Here is the deal, though. The gun problem in the US is a symptom. Not a pure symptom, inasmuch as it contributes to the real underlying problems, but dealing with the gun situation cannot solve the actual problem. What those are may be a matter of contention, and I certainly have my own strong opinions on that, but howsoever we can address and mitigate the underlying causes of gun violence, that must be a significant part of any solution. Otherwise we are putting a band-aid over a gut shot.
I don’t think background checks will do all that much. It’s a good idea anyway, and should be implemented forthwith, as it is part of the problem that needs addressing, but the real issue is much bigger than that and may be an impossible task. And that is the entire sensibility of “guns are protection against bad guys”.
The idea you have to try and get into their heads is that there’s no such thing as a good guy with a gun. It’s not a good vs bad guy thing, it’s about knowing when and how to use it effectively, and that 99% of the Dirty Harry, Billy The Kid, Punisher scenarios will never play out like the fantasy in their heads. Guns are death-dealing devices, not protection. Only use them if you are willing to kill, not if you think it’s a deterrent, because it isn’t.
A cultural sensibility adjustment like that is now almost impossible to enact, when so many “bad guys” do have guns and are willing to use them. Of course you want to protect yourselves from those people, and what other way do they have but more guns? I don’t know how to change minds when they believe their families’ lives are at stake.
Funner fact:
Limit handguns to 8 bullets per magazine, with no speedloaders. (If this means revolvers only, then it’s revolvers only)
Long guns cannot have a rate of fire faster than 1 round per second, nor can they be easily modified to do so. Think bolt action and pump action.
You want “sport” guns to use at ranges that fall outside of those specs, that is fine, but they stay locked up at the range.
This.
Semi-auto weapons with high capacity magazines have been around for over 100 years. And it used to be much easier to acquire one (via the mail, no ID, no background checks, prohibitions for certain people, etc) yet what’s being discussed on this thread seems to be a recent phenomenon.
The guns haven’t changed. We have! 50+ years ago we didn’t have Quentin Tarantino type movies showing mean spirited individuals killing people in cruel, extraordinarily vicious manners, with cable channels playing such things over and over and over 24 hours a day for weak minded people to watch again and again and again. And there wasn’t a zillion news outlets giving publicity to actual murders day in and day out, influencing copy cat type actors. But I don’t see anyone suggesting any of this may be one of the many reasons we have active shooters today. Instead let’s just blame an inanimate device and curtail everyones freedoms because of the actions of a few.
In a nation of over 320 million if one subtracts suicides and gang bangers offing each other, there actually is little risk of being victim to gun violence. Do the math.
Most gun crime isn’t even mass shootings anyway. It’s mostly street crime. Mass shootings provoke a more emotional response in people, but they are not statistically a substantial part of the overall homicide rate.
My proposed form of gun control - stricter sentencing for felons in possession of a firearm - is more politically feasible because it’s an easier sell to conservatives. Even NRA members would get on board with a bill that punished criminals more harshly. Yet it is indeed gun control. When guns that in the possession of convicted felons are being separated from those felons, that means guns are being controlled. The government can melt them down into slag for all I care. Or they could auction them off or something, requiring a federal background check for the buyers. But if their felonious owner’s ass is in a prison cell, the guns are being controlled.
pkbites is correct. Gun violence is spreading like a disease, but the ready availability of guns is only a necessary condition and not the main cause.
I think it’s a combination of a cleansing of religion from society (since it’s bullshit) and mass media.
People have gotten suicidal and offed themselves since the beginning of humanity. But now, if you’re feeling suicidal, and you know that there will be no punishment in the afterlife (because it’s become common knowledge that religion is bullshit), why not go on a shooting spree? All the people doing it get glorified in the media, and their names go down in infamy for decades to come. (while if you just kill yourself, you will almost instantly be forgotten)
Most people are still not psychopathic enough to go do it - they have at least some empathy for other human beings, whether or not they fear some divine justice, but there’s a non zero portion of the population who are.
These mass shootings are nowhere close to the first in American history - it’s happened for decades - but previous mass shootings weren’t covered with days of wall to wall coverage.
The first sentence is contradicted by the last half of this paragraph. Other than safety and environmental regs, there are NO restrictions on what types of vehicles a person can buy, or how many. And there are no restrictions on how they can be resold, or to whom.
If I have the money, I can own literally dozens of “assault vehicles” (Hummers, etc.). I can drive them anywhere I want; I can loan them out to other people; I can resell them without putting the other person through a background check.
Etc, etc.
I voted “The only weapons allowed are hunting weapons, by certain individuals in certain areas.” but with 2 extras:
Target shooting pistols, for registered members of official shooting clubs (incl. stuff like pentathlon or Western shooting) , guns kept under lock at club
Black powder weapons are also allowed for anyone, but subject to registration.
It’s a well-meaning OP but something of a leading question given the history in the US.
If I could wave a magic wand, yes all guns are illegal for civilians except shooting ranges, or licenses for some shotguns / rifles for hunters.
But with American culture and history being what it is, I’m aware we’re trying to find a compromise position; and I’m not just *pretending *to compromise as part of some long-term plan. I’m fine with us finding some compromise where only the most obvious, most pressing, regulations get implemented.
It’s like with healthcare. If I could wave my magic wand all healthcare is free for all, even chronic meds and dental. However between that and the status quo there are lots of good enough options (even before we get into the cost).
It’s like how 40,000 people die on the road every year in cars and trucks and nobody bats an eye. Plane crashes and kills 200 people? Everyone loses their minds.
And yet many or most defensive gun usesdon’t involve killing anyone. Even the very lowest estimatesput numbers of DGU at tens of thousands per year, greatly outweighing by a factor of four or five the number of gun murders in the US.
Regards,
Shodan
Improve the national background check system. This means:
- Determining a standard regarding mental health and when it should trigger a loss of the right to owning firearms. This will not be easy, as the DSM is regularly updated and there is concern about privacy once that data is being sent to the Federal government for inclusion in the database. Think about the impact of knowing that if you take Paxil, you will end up in the database as someone questionable for certain activities - some people might NOT seek out mental health services.
- Improve the reporting of felonies to better determine who is of the list for owning firearms. This is the issue from above where some people were banned from owning firearms because there was an outstanding warrant from Massachusetts for an outstanding misdemeanor.
- Fund the police sufficiently so that when a felon under (2) attempts to purchase a firearm, they are met by the police for an additional arrest for violating the law. The lack of arrests of people trying to buy firearms who are not legally allowed to own them is concerning.
- Fund the police (or reallocate resources) sufficiently so that when someone steps over the line legally and who has registered firearms, the police make a visit to ensure that they no longer have firearms. This is another problem we have seen in California.
All of this falls under enforcing existing laws and regulations more efficiently, and it would have an impact.
Violent movies are popular throughout the developed world.
Mass shootings get publicity everywhere they occur. More in fact, in countries where they are rare.
I do. Every time we talk about gun control.
Also I’ll give you another free one: video games. They must be the cause.
My comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but your reply underscores that you do not, and probably have not, hunted for food. That’s fine, it’s your prerogative to buy raised meat, just understand that it is ecologically more damaging and less cost effective to raise meat in a concentrated place (a farm) than it is to harvest wild animals.
And, just to mention, no matter how thick the flocks are one should never hunt bird with a handgun or rifle. What goes up must come down. When a shotgun, loaded with birdshot, is fired upward the pellets quickly lose velocity and fall harmlessly to the ground even if they do not hit anything while in flight. A bullet, OTOH, has a lethal range of miles and can kill something/someone very far away even if it did pass through a bird or 2 first. Not a viable option.
Two things there:
Firstly, we do a fuckload of things to try to make roads safer, including of course, licensing. If only we put the same effort into gun violence.
Secondly we do this “Why do we report X when more people die of Y?” all the time on the Dope. The answer is that how many people died is only one factor among many in how newsworthy, and important, some information is.
Lots of people die of heart disease every day, but most of us are already aware of that threat. A drone being used for a terrorist attack, say, would rightly be much bigger news, even if no-one died, as it would represent a new kind of phenomenon.
I can think of at least one change I would be willing to sign up for under the notion of “universal background checks,” with of course the devil being in the details:
right now in the state of Michigan, if I wish to sell a firearm to another individual it works in one of two ways:
-
for a handgun, the buyer has to go to their city’s police department or county sheriff and apply for a “license to purchase.” they file the application, wait overnight/over-weekend for them to run the background check, and if approved get three copies of a transfer record. Both I and the buyer fill out and sign all three copies. I keep one, buyer keeps one, and the third goes back to the police dept for entry in the Michigan State Police registry (yes, Michigan requires all handguns be registered.)
-
for a long gun (rifle or shotgun) the buyer gives the money and I give him/her the gun.
that second one can put me at risk if the buyer then goes and does something stupid/bad with the gun. I’m basically left open for criminal charges or civil suits if someone can make the case that I “should have known” the buyer was likely to do something wrong or was prohibited from owning a gun.
so if a UBC scheme is implemented where the buyer and I have to at least go to a licensed FFL holder who has access to the federal system and can run a background check for a nominal “transfer” fee, I could get behind that. But only if the buyer passing the background check releases me from liability for anything he does later on.
edit:
well, tbh compared to other countries our driver licensing requirements are about as stringent as our gun laws.
I’d like to force everyone to trade in their firearms for “thoughts and prayers.” If that’s good enough for all of the people with bullets in them, it should be good enough for everyone else.
People hunt birds for food? Strange. I can go to any local pond with a loaf of bread and get as many geese as I can carry. And people hunt geese?
LOL. yeah, go right up and try to grab a goose. and yes, people do. legally you have to shoot them “on the wing” (flying.)