We do. In fact, there are at least 2 multiple gang related shootings a week and sometimes more. However, for us, that is “local news”. People in other areas may not hear about them unless they are really big.
From the movie, “Red”
In Chicago, it’s wise to have this mentality. LOL
Furthermore, the suicides that are prevented by making guns less accessable are the ones I want to prevent. The person painfully dying of cancer who is inclined to end it, yeah, they will find another way. But the person with a decent future who suffers from depression and decides to end it all in a bad day may make it through that day and feel better the next.
Depression runs in my family. My grandfather killed himself on a bad day. If he hadn’t had a hand gun handy by, i might have met him.
I dont “dismiss” urban violence. I am just trying to educate people about what is causing all those “mass shootings” and it ain’t guns. It is the stupid and failed war on drugs.
Sometimes suicide is the right thing for a person to do, faced with incurable incredible pain. I respect a persons right to suicide, but I abhor how often that right is abused. Suicide is generally not a crime either, and is sometimes is a mental health, issue, but not a criminal one. I want to focus on murder, where instead of a willing person killing themselves, a person killing an unwilling victim. The only reason suicides are added in to a weird and bogus stat “gun deaths” is to make the number higher… much much higher.
Suicide is not a gun issue, it is a mental health issue.
No, we have a violence problem. But violent crime is at a low.
Yeah, they are sometimes covered in local news.
I’m telling you that removing guns from the equation doesn’t change the intent to murder or the ability to use something else to do the killing.
today I had someone go out of their way to pile on my bumper for no sane reason. I changed from the center lane on the highway to the left lane and accelerated above the speed limit to pass a truck. This person had to accelerate in order to slam on the brakes and pile on my ass. I would guess driver was going 85 in a 65 mph zone and then accelerated to 95. I was going 75 to pass which was 10 mph above the speed limit and well ahead of this driver. There was no possible reason behind this aggressive behavior.
The day before there was a lady in the far left lane who couldn’t wait get around the car in front of her so she lurched over 2 lanes onto an exit ramp and sped up on the shoulder to pass someone in the far right lane in a dangerous maneuver. Again, there was no rational reason for this aggressive behavior. Both vehicles were late model and expensive.
We have a problem with violent behavior in this country.
No, removing guns doesn’t change the intent to murder, and it certainly doesn’t take away the ability to use something else to do the killing.
But as has already been demonstrated in this thread regarding suicide, easy access to a firearm makes it a lot more likely that a murder will be committed, as opposed to easy access to a knife or hammer or garotte. The data shows that the vast majority of homicides are committed using a firearm, and it’s a damn sight easier to murder a person using a gun, rather than a knife or other tool.
And I’m not at all sure what your unfortunate experience on the highways recently has any bearing on a discussion of firearm violence. Yes, people are violent. Possession of a firearm makes it worse.
Happy Cake Day.
The main cause of death in Phx is gun related. I can’t find good stats for Yavapai County, but Prescott is the reddest part of the state, so I’m pretty sure the numbers are higher out this way.
That’s certainly not the impression we get from the regular news reports from the US of multiple deaths by gunshot. The type of gun is insignificant since most of us here are ignorant of the fine details. What we see is “x” number of innocent people being killed or injured by bullets. Usually from a lone perpetrator.
On the other hand, nearly all gunshot death and injury in the UK is drug gang-related.
It gives a complete picture of the number of deaths facilitated by access to guns. I can’t think why you’d exclude those figures. If a thousand people died because of easy access to guns and would have lived had those guns not been present, that seems important to know.
Suicide is very clearly exacerbated by easy access to guns. It is not clear to me why that shouldn’t be considered just as much a “gun issue” as it is a “mental health issue”.
Let’s say you saw someone with a gun, clearly intent on charging into a crowded coffee shop and killing as many people as possible.
If you were unable to stop them but were able to wave a magic wand and turn his gun into a knife or a baseball bat, would you do so?
In a heartbeat.
Yes, and when people who can’t control their impulses have guns, their chance of committing homicide instead of riding your ass goes way up. You’ve neatly illustrated the point. The US has had a problem with retaliatory aggression for a long time, but culturally we have shifted lately so that smaller and smaller things trigger retaliatory aggression, such as, for example, an innocent woman pulling into someone’s driveway on accident. If that guy didn’t have a gun, he would have ran out, yelled at people, maybe attempted to open car doors before the victim sped off, or maybe he would realize he was being an asshole and slunk back into the house. But he had a gun, which is hands down the easiest and fastest way to kill, and does not allow any time for second thoughts, nor does it allow victims time to haul ass and avoid injury. Yes we have a violent culture. Guns make it infinitely easier for violent people to kill.
A car is arguably easier access than a gun. And it’s just as fatal to hit a tree as method of suicide or run over school children at a bus stop instead of trying to breach a locked school building.
You answered your own question. People are violent. Objects are not. Possession of a firearm only makes it worse if you have a preference on how you want people to be murdered.
if your point that a gun makes spontaneous acts of murder easier that may or may not be true depending on other objects available at the time.
And that’s why we need to do something to stop all this senseless gun car violence!
Internet sarcasm should do the trick.
When I was in HS there were school clubs for target shooting and kids brought guns to school. I made a foot long knife in shop class and carried it around as a bookmark while I was making it.
Yes, times have changed. Your example of the person coming out of his house with a gun would have ended just as badly if he stabbed someone or got in his car and run them over or hit them with a hammer. There are an infinite ways he could have killed someone. The gun he had wasn’t any easier to get than when I was young.
The same concept applies to people who want to defend themselves. When the person came flying up to me to ride my tailgate I simply got out of his way as quickly as possible and put as much distance as I could between him. But I could have defended myself if it became necessary. Many years ago I had some nutjob try to engage me on the road. He looked like Charles Manson and was drinking beer while yelling at me at an intersection. There was literally nothing I did to provoke it. When the light turned green I decided I didn’t need to be following Charles Manson in traffic so I turned off and took a different route. He did a U-turn in the middle of the road and started following me.
I turned into an empty parking lot and circled around so I could use my car as a weapon. As luck would have it I turned into an FOP lodge and the other occupant in the vehicle physically restrained the guy from exiting the vehicle. Maybe a sign with the word “police” on it scared him off. Regardless, this is not how normal people behave.
Times have changed.
Thus our policy should change with them.
And what policy change would that be? And before you answer, think in terms of prohibition and how well that policy worked.
You have a documented history of violent behavior, even simple assault, you don’t get to have a gun. If you’re being held for a domestic violence charge, you temporarily don’t get to have a gun.
Maybe something for mental illness, but it would have to be something that didn’t deter people from seeking mental health care. That one’s harder.
For those who claim this is a “mental health problem” it conveys a lack of understanding of how mental health care works. It’s currently impossible to predict who will commit a violent act. Other than the obvious, “Hi therapist, I plan to kill my wife Thursday,” there are no reliable indicators. That is why the rules around reporting and crisis intervention are so strict. The issue isn’t people falling through the cracks. A lot of these mass shooters had regular active contact with mental health professionals. The issue is that it’s pretty much impossible to tell if a client is potentially violent unless they outright tell you.
The question of what to do about it is for me a complex problem. But I am certain that the first step to solving any problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem.
Except that, if the perpetrator misses me with the knife or hammer, they don’t accidently kill the mother and/or child a block away.
I’ve also yet to have seen the threat of someone standing on their porch, throwing hammers at a car turning around in their driveway.
It seems odd that one can hold in their mind the need for guns for protection, while also holding in their mind the idea that a hammer is just as good as a gun at violence.