In the past, I used to think that the only reason gun supporters hadn’t changed their minds yet was because there weren’t enough mass shootings to reach a critical mass. That is, despite Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Parkland, Vegas Mandalay Bay, Orlando Pulse, etc., that somehow those just weren’t enough, and it would take X amount of shootings before the tide finally turned.
But now I’m starting to get a different impression: that gun supporters fundamentally don’t see these two things as being a connected problem at all. That no matter how many times a crowd gets mowed down by a gunman with an AR-15, these gun supporters will think, “Well, MY guns, sitting in my closet or drawer, have never hurt anyone, so there’s no reason I should give up MY guns no matter how many OTHER people are carrying out mass shootings.”
Is that…how it is? That there is no amount of mass shootings that will ever convince gun supporters to ban guns? Even if a Columbine every single day?
Well, sure “a Columbine every single day” would change things, of course.
But remember, real mass shootings just make big headlines. Stat-wise, they are a drop in the bucket.
The real problem is ordinary violent felons getting hold of handguns and murdering people. They don’t do that with AR15s, rifles of all sorts make up like 2% of murders in the USA.
That is why smart informed voters want intelligent gun controls- like having all guns sales required to have a background check (with a few exclusions of course).
The big #1 source of criminals getting hold of those ubiquitous 9mm pistols is strawman dealers- who buy guns totally legally, then resell them to anyone with enough cash on hand. They don’t do background checks, they don’t keep records, and many of them target the criminal underworld as they can get a huger markup/profit there.
Sometimes this is called the “gun show loophole” but it rarely happens at gun shows and it is not a loophole.
There have been almost 20,000 murders with a gun in the USA, and nearly all with a handgun (then shotgun, with AR15s almost none). Most of these are by hardcore criminals.
So, stop the flow of handguns to criminals and that number will decrease markedly.
Nearly all sales should require a background check and the sale recorded and transmitted.
Strawman dealers who ignore those rules dealt with harshly- long Federal prison terms.
True.
False.
15X10 = 150 x 365=54,750. Number of actual gun murders= less than 20000. Your figures are more than twice too high.
Rather than make this a discussion about “what gun supporters think”, how about we spend a few moments on what Velocity thinks? From your post, it sounds like you think that mass shootings are a reason to change gun ownership laws? Is that a fair description? Further, it appears that you think that gun supporters don’t agree as they don’t see their gun ownership as being connected to how others use guns? Is that also a fair description?
So, let’s walk through a thought experiment that may help you understand their position. Do you, Velocity, drive a car? Do you consider yourself to be a good driver? Do you acknowledge that there are fatal auto accidents? Do you acknowledge that they happen every day? With that knowledge, would you support changes to the law that would result in you giving up your car?
Again, my statements are all about helping Velocity understand how others might think, using a comparison.
I don’t regard cars as a good analogy because cars serve a vital purpose (without them, the economy would collapse,) furthermore, the fundamental purpose of a car isn’t to hurt people.
The fundamental purpose of a gun, however, is to harm or kill people. (with the exception of some people in rural regions who need them for fending off bears or wolves or whatnot, but that’s sort of a side issue.)
And yes, I regard mass shootings, or most shootings in general, as a reason to severely restrict guns. I would be in favor of a 2nd-Amendment repeal and banning/confiscating of most guns.
I suggest that gun supporters believe guns serve a vital purpose. It’s given in the literal text of the second amendment, “being necessary to the security of a free State”. If you reject that premise you will never understand them.
You may as well ask a gun supporter how many people must die before they are willing to give up living in a free State.
I’ll agree, except I still don’t understand the real benefit in creating loopholes that will happily be exploited.
It used to happen at gun shows. Since most gun shows require you to have an FFL in order to have a booth, it’s more in the parking lot outside of gun shows than inside.
And how is it not a loophole? There is an intent to a law, and a way to get around that intent, that’s kinda the definition.
I said gun violence, not murders. For instance, in Columbine, there were 13 people murdered, and 2 that committed suicide, but you count them there, but not to the number you then go and compare them to.
You have previously indicated that it is unscientific to use anything but the single number put out by an institution, without breaking it down at all, unless you have a degree in epidemiology.
I think part of the disconnect is that many gun owners view the right to own and possess a firearm as a fundamental human right. So if you understand that, even if you don’t agree with it, I think you’ll have a better understanding of why the number of firearm related homicides, or suicides for that matter, aren’t going to convince a lot of gun owners to give up their AR-15s.
Well, of course, the text actually says that a militia, one that is well regulated, is necessary to the security of a free state, but it’s rare that gun advocates bother to read that part of the constitution.
My starting position on most subjects is as a civil liberation, and as such I supported an individual’s right to own a gun. But Sandy Hook was the breaking point for me; after that it seemed the public good outweighed the individual right.
But I do think I am the exception; for the majority, no number of mass (or day to day) killings is going to convince them they should give up their right to own guns. If anything, it seems to be the opposite; more of - in this violent society I need a weapon for self-defense.
Man, you’ve come a long way from your Republican past.
The problem with using mass shootings as the gauge is that gun owners rightly point out that they are a miniscule percent of gun deaths.
I imagine that most gun deaths are from handguns and take place in inner cities, or are from suicides and accidents. I say, leave the AR-15s out of it and try and strictly regulate handguns.
Gun owners won’t like that, either, of course, but at least it makes statistical sense.
ETA: Cite for handguns dominating gun deaths (and “assault weapons” being a tiny percentage):
In 2020, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available, according to the FBI. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”
Sorry for my continued rant, but when there’s a mass shooting, people say, “Hey, we have to get rid of assault rifles/weapons!” Drives me batty – those are not the problem when it comes to death by guns in the US.
I do not think you will ever convince gun owners to ban guns - that is probably a bridge too far, and I think using mass shootings as justification will not move the needle at all. I think a better tact is to convince everyone gun safety is worthwhile, which would include sensible restrictions and monitoring of gun sales, as well as enhancing safety opportunities for responsible owners, and focusing laws on preventing guns from getting into the wrong hands. Progress will be glacial in our current environment, but I think more is possible in the short and medium term if we lower the bar. Take “gun ban” off the table and you will likely get more people talking and listening.
Again, I’m intending to help you understand how others think - set aside the concept of a fundamental purpose. Allow your critical faculties to focus on the outcome aspect, rather than the intent aspect.
Maybe you’re not aware of how hard conservatives have doubled-down on this issue, but the answer to gun violence is always more guns. If mass shootings start happening every day gun sales will skyrocket and Republicans will be falling over themselves to remove all gun restrictions and arm everyone.
You could save more lives by reducing the speed limit by 5 miles per hour, and in return you get to preserve:
Feeding families via hunting.
Keeping families safe, via home protection.
Warding off tyrannical government that could come in and start putting people into giant warehouses full of poisonous gas, by the millions.
And that’s before getting to the matter that countries without guns have similar homicide rates to the USA - people just fall back to the next most popular implement for murder and keep on trucking.
Murder is horrible. But all getting rid of guns does is reduce gun murder. I don’t personally find the argument compelling that murdered folk are too concerned about the mechanism of their death. If I get stabbed, I want the person who did it to go to jail; if I get shot, I want the person who did it to go to jail; if I’m burned to death - well, I wish that I’d been shot and I want that person to go to jail. There’s nothing magical about guns that makes them worse. Only absolute murder counts matter, not subtypes of implement used - unless you want to pull in suffering before death and, in that category, guns are less bad than arson, vehicles, torture by hammer, and being forcibly drowned.
I’ll point out that Switzerland has a surfeit of civilian-possessed firearms including—or, perhaps especially—military-type weapons, and yet remarkably little firearms-related crime and vanishingly few mass shootings (the last was in 2001 when the local parliament in Zug was assaulted by a long-discontented man with a rifle, shotgun, several handguns, and a protective vest). This is in part due to cultural differences as well as an entrenched national tradition of firearm safety and responsibility as well as regulations that, while varying from canton to canton, offer substantial oversight on weapon purchase and possession. It is also the case that while Switzerland has nearly universal military active and reserve service duty in which servicepeople typically take home their service weapon and a box of (sealed) ammunition after their active service is complete, and a national holiday (the Schuetzenfest) in which whole families go out in a fair-like atmosphere to watch reservists requalify, as well as strong traditions of personal gun ownership for hunting and recreation.
However, despite all of this military service and gun ownership, the Swiss do not have any kind of culture of private self-identified ‘militias’ or the kind of paramilitarization of law enforcement that exists in the United States. Responsible firearms ownership is viewed as an obligation to protect the country, not something to harass officials that they don’t like or threaten other citizens, and crimes involving firearms are treated very seriously even if they don’t involve discharge or injury, and not in the counterproductive “Three Strikes” obligate sentencing way.
For the United States, some consistent method of background checks, an ability for law enforcement to act proactively in temporarily seizing guns of someone who has displayed aggressive and threatening behavior, and reasonable and practical restrictions on distinct functional classes of firearms; not banning “ugly” guns or making absurdist runarounds like requiring firearms to utilized non-extant safety and tracking technologies, but actually useful restrictions and severe penalties for things like bump stocks that really have no place in skilled recreational shooting. It is a small minority of gun owners who ever commit any crimes or intentionally transfer weapons to those that do, but even that minority is enough to foster a gangster and paramilitary culture that is violent and threatening as well as ensuring that firearms are available to minors and mentally unbalanced people with little in the way of practical constraints regardless of laws and age restrictions.
I do not want to see and don’t ever realistically expect that we will ever have any kind of comprehensive firearm banning and confiscation but this idea that the US is so ‘exceptional’ that we should accept school shootings and other firearm violence grossly out of proportion with the rest of the developed world as a routine cost for ‘freedom’ is absurd on the face.