# Is there X amount of mass shootings that would change gun supporters' minds, or is that the wrong way to think? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2022, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380 "2022-05-13T19:12:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/43 "2022-05-15T01:52:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Are there any reliable statistics that show what percentage of gun owners use those weapons to put food on the table? None that I’m aware of. I’m on the pro-gun side of the issue, but “putting food on the table” isn’t really a good argument. Especially when the pro-gun side will turn around and telll you the 2nd Amendment isn’t about hunting. So evern if a signifcant number of people did rely on hunting for food, so what? That’s not what the 2nd Amendment is about. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/44 "2022-05-15T01:54:29Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > I live in Montana and know quite a few people who hunt for their protein, mostly deer and elk. When it comes to percentage of total gun owners that hunt to put food on the table Montana is a poor example to go by, since it comes in 44th in registered guns by state. > **[U.S. - number of registered weapons by state 2021 | Statista](https://www.statista.com/statistics/215655/number-of-registered-weapons-in-the-us-by-state/)** > > Texas was the state with the highest number of registered weapons in the United States in 2021, with 1,006,555 firearms. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/45 "2022-05-15T01:55:31Z")
> [@dolphinboy](#): > > As far as mass shootings go, they see it as a big city problem. Too many people, too many nutcases, too easy to get a firearm from one source or another. Except that most mass shootings do not occur in cities [but in suburbs and smaller communities](https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/mass-school-shootings-mostly-in-small-us-towns/4408321.html). Firearm violence is endemic in gang-dominated areas in cities but is generally confined to specific neighborhoods; school, church, and community shootings often occur outside of large cities and have nothing to do with other criminal activity. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/46 "2022-05-15T01:58:34Z")
Isn’t hunting a bit of a red herring? If you’re hunting to put food on the table a single shot hunting rifle is adequate. There could be, for example, legislation that prohibits ownership of large magazine semi-automatic rifles while permitting the ownership of hunting weapons. Can you still kill lots of people with a single shot rifle? Yes, but it’s not as easy. ---
**Author:** ![dolphinboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dolphinboy/32/330_2.png) [@dolphinboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dolphinboy)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/47 "2022-05-15T02:02:03Z")
“Except that most mass shootings do not occur in cities [but in suburbs and smaller communities](https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/mass-school-shootings-mostly-in-small-us-towns/4408321.html).” I don’t disagree with you, I’m just saying what I’ve heard other people say. I live is a rural community, and everything else is a “big city” by comparison. “When it comes to percentage of total gun owners that hunt to put food on the table Montana is a poor example to go by, since it comes in 44th in registered guns by state.” I didn’t say Montana was in any way representative, just that a lot of people I know hunt regularly for food, and in California, which has a lot more guns per capita than Montana, I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t live in a rural county in California, I do in Montana. It’s about tradition and the opportunity for hunting. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/48 "2022-05-15T02:23:52Z")
There is certainly hunting in the more conservative Northern and Eastern parts of California (not that one has to be politically conservative to be a hunter but my perhaps-naive impression is that it probably tracks along those lines). Hunting, of course, is not a justification listed in the Constitution, and we could certainly make exceptions for weapons suitable for hunting that would not preclude the prohibition of weapons that are more typically used in mass shootings, e.g. semi-automatic pistols and rifles with removable magazines. However, there are a lot of people who enjoy shooting for the technical challenge and/or view the ownership of firearms as necessary for personal security, which may be a foreign concept for people who live in suburbia with fast response times but obvious to those who live in rural areas where ‘response’ may be a matter of hours instead of minutes. Regardless, any practical effort to actually prohibit the ownership of firearms or even broad classes of weapons is going to result in a wave of political resentment and action as there are a large number of gun owners for whom the topic is a single issue electoral priority. Unlike, say, New Zealand, there is just no broad consensus that the United States should ban military-pattern semi-automatic rifles that can be easily modified to fire in a quasi-fully automatic manner, and the attempt to do so would be politically ruinous and probably result in mass civil disobedience, hence why President Obama always made it clear that he viewed gun ownership as a Constitutionally-protected issue even though he was clearly upset about mass shootings that occurred during his tenure and worked behind the scenes to try to get some political consensus for any kind of gun control measures without success, and yet still served as such a boogyman for gun bannin’ than the National Firearm Industry Association should have named him “Firearms Salesman of the Year” for kicking gun sales into high gear everytime he spoke on the topic. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/49 "2022-05-15T02:38:43Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > We have studies showing that the more you report on suicides, the more suicides it will cause. Likewise, the more you report on a serial killer, the more copycats you get. The mass media’s ever increasing ejaculation every time there’s a shooting is, if you were to compare headline count to shooting count, probably correlated and probably precedes the growth of shootings. That is to say, you would probably be able to show a strong chance of causation. I think there’s an element of truth to this. Mass shootings occurred throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s–but they generally were local news. The Charles Whitman shooting at the University of Texas in 1966 made some national news but it quickly fell off front pages. Other major shootings like Luby’s restaurant mass shooting in 1991 that killed 23, victims made only a moderate news splash. There was a shooting at a San Diego area McDonald’s in 1984 that killed 21, that also had limited news impact. For whatever reason, the vagaries of 24 hour cable news and what have you, the “one two punch” of mass school shootings–the smaller one in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1998 and the one in Columbine just under a year later, seemed to create a perfect atmosphere for the media to go wild. It became a “focus of deepest concern” and we’ve been on the train with it ever since. It’s a weird thing because I think all of us agree mass shootings at schools…is absolutely a concern, but when excessive news coverage of events creates and inculcates repetition from impressionable people, it’s arguable the media is doing no service by sensationalizing and hyper-focusing on them. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/50 "2022-05-15T04:20:51Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Let **Velocity** speaks for themself, OK? Huh? I did. I even quoted him. > [@Velocity](#): > > I would be in favor of a 2nd-Amendment repeal and banning/confiscating of most guns. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/51 "2022-05-15T04:32:54Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > 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.) The right to self defense encompasses more than just defense against bears or wolves. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/52 "2022-05-15T04:43:47Z")
Like self defense against the thief that stole your neighbor’s improperly secured handgun? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/53 "2022-05-15T04:53:11Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Isn’t hunting a bit of a red herring? If you’re hunting to put food on the table a single shot hunting rifle is adequate No, it really isn’t. Especially if you miss and need a second shot, or there’s more than one thing to shoot at (eg all the rabbits plaguing NZ and Australia, or the feral pigs in Australia). Unless by “single-shot” you meant “manually operated repeating rifle” (like a Winchester .30-30 or a bolt-action hunting rifle), as opposed to a semi-auto like an AR-15. And even then, there’s still a place for semi-auto rifles in hunting. The problem is it’s extremely difficult to write laws saying “You can have a semi-automatic rifle for hunting, providing it doesn’t look like an AR-15 or have a mag capacity over 5 rounds” and [Americans still go out of their way to come up with ways around that](https://www.pewpewtactical.com/featureless-ar-15-rifle/) which render the whole exercise moot and make no-one happy (gun people are all “See? I’ve still got my AR-15, it just looks stupid now” and anti-gun people are all “they’ve still got their AR-15s, they just look a bit different”). ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/54 "2022-05-15T04:56:54Z")
Is the thief doing imminent harm to you or your family? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/55 "2022-05-15T05:52:58Z")
Using a handgun stolen from the neighbor who bought his for protection too. Isn’t a personal handgun for protection pretty much the solution to the problem it creates in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/56 "2022-05-15T05:54:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Isn’t a personal handgun for protection pretty much the solution to the problem it creates in the first place? I can’t parse the meaning of this sentence. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/57 "2022-05-15T06:06:22Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > No, it really isn’t. Especially if you miss and need a second shot, or there’s more than one thing to shoot at (eg all the rabbits plaguing NZ and Australia, or the feral pigs in Australia). Shoot. Miss. Reload. Stalk. Shoot again. Let’s be real here. No one _needs_ to hunt for food these days. It is a sport and no one will go hungry if Dad doesn’t get a deer. Culling is entirely different, I was talking about hunting for food. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/58 "2022-05-15T07:15:22Z")
There’s other things to hunt besides deer. And you really, _really_ don’t want to be trying to reload a single-shot rifle when there’s an angry bush pig coming at you because you missed the first time or didn’t kill it. Also “stalking” can take literal days (at least in this part of the world). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/59 "2022-05-15T08:08:58Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > There’s other things to hunt besides deer. And you really, _really_ don’t want to be trying to reload a single-shot rifle when there’s an angry bush pig coming at you because you missed the first time or didn’t kill it. Bushpig? _Really?_ I don’t think that problem is going to come up too often here in the U.S. of A., seeing as how (according to Wiki) " The **bushpig** ( _Potamochoerus larvatus_ ) is a member of the [pig family that inhabits forests, woodland, riverine vegetation and cultivated areas in East and Southern Africa. Probably introduced populations are also present in Madagascar. There have also been unverified reports of their presence on the Comoro island of Mayotte." ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/60 "2022-05-15T08:21:49Z")
I live in Australia. “Bush Pig” is another term for feral pigs that live in the bush. They’re a massive, massive problem here. I believe the US term might be “Wild hog”. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/61 "2022-05-15T08:50:23Z")
For the most part, I believe the discussion in this thread involves the gun problem in the U.S., not Australia where you have to have a firearm license to possess or use a firearm, and to get that license you have to show a genuine reason for needing that license, and I do believe that “self defense” as a reason just isn’t good enough. That is why I was inquiring as to what percentage of gun owners need to shoot game to put food on the table, seeing as how Sage\_Rat put it first on this list: " 1. Feeding families via hunting. 2. Keeping families safe, via home protection. 3. Warding off tyrannical government that could come in and start putting people into giant warehouses full of poisonous gas, by the millions." ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2022, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380/62 "2022-05-15T08:55:02Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > We have studies showing that the more you report on suicides, the more suicides it will cause. Likewise, the more you report on a serial killer, the more copycats you get. Can you tell me where I can find these studies? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-x-amount-of-mass-shootings-that-would-change-gun-supporters-minds-or-is-that-the-wrong-way-to-think/964380.md?page=4)