# Guns, guns, and more guns. What can America do to reduce mass shootings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 12, 2019, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418 "2019-06-12T10:41:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/21 "2019-06-12T16:42:09Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I don’t think firearm classes in school are going to affect anything. I don’t know why this is proposed so often - how many shootings exactly are prevented because the shooter had insufficient _training?_ It just doesn’t make any sense to me. … > > I also don’t think it’s accurate to say that “arms manufacturers and dealers have bought congress.” Their lobby is an absolute pipsqueak compared to others like the pharmaceutical, insurance, and real estate lobbies. Like “grade-school T-ball versus the New York Yankees,” as Walter White might put it. They do exert some influence but it’s overstated. Maybe stop some accidental shootings, but that’s about all. I concur and I have made that very point. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/22 "2019-06-12T16:49:13Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > In that respect, the gun lobby punches waaaaay above their weight. They have way more influence than would be apparent by just counting sheer dollars. > … That’s because there are something like 70 Million gun owners in this nation. And 5-10 m of them are single issue. The lobby is peanuts, the voters are powerful. There are about as many cars & pickups in the USA as guns. Let us say we put the following “very reasonable” regulations on them- every vehicle that is a gross polluter can not be driven on public streets\*, all vehicles must get at least 25 mpg, and no vehicle can have to ability to go faster than 90MPH. People would revolt. All reasonable, all would help the environment & global warming and cut traffic deaths. - they actually passed that in CA, giving them like a year to fix or CA would buy it, but there was a massive revolt. A watered down version remains. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/23 "2019-06-12T16:51:14Z")
> [@UnwittingAmericans](#): > > Mainstream publications should publish the crime scene photos. That would- according to sociologists- _increase_ the number of mass shootings. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/24 "2019-06-12T16:51:44Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > You ever get a chance to see the news media in other countries? It’s so much better, so much more responsible, so much less focused on giving you that recreational fear that you (the collective you) love so much. Americans seem uniquely addicted to shitty news designed to scare us and provoke outrage. Our news media is really a huge outlier in the world I’m a sheltered\* Canadian who gets most of his news from The Economist magazine so I guess I don’t have as much of a handle on the state of American media. > [@SenorBeef](#): > > They assume that everyone shoots off a few dozen rounds and hits someone else, and enough people doing this and that’s how battles are decided. But in reality, between around 250,000 to 750,000 rounds are fired for every small arms combat casualty in combat. The number of rounds fired and their relative ineffectiveness is staggering. In WW2, small arms in total - machine guns, rifles, everything - accounted for less than 20 percent of casualties inflicted. In most battles, the purpose of small arms was basically to throw enough lead at your enemy so they were locked in place and keeping their heads down, which means they weren’t doing the same to you. At that point you call in artillery and wait for that to do the actual work. Ground & pound, much like MMA. Establishing initial fire superiority is where having high capacity and rate of fire matters. I’ve read that stats about the number of rounds per casualties. Is that the total number of rounds expended in a year divided by the number of confirmed enemy casualties? If it includes rounds expended thru training, that may give us a skewed perspective on what engagements were like even if heavy weapons are still predominant. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/25 "2019-06-12T16:52:20Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Mass shootings are a tiny fraction of gun violence. They’re rare and sensational and capture our attention and so they get a very disproportionate amount of our reaction to gun violence, but as a percentage of gun violence, as a percentage of murders, as a percentage of deaths, they’re basically just insignificant and random noise. Almost 350m people live in this country - you can find all sorts of shit that occasionally kills 10 or 20 of them. There’s also basically no way to specifically target mass shooters with gun laws - they tend to be relatively unpredictable and can use a wide variety of weaponry, whatever is available. > > Nonetheless, if you want to target mass shootings specifically, there is a very targeted, specific solution that would likely reduce them significantly: stop giving the shooters the infamy they crave. > > Usually, mass shooters feel like they’ve been wronged by the world in some way, and overlooked. The mass shooting is often their way of making the world notice them, to take revenge on the world. When we choose to watch excessive news coverage of these incidents, we’re giving them exactly what they want - which means that the next shooter that wants to go out in a blaze of infamy knows what they’ll get. > … This is absolutely true. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/26 "2019-06-12T16:53:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The lobby is peanuts, the voters are powerful. Tell that to the 90% of us who supported the assault weapons ban, but were thwarted by the NRA-owned GOP majority in Congress. > [@Senor Beef](#): > > There’s basically no law that can target mass shooters specifically Maybe not the shooters themselves, but their ability to take our lives, yes. See above. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/27 "2019-06-12T16:56:48Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Tell that to the 90% of us who supported the assault weapons ban, but were thwarted by the NRA-owned GOP majority in Congress. > **[Snapshot: Majority in U.S. Now Oppose Ban on Assault Rifles](https://news.gallup.com/poll/243860/snapshot-majority-oppose-ban-assault-rifles.aspx)** > > Forty percent of Americans support a ban on semi-automatic guns in the U.S., but a majority (57%) oppose it. Americans’ support for a ban on semi-automatic guns in the U.S. has dropped eight percentage points from a year ago, when opinions were more evenly divided after the mass shooting in Las Vegas. Last year’s measure was unusually high for the trend over the past several years; the current 40% is back to within a few points of where it was between 2011 and 2016. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/28 "2019-06-12T17:45:13Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > If we get the media to stop glorifying the killers, that would help too. The trick here is, that’s not what Americans want. Americans flock to any media source that glorifies the killers, and good luck getting a law banning these articles past the 1st amendment. Exactly the same problem as banning guns, the people don’t want it to happen, so it won’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/29 "2019-06-12T17:46:02Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > The trick here is, that’s not what Americans want. Americans flock to any media source that glorifies the killers, and good luck getting a law banning these articles past the 1st amendment. > > Exactly the same problem as banning guns, the people don’t want it to happen, so it won’t happen. Yep, sad but true. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/30 "2019-06-12T18:19:35Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > This isn’t a Fox News thing, so I’m not sure why you brought that up. It’s not a conservative/liberal thing. All Americans love news designed to scare them, news designed to focus on the sensational and salacious. We want to be scared out of our minds. WHAT COMMON ITEM UNDER YOUR SINK WILL KILL YOU? WHAT CUTE WHITE GIRL WAS KIDNAPPED LAST WEEK? WATCH OUR NEW 3D RECREATION OF THE LATEST MASS SHOOTINGS! This is common to almost all American news. And people are gobbling it up, because if they wanted good responsible news they could watch PBS newshour, and they don’t. > > You ever get a chance to see the news media in other countries? It’s so much better, so much more responsible, so much less focused on giving you that recreational fear that you (the collective you) love so much. Americans seem uniquely addicted to shitty news designed to scare us and provoke outrage. Our news media is really a huge outlier in the world. Part of the problem is that there seem to be a good many people in the media and elsewhere who think that we are one mass shooting away from passing gun control so the more publicity the shootings get the sooner gun control will happen and the sooner gun violence will be stopped. Thus for many of the people that work in the media things may have to get worse in the short term so they can be better in the long term. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/31 "2019-06-12T18:19:52Z")
It is important when discussing the level of gun violence in the US to keep in mind the millions of guns that are purchased in the US every month that don’t lead to mass shootings. Gun ownership is very popular in the USA. 2 to 2 1/2 Million sales, each and every month. You are not going to pull an Australian solution with these kind of numbers. I know that there are many posters on the Dope who do not seem to grasp these numbers. Here is the official chart from the FBI criminal background checks, by month. Up to date as of the end of May this year. Of course each background check does not equal a sale, but it is pretty close for sales estimate purposes. Most people who are not supposed to buy guns will not get to the background check stage. The 300 million guns in the US number is at least as old as 2008. And it continues at a rate of 2 million each and every month. This is an indication of the support for gun ownership in the US. > **[NICS Firearm Checks: Month/Year | Federal Bureau of Investigation](https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view)** > > Statistics represent the number of firearms background checks initiated through the NICS from November 1998 to February 28, 2023. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/32 "2019-06-12T18:28:54Z")
[Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/) Until you deal with the number of guns you’re just spinning your wheels, or pistol chambers as may be. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/33 "2019-06-12T18:30:53Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > The trick here is, that’s not what Americans want. Americans flock to any media source that glorifies the killers, and good luck getting a law banning these articles past the 1st amendment. > > Exactly the same problem as banning guns, the people don’t want it to happen, so it won’t happen. Heck, America has tons of shows and movies where the main characters are ‘bad guys’ or act like ‘bad guys’. Being able to kill people left and right is a power fantasy. It’s not surprising that when you hand every Tom, Dick, and Mary easy access to a way to kill lots of people, some nominal percentage decide to use it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/34 "2019-06-12T18:33:15Z")
Right, guns aren’t \*the \*problem, and a-holes/sickos aren’t \*the \*problem either. The \*combination \*of the two is the problem. But we can meaningfully reduce only one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/35 "2019-06-12T19:07:12Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > The hurdle we can’t jump is gun culture. Our existing gun culture means that it’s politically impossible to pass sweeping reform, and even if you did, large numbers of owners would refuse to follow the law. It’s not that we can’t collect and destroy 400 million guns (because 400 million is too big a number), it’s that tens of millions of gun owners will actively try to prevent a gun ban from working. I think this is true, and I would compare the gun culture in America to religion. No, not in the sense that everyone who owns guns “worships” them, though there’s definitely a subset of gun owners who are overly obsessed with guns, but even among those people, most of them never actually wind up firing a weapon “in anger”. In the sense that it equates to “a very strongly held belief that has existed for a really long time and is passed down through the generations.” So imagine the “gun culture vs. different countries” argument in terms of a religion. Imagine that Japan wanted to ban the Islamic religion. Leave aside the idea that it’s wrong to ban a religion - imagine that they just wanted to do this. Could they do it? Probably. There are almost no Muslims in Japan. It’s not something that the average person there has any stake in. It’s not part of that country’s history. Now imagine that India wanted to ban the Islamic religion. While it is not the dominant religion there, 14% of India’s population is Muslim, amounting to 172 million people - in fact, the largest population of Muslims in the world outside of countries whose population is majority Muslim. Do you think _that_ would work? Hell no, and not just because those 172 million people would object to it. Islam has a long history in India. There have been large numbers of Muslims there for hundreds of years. Gun ownership is sort of like a religion. Leave the objects themselves, the guns, out of it for the sake of this argument - it’s a deeply held belief about something. Large numbers of Americans hold that belief. That belief has been part of the country’s history from the very beginning. And it’s been passed down over the generations, and there’s also an entire economy supporting it which has existed for a long time. This is why America is unlike other countries of the world when it comes to this particular issue, and comparisons to them are never really strong debating points. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/36 "2019-06-12T19:27:50Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > Leave the objects themselves, the guns, out of it for the sake of this argument - it’s a deeply held belief about something. Large numbers of Americans hold that belief. That belief has been part of the country’s history from the very beginning. And it’s been passed down over the generations, and there’s also an entire economy supporting it which has existed for a long time. Could it be honor culture? If you believe the world is a dangerous place where you have to constantly make sure other people know you’re willing and able to hurt them (because they’re constantly angling to get you) then it makes sense to prize guns that much. Gun culture is stronger in the South and among the rural white working class, just like fundamentalist Evangelicalism, honor culture and the grunts of the Republican Party. Relatedly, Prostestants in Northern Ireland treated Catholics like Southerners treated blacks, had paramilitaries and one of their leaders, Ian Paisley, was a mix between Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson. I haven’t looked at South Africa much but perhaps those who know more can tell us of any patterns that might exist between the gun/violence/honor cultures of Apartheid South Africa, Northern Ireland and the rednecky parts of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/37 "2019-06-12T19:30:18Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > [Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/) > > Until you deal with the number of guns you’re just spinning your wheels, or pistol chambers as may be. That’s fake. Everybody knows that MORE guns makes everyone safer. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/38 "2019-06-12T19:43:02Z")
> [@Lamoral](#): > > I don’t think firearm classes in school are going to affect anything. I don’t know why this is proposed so often - how many shootings exactly are prevented because the shooter had insufficient _training?_ It just doesn’t make any sense to me. It isn’t the shooter we should be worried about training. It’s the bystanders. People with guns prevent shootings all the time, both private citizens and professionals. The more people out there with the tools and training to stop violence in progress, the better. When half the people in any crowd are potential security guards, shooters who aren’t suicidal are much more wary of shooting in the first place. And the victims and survivors won’t have to wait thirty minutes to an hour for help to show up, and hope it’s not one of those cowardly police who will wait outside until the threat neutralizes itself. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/39 "2019-06-12T19:48:16Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > That’s fake. Everybody knows that MORE guns makes everyone safer. > [@DrCube](#): > > The more people out there with the tools and training to stop violence in progress, the better. See? ---
**Author:** ![UnwittingAmericans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d9b06d/32.png) [@UnwittingAmericans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwittingAmericans)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2019, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418/40 "2019-06-12T19:49:44Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > That would- according to sociologists- _increase_ the number of mass shootings. I think it would change the debate over gun control. Fast. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guns-guns-and-more-guns-what-can-america-do-to-reduce-mass-shootings/835418.md?page=3)