our judicial system at significant peril to the stability of society. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/248 "2015-12-09T16:55:29Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No _ad hominem_. A reading of the 1st Amendment reveals no mention of a “printing press”. It does, however, reveal – as I said – a clearly broad and expansive protection of every form of speech and expression. Your analogy with the 2nd – which grants a right _ **to a specific object** _ – is absurd. It is absurd that you think the analogy is absurd considering how many legal scholars have used similar analogies. > [@](#): > > Many different metrics. The general murder and violent crime rate has seen a decline everywhere in the developed world, in part because of changing demographics. Correcting for that, or looking at longer-term trends, or looking at the increasing lethality of guns, or looking at increases in mass shootings, worsening trends are seen. For example: > [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/18/11-essential-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/18/11-essential-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/) > [US Mass Shootings, 1982–2024: Data From Mother Jones’ Investigation – Mother Jones](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data) Sure, the drop in murders is probably the result of some other factor having to do with changes in the population but that only reinforces the notion that it is the people and not the guns that are the primary driver of violence. And are you seriously advancing statistics on mass shootings (a tiny sliver of murders committed in America as evidence that violence is getting worse? Are you fucking kidding? > [@](#): > > I never said that “only a 1789 musket was protected”. I said that this is what existed at the time, just like the concept of national defense by armed citizenry was what existed at the time, and that what is ridiculous is trying to argue that such a right automatically confers an unconditional right to any and every weapon technology subsequently developed. Why stop at high-capacity magazines or automatic weapons – why not argue that the 2nd Amendment grants citizens the right to have tanks, long-range missiles, and nuclear weapons? Aren’t they important to the stated goal of “the security of a free State”? What defines the cutoff? At what point does public safety become relevant? You know that the stuff you write in the board doesn’t disappear, right? You specifically refer to muskets and how they can only fire one shot at a time to define the rights protected by the second amendment. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18915787&postcount=145](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18915787&postcount=145) And you refer to hand crank presses as the analogy IF the first amendment referred to an object rather than a concept. Automatic weapons are highly regulated and virtually inaccessible to anyone who isn’t relatively wealthy. And the second amendment argument doesn’t apply to tanks and nuclear weapons because they are not covered under arms. There was a case about sawed off shotguns that kind of lays out what we mean by arms and it was generally restricted to stuff that a common soldier might carry. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/249 "2015-12-09T17:14:54Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > I don’t know what you’re on about as I never said any of the things I’ve been accused of saying and your inchoate quotes seem irrelevant to any of it, nor do you address my question of where one should draw the line of what weaponry ordinary citizens should be allowed to own (and under what conditions) – which is the absolutely central question of gun control. > > As far as your favorite Heller decision is concerned, I offer the following: > > 1. Not everyone agrees that Heller was the most Solomonic ruling in the history of the universe: > In a narrow sense, the Constitution was vindicated in Heller because the Court reached an easily defensible originalist result. But the Court’s reasoning is at critical points so defective—and so transparently non-originalist in some respects—that Heller should be seen as an embarrassment for those who joined the majority opinion. > [The Second Amendment, Heller, and Originalist Jurisprudence | UCLA Law Review](http://www.uclalawreview.org/the-second-amendment-heller-and-originalist-jurisprudence/) Why does that prove? I can dig up articles poking holes in every controversial SCOTUS opinion ever written and quite a few non-controversial ones too. > [@](#): > > 1. The gun death statistics across developed nations indicate such incredibly dramatic differences between the US and everyone else that it’s pointless to keep repeating it. This is not a matter of arguing about a few percentage points difference perhaps being accounted for by other factors. We’re talking about something close to one or even two _ **orders of magnitude** _ difference in gun death rates. At some point I feel like I’d be better off arguing with my dog about Wittgenstein than arguing gun facts with gun advocates residing in the only country in the industrialized world that actually has more guns than people (or very close to it) and virtually no meaningful restrictions on them. Those orders of magnitude difference shrinks significantly when you compare murder rates instead of only focusing only on gun murder rates. 2/3rds of all murders in America are committed with guns. Are you under the impression that if guns were illegal in America, our murder rate would drop by 2/3rds? As for “virtually no restriction”: > **[Gun law in the United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_the_United_States)** > > In the United States, the right to keep and bear arms is modulated by a variety of state and federal statutes. These laws generally regulate the manufacture, trade, possession, transfer, record keeping, transport, and destruction of firearms, ammunition, and firearms accessories. They are enforced by state, local and the federal agencies which include the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). > The private right to keep and bear arms is protected by the Second Amendment o... > **[Gun laws in the United States by state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_by_state)** > > This is an accepted version of this page > > > > Gun laws in the United States regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition. State laws (and the laws of the District of Columbia and of the U.S. territories) vary considerably, and are independent of existing federal firearms laws, although they are sometimes broader or more limited in scope than the federal laws. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/250 "2015-12-09T17:17:26Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The Supreme Court is wrong on historical, textual and sanity grounds alike. Which is unsurprising, considering the partisan hacks it has been packed with. You mean the partisan hacks who upheld Obamacare? ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/251 "2015-12-09T17:20:15Z")
Damn **XT** - you’re making me compliment you again for another reasonable post. Curse you! 😉 I guess I wonder what people think about in terms of the society they wish. I really don’t have significant objections to ostensibly law-abiding folk owning just about any weapon they want, but I don’t have any idea how we can permit that while trying to restrain the availability of guns to “evil-doers.” Personally, the idea of reverting to some sort of wild-west scenario where everyone goes about armed, is not what I would hope for in this day and age. But if that is where we want to go - maybe we shouldn’t just permit concealed carry, but require it universally! I realize we do not have to model ourselves against any other nation, but when I think of nations where large numbers of folk go about armed, I generally think of parts of the Mideast and Africa - not exactly what I would think Americans would aspire to. Yeah, every few days there is another shooting - nothing we can (or want to) do about it. And fuck global warming, or the sucky schools, or income inequality/the lack of unskilled decent-paying jobs… I got mine, and am only going to be around for another couple decades. Sucks to be young. Or poor. Or uneducated… ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/252 "2015-12-09T17:22:11Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Right on. And did you read my cite that “the Court’s reasoning is at critical points so defective—and so transparently non-originalist in some respects—that Heller should be seen as an embarrassment for those who joined the majority opinion”? once again that article by a fairly libertarian (almost Ayn Randian) law professor is basing his criticism solely from the originalist perspective. Non-originalists shouldn’t give a shit what he has to say. Are you an originalist? > [@](#): > > Of course, only time will tell how this all unfolds. Meanwhile, the extraordinary, awful gun deaths will continue. So your #195 is duly addressed. But the funny thing is, I initially misread that as being your #159 which I had a look at again. It was quite a gem: > … my side is winning. We don’t have to convince anyone anymore. One of your preferred topics is to bring up comparisons of the US to Canada, and other countries. Except that the people that you need to persuade couldn’t give two shits about those comparisons. I know I could give zero fucks about it. > So, yes, you want your guns, and facts be damned. Who cares what the reality is in the rest of the civilized world? Or, to be more explicit, “Fuck you world, we don’t need no steenkin’ facts an’ lessons, because we all is better’n you!”. I think he is saying that we live in a constitutional democracy and there are plenty of avenues for you to change things but as things are, You are the one that needs to make a convincing argument for change. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/253 "2015-12-09T17:34:42Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Damn **XT** - you’re making me compliment you again for another reasonable post. Curse you! 😉 > > I guess I wonder what people think about in terms of the society they wish. I really don’t have significant objections to ostensibly law-abiding folk owning just about any weapon they want, but I don’t have any idea how we can permit that while trying to restrain the availability of guns to “evil-doers.” > > Personally, the idea of reverting to some sort of wild-west scenario where everyone goes about armed, is not what I would hope for in this day and age. But if that is where we want to go - maybe we shouldn’t just permit concealed carry, but require it universally! I realize we do not have to model ourselves against any other nation, but when I think of nations where large numbers of folk go about armed, I generally think of parts of the Mideast and Africa - not exactly what I would think Americans would aspire to. > > Yeah, every few days there is another shooting - nothing we can (or want to) do about it. And fuck global warming, or the sucky schools, or income inequality/the lack of unskilled decent-paying jobs… I got mine, and am only going to be around for another couple decades. Sucks to be young. Or poor. Or uneducated… Honestly, I think there is stuff we can do about these things, and in fact I think that slowly society is shifting on this (as well as on Global Warming, sucky schools and income inequality, etc etc). I think the problem is that some folks what it all to change right now, today, and that’s simply not reasonable or going to happen…at least not to the extreme and radical way they WANT it to change. Also, it’s not reasonable to think that America will ever be Europe…or Canada…or Japan…or whatever. Just as it’s unreasonable to think they will magically become America or Americans. Personally, I’m in the middle of the road on this…I have no real issue with sane gun control measures, with things like universal background checks or registration, as long as they aren’t clearly slippery slopes designed as a step in the process of banning them or severely restricting them from the public…as long as the public still is in favor of that personal ownership. IOW, I’m against a fiat ban or against legislature that would lead to a fiat ban. Restrictions that work within both the spirit and the letter of the 2nd, however, I’m good with…after all, we have restrictions on other rights protected in the Constitution, as long as they don’t violate the spirit and letter of the document. The problem has always been those folks who want it all and want it now, and want it regardless of what the majority of their fellow citizens say…and want it before the majority of the population is really ready for it. Sometimes that’s not a bad thing…civil rights, gay marriage (though I think in both of those examples the population was on the cusp already). But in this case I think the gun banners (as opposed to the genuine gun control folks who really just want sane regulation and not simply a way to get large horizontal fiat bans regardless) have actually had the opposite effect to what they want and have done vastly more harm than good wrt getting sane legislature through. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/254 "2015-12-09T17:55:00Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You are reading the second amendment incorrectly. See Heller v. Washington DC. Have you considered the notion that SCOTUS might be reading it incorrectly ? > [@](#): > > No it doesn’t. In the context of the shooting we are talking about. All those guns were obtained in the state of California. Proving that even if California is considered by the gun crowd to be an anathema and a pit of abusive gun restrictions gone amok, it’s still toothless to curb gun acquisitions. Besides, from what I’ve read the enforcement of Californian gun control laws is spotty at best in practice. > [@](#): > > What is it about semiautomatic weapons that you think is dangerous? The ability to pour round after round into a crowd in a short amount of time even with precious little training would spring to mind. > [@](#): > > Claims that the NRA is a lobby for the gun manufacturers does not help with your credibility. When [more than half of its operating budget](http://www.businessinsider.com/gun-industry-funds-nra-2013-1?IR=T) is made up of straight contributions from gun manufacturers, when the overwhelming majority of its board of directors are also on the boards of gun companies or affiliated with them, I think that’s a fair and factual assessment. And it’s [not just “gun grabbers” who feel that way](http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2013/04/19/anheuser-busch-heir-quits-the-nra-in-protest/). > [@](#): > > How do you identify criminals and terrorists when they keep their AK 47s at home? The way all criminal investigations proceed, I suppose : denunciations, criminals rolling on each other and so on. Followed by a search warrant. Of course, it’s even easier when they’re dumb enough to use those illegal guns in the process of committing a crime. In which case the entire law book can be thrown at them with great force. > [@](#): > > Write more clearly. It will help your arguments. Not my fault if you miss salient adjectives. > [@](#): > > What do you mean by floating around? By floating around, I mean floating around - we don’t know exactly who owns them or where they are at any given minute ; but we do have a rough idea of how many there are based on an analysis of both their use in the commission of crimes and seizures at the borders. > [@](#): > > And what you have is not gun control. It is effectively a gun ban. Nonsense. As I said, our 60 million people have 20 million guns among them - my family owns two. They’re not all hunting weapons, either - we have a very active target shooting crowd as well. > [@](#): > > And what you have is not gun control. It is effectively a gun ban. It would be unconstitutional in America. I have trouble believing that there are 20 million civilian guns in France even if they are all 22lr bolt action. Cognitive dissonance is, indeed, a bitch. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/255 "2015-12-09T18:19:27Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > It’s like you approach this subject from what your emotions want to be true, and spout stuff accordingly. Pot calling kettle. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/256 "2015-12-09T18:24:15Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Did you see that the GOP heavily censured Trump concerning his latest loony statement wrt not allowing Muslims into the US? And many of them used freedom of religion as the basis for their slams against what Trump was saying. From [here](http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/politics/donald-trump-muslim-republicans-2016/index.html). So, when you say ‘conservatives’, you need to really specify that it’s the more loony ones who are saying dippy shit like that, not all. LOL, sure, but he might be your nominee in 2016. best if you walk away from this fight. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/257 "2015-12-09T18:25:25Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > You don’t have to support 100% of Trump’s ideas to support Trump the candidate. Yeah but some of his ideas disqualifies him from consideration and yet he is still being considered. LOL, part of me wonders if Trump is just punking all of us. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/258 "2015-12-09T18:30:38Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > …Damuri Ajashi have proposed that these two things are entirely uncorrelated. Cite? I have said that there is not a strong correlation between guns in a state and the number of murders in a state (even a 0.1 correlation is still a correlation). I have said that there likely it s correlation between guns in a home and the likelihood of murder in those homes. Where do I say that the two are entirely uncorrelated? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/259 "2015-12-09T18:31:45Z")
The idea that “both sides are spinning stats” is the worst kind of false equivalence bullshit. The only way it remotely makes sense is if you equate peer reviewed science with back of the napkin calculations, holding a thumb up to a scatterplot and squinting, or cherry-picking comparisons from rough data sources. It reflects the same kind of anti-science bullshit on every topic shown by current republicans in congress. It’s roughly equivalent to countering the evidence on global warming by bringing a snowball into the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/260 "2015-12-09T18:34:51Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > The idea that “both sides are spinning stats” is the worst kind of false equivalence bullshit. > > The only way it remotely makes sense is if you equate peer reviewed science with back of the napkin calculations, holding a thumb up to a scatterplot and squinting, or cherry-picking comparisons from rough data sources. > > It reflects the same kind of anti-science bullshit on every topic shown by current republicans in congress. It’s roughly equivalent to countering the evidence on global warming by bringing a snowball into the discussion. Naw, it simply reflects your standard disingenuous tendencies in any discussion, Hentor. Oh, and an attempt to paint anyone who disagrees with you with an ‘anti-science’ paint brush…going to call me a climate denier next? Perhaps go for bear and say I’m a CTer? Maybe call me a racist, just to cover all your bases? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2015, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263/261 "2015-12-09T18:36:47Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > For advanced countries, there [pretty clearly](http://tewksburylab.org/blog/2012/12/gun-violence-and-gun-ownership-lets-look-at-the-data/) is a correlation between gun ownership and gun violence. Once again, you need to carve out gun murders to make the claim that more guns =more gun murders. What about overall murders and gun ownership rates. I suspect there might still be some sort of correlation but not nearly as clear as the graph in that article. Seriously who gives a shit about the method of murder. How is that relevant? The rate of gun suicides is much higher in the US than everywhere else and yet our suicide rate is pretty fucking average. And people still focus on the gun suicides and blame the guns for the suicides. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-should-anything-be-done-about-us-shootings/739263.md?page=14)