How could gun control reduce gun violence in the United States?

In My Humble Opinion
81

The part that gets me is that there are literally millions, if not tens of millions of responsible, sedate, prudent gun owners who have all manner of weaponry. And anecdotally at least, the more guns one has, the more likely a person is to be careful with them and keep them secured.

But there are literally maybe tens of nuts out there who perpetrate mass shootings. It seems somehow wrong to seek to deny or restrict the legal right of tens of millions of people because maybe a dozen people lose their minds and run amok. It seems like an indiscriminate and ham-fisted approach to solving a problem- like the kindergarten teacher’s removal of something because one kid fucked it up, only writ many orders of magnitude larger.

I think in some ways, we may have legislated ourselves into a corner; I’m pretty sure that mental health diagnoses, etc… can’t be shared with the NICS system, and there’s no mechanism for therapists, psychiatrists, etc… to flag someone under “don’t sell this nut a gun because he’s crazy as shit!” And at the present moment, people on the “No Fly List” can still buy guns since that data isn’t integrated into the NICS system.

That’s the real issue, as I see it- the current enforcement/denial systems don’t work well. If there was a better way to identify/flag mentally ill people as such, and deny them the right to have firearms, then that would go a long way toward stopping these mass shootings.

I agree wholeheartedly. I happened to grow up in a family where I’m the first of about 4 generations not to have been in the military, and where hunting and shooting were normal pastimes. So I learned proper gun handling and how to shoot from an early age.

But there are clowns who haven’t seen a gun in their life other than on TV, who go buy one and a box of ammo and proceed to get crazy at their local range- they don’t know how to load the thing, they don’t keep it pointed downrange all the time, they can’t keep the bullets on the paper at 7 yards, etc… There really ought to be something very similar to the required hunter’s education course for owning a gun- something that tells you how to load, how to aim, how to unload, how to clear common jams, what to do if you can’t clear it, etc… Make it nearly free, make it take maybe a half-day, and put an indicator on their driver’s license.

**gytalf2000 ** and Scumpup, what would likely happen is that the active-duty military would likely refuse to do anything, as they’re not chartered to operate within the US (Posse Comitatus Act). The governors of the states are theoretically empowered to use their National Guard units in such a capacity, but I suspect that in states with high resistance, using them that way would be tantamount to political suicide. So what you’d get would be basically a lot of resistance in a lot of states with their governors saying “It’s your law, you come enforce it.”, and the military sitting it out.

82

Mental health diagnoses aren’t reported to NICS, but there is no restriction on court determinations or adjudications for mental health issues. There are no restrictions on NICS reporting for those that meet the criteria of the law. If a condition is not one that would lead to being prohibited, there is no restriction to report it. Currently a large number of states do not submit mental health data to NICS not because it is restricted, but because they do not want to.

Therapists, psychiatrists, etc. can report those that they judge to be a danger to themselves or others. In CA, this can be done through involuntary hold (5150) where an evaluation will take place. The results of that evaluation can be submitted to NICS if it is disqualifying.

The No Fly List prohibition would be a restriction of constitutional rights without due process. This is a bad thing. Even the NY times thinks the no-fly list is a violation of due process. Wait, now they don’t. Terror watch lists and no fly lists should definitely not be integrated into NICS.

83

What he “thinks” (based on his own “unbiased” perceptions) and what factual evidence says are two different things. Some facts:

  • Between 1991 and 2001, the number of firearm-related deaths in Australia declined 47% after they more or less banned firearms after several high-profile mass shootings.
  • The US has the 13th highest per capita number of gun-related deaths. The only nations with a higher rate are Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and a bunch of small developing African and South American countries.
  • I also saw some stats proving the misconception that a significant number of crimes are stopped by law abiding citizens with guns, but I’m too lazy to look them up.

So IMHO it’s bullshit to say that changing the laws wouldn’t do anything.

Unless they believed those regular civilians were some sort of Islamic immigrant homosexual liberal socialist atheist abortionists.

84

Oh, definitely! 'Cause then, they wouldn’t exactly be reg’lur folks, now would they?:slight_smile:

85

The Australian buy back program is not a good example when applied to the US. The sheer numbers of guns in the US are not comparable. Less than a million guns were turned in and some of that money from the buy back was just used to buy more acceptable guns that did not violate the new law.

There continues to be the often provided number of 300 million guns in the US. That number was more or less accurate about 2008. And yet gun purchases continue at the rate of 10 to 20 million more each year since then. This link shows the FBI NICS background checks only, the actual sales numbers are not recorded, but this is a useful estimation since background checks are only done at the point of sale. Felons are not usually going through this process unless thy just forgot about a crime they committed in their youth.

And these purchases continue at a record setting pace. The background checks for this recent Black Friday shopping day after Thanksgiving topped 185,000, for one day.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/02/black-friday-saw-most-federal-gun-background-checks-ever-processed-in-a-single-day/

People keep holding up the Australian buy back as a model for the US. The guns turned in represent a week or so of new gun sales in the US, lets be generous and call it a month of new sales. That is piddling little in comparison! There is no way to determine who in the US owns a gun.

Any real gun reduction measure in the US is going to need a Plan B other than the fantasy of the Australian buy back. To paraphrase many other reacent thread on the SDMB, Guns are here in the US, they are not going away, now what do we do?

That is the real question.

86

See post 42, that’s how.

87

Yes to both. That way they don’t waste bullets and destroy the surroundings. That’s the more polite way to conduct mass shootings. Fewer bullets also means the shooting event is quieter - less noise pollution that way.

Why do you want to know?

88

Exactly what I asked. Personally, I think it’s kind of silly to suggest training as a solution to mass shootings.

Simply saying “better mental health” is like, saying, I wish people would just be nice to each other. Sure, I agree. Beyond that it’s meaningless. Do you have specific issues with the way mental health criteria are used to disqualify for NICS? Do you think more diagnoses should be considered disqualifying? Do you think there should be more funding for early adolescent intervention and screening? You could be in favor of all of these, or against all of them, or a mix and still be consistent with wanting “better mental health” whatever that is. That’s why clarifying questions are asked.

As to acceptable levels - you seem to have concluded that our current levels are unacceptable. That leads to the obvious follow up about what you would consider acceptable.

89

Better mental health care, is what I meant there.

90

Sure, but there ought to be a more comprehensive system for identifying and disqualifying the mentally ill from obtaining firearms on the standard commercial market. THAT is what’s going to significantly diminish the number of mass shootings that we see.

The problem is that there’s a tightrope to be walked between depriving someone of their constitutional rights vs. protecting the public good, and with mental illness, it’s a lot murkier. In the case of guns though, it ought to fall squarely on the side of protecting the public good- if there’s ANY question that you’re in your right mind or not, then you don’t get to buy or own a gun, full stop. Nobody is going to argue that someone who was as crazy as say… James Holmes should have ever been allowed to buy or own guns.

I’d go one further and attach serious civil and/or criminal liability to mental health professionals who fail to report anyone to the NICS system.

The way I see it, it’s better to deny a few nuts the ability to buy a gun in the pursuit of minimizing the number of mass shootings, than remove everybody’s ability to buy a gun for the same reason. 99.9% (or more) of gun owners are law-abiding, prudent individuals, and shouldn’t be effectively punished because the mental health system and government can’t get their shit together.

91

We first have to acknowledge that it will take a long time for it to work. Take away all guns tomorrow and some violent crimes might go up. But over time, the decrease of available weaponry to easily commit crimes makes crimes harder to commit, and overall crimes go down because of that. Plus, lack of available guns makes it less likely to be fetishized to the point it is now, and we need that first, second, and third generation of people to grow up without guns so they can know what a better place it would be.

92

[ul]
[li]How much will the availability of guns actually go down? Wouldn’t it hit a non-zero plateau beyond which no further reduction would be seen? What if that plateau is at the level of “still a hell of a lot of guns”? As long as some people want guns and some people are able to supply them, there’s never going to be zero guns.[/li][li]It’ll take a long time- how long? We’re still waiting for heroin, cocaine and meth to go away.[/li][li]Guns are “fetishized” primarily by Hollywood and anti-gunners obsessed with the strawman of the paranoid, near-sociopathic “gun nut” of their imagination. Believe it or not, millions of perfectly ordinary people have decided for personal or principled reasons that owning a gun is a good idea. Saying “if only I could make everyone else think just like me” isn’t really a good plan.[/li][/ul]

93

For most people, gun violence just isn’t an issue- it’s something that goes on in the ghetto or barrio among criminals.

What makes you think that they’d perceive the world as any better if that’s the thinking?

94

Because laws always do something. They always have side effects, if nothing else. No one is really arguing that changing the law will have no effect. They are arguing that it will have no beneficial effect.

The more laws you pass, the more chances there are for people who were trying to do the right thing and had no intentions of harming anyone will fall afoul of some law, and be punished for it. That’s a clear negative consequence of the law.

In order for the law to be a good idea, it has to be balanced by the good it will do. So when people argue that “stricter laws won’t do anything”, what they are saying is that they won’t accomplish the good that the supporters want.

95

More reporting of mental health by doctors? OK.
More reporting of mental health by non-doctors? Now way.

If I get disqualified and want to challenge that decision, I should be allowed to take it to trial or board made of citizens in some type of legal setting that I could get my CCW back or issued if I did not pose a threat as defined by law. ( complicated law I bet ) , but some kind of appeal to non bureaucrats is necessary IMO.

96

I don’t exactly disagree. But …

I wonder how many “nuts” have actually had contact with the mental health system? Versus the ones who are simply quietly crazy and avoid shrinks because they’re afraid? Or can’t afford mental health care but haven’t been arrested for acting crazy yet?

Those aren’t rhetorical questions. I honestly don’t know the answers. But given how much this country thinks the streets are fine place to put people we used to put in an ayslum, I bet an awful lot of what we’d technically call “dangerous nuts” are completely unknown not only to the Feds but to any/all mental health providers.

There’s also the feedback problem. If I am drifting off into violent craziness and know, in my lucid moments, that the first time I see the shrink at the county clinic he’ll report me and I’ll never be able to buy the arsenal to do the deed to satisfy the ever louder voices, well … I guess I want to avoid the county shrink’s office at all costs, don’t I?

97

This statement has the same level of depth that your previous did. Both are nebulous.

98

So be it.

99

Guard units are a bit of a wild card, IMO. On the one hand, Guard units tend to be really localized in their membership; people tend to join units within an easy drive of home. One would expect that they wouldn’t want to fire on their own, as it were. Yet we have a good many historical examples of Guard units willingly acting as government thugs and willingly opening fire. Most recently at Kent State. OTOH, if the issue in question were forced disarmament of the civilian population, we would have to take into account that Guard members, like the rest of the military, tend to swing right in their politics and lots of them are gun owners.

100

Seung Hui Cho, James Holmes, Rodrick Dantzler, Edward Charles Allaway and Elliott Rodger to name a few.

And there are quite a few others where the mental health system flat out failed, or where the perpetrators were likely mentally ill, but not formally diagnosed.