School shootings and gun control

[GandK]

Since the school shooting in Oregon on Thursday, I've seen a stream of anti-gun rants appear online and in my Facebook feed.

Ordinarily with a hot-button issue I'd just grab my popcorn and enjoy the show, but this time I'm getting aggravated that a sizeable number of people seem to actually think that passing more gun laws will fix this. And I literally don't understand that mentality.

First off, in the age of the Internet and in a nation with millions of guns - many of which are passed down informally from one generation to the next (I personally own two rifles and three pistols, all inherited) - how will passing more stringent background check laws fix anything? It couldn't possibly. Guns change hands between peaceful citizens all the time with no paperwork. And would having passed gun control laws a year ago have prevented this massacre? No, of course not. So why focus on gun laws now as a potential solution?

And what might have prevented it? What makes a terrorist a terrorist? It isn't his gun. It's malice. If we (Western allied forces) somehow managed to remove every gun from Syria, would ISIS no longer be a threat then? Of course they would. If you take away a terrorist's gun, he doesn't stop being a terrorist. He reaches for a bomb. Or a knife. Or a gas can and a match, as those horrible videos of their executed captives showed us. He's just as dangerous without the gun, because he still has the intent to harm. How do you stop a terrorist, then? Get rid of the malice.

So the real question now is: why was this guy (the Oregon shooter) feeling malice? I see two possibilities. Either he required medical attention or he's extremely disaffected. Happy healthy people do not shoot their classmates. So... did this guy slip through the cracks of the mental health establishment? Or did he have a legitimate grievance that he felt powerless to air and/or alleviate? Either way, this is a social problem, not a legislative one. We need an explanation. It's the only thing that really might help us (society) prevent the next shooting.

Why are we not having that conversation... one about what might have prevented this attack?

I suspect (and am, pointlessly, rather angry that) that the answer is politics. Elections are coming. The anti-gun lobby sees an opportunity to further their cause and they're seizing it, hoping to pass something while passions are still running high. The pro-gun folks are responding by objecting on civil liberties grounds. A gun law in either direction would be a quick political win for somebody, and would prove that they're doing "something." But mental health law changes could take years. Certainly more than one election cycle (and any can that can be kicked, is). Also, a conversation about mental health is not sexy. It implies that the shooter may not have been 100% in control of his actions, which will irritate almost everyone. And a conversation about the shooter's grievances is even less appealing. It implies that someone else might have had a hand in this, too.

Don't get me wrong: had the shooter lived, he ought to have faced the full consequences of his actions. But focusing all our conversations on the method of his attack rather than the reason for it is asinine. And it's disrespectful to the families of the victims and of the shooter, because it guarantees that the madness will continue. Someone with intent to do harm will always find a way. Attacks will continue, guns or no guns, until we remove the underlying intent.

If you've read this far (sorry)... am I missing something? Is the focus on guns all about politics? Or is there another legitimate viewpoint here that I simply don't grasp?

[Chad]

Because something is hard we shouldn't do it?

[chenda]

Well I think a legitimate argument is that mentally ill people, specifically those who are at high risk of causing harm to themselves and others, should be restricted from access to guns which make it very easy for them to cause a lot of deaths very quickly. Its wouldn't be a panacea, but it might curb the capability to undertake extreme violence. Removing every gun from Syria would certainly reduce the level and intensity of violence taking place. I agree that mental illness is public health issue which requires a lot more attention.

[jennypenny]

I think there are two things going on wrt the push for more gun control.

First, it's politically expedient for politicians to use newsworthy events to appear as if they are actually doing something. The popular method is to declare a 'war on' whatever it is and aim for the simplest target with the least moving parts. Think of the War on Drugs. They proved decades ago that criminalizing drug use has done nothing but fill prisons. The best course of action (if you see 'best' as meaning the biggest reduction in drug use) is decriminalization combined with affordable treatment options with community support. That takes a lot of work though, and doesn't sound as good in a sound bite as "I'm fighting the War on Drugs!". In the case of mass shootings, mental illness is a common thread, but dealing with and treating mental illness is a messy business that no politician wants to touch. It's much easier to go out and call for 'getting the guns out of the hands of would-be killers' or something to that effect. Schools are also a common thread, which I don't think is coincidental. The institutionalization of education has a dark side that no one wants to address.

Second, the people who send/forward me emails about gun control in reaction to these types of events are usually people who live in well-off areas where personal protection isn't a daily concern, and/or people who didn't grow up in a sub-culture (hunters, inner city, military/police family) where guns were routine. Their unfamiliarity with weapons makes them more afraid of guns and less understanding of how people who grow up around guns don't consider them a big deal (and also know proper gun handling and safety). In that way it's a cultural difference like with legal drinking ages. In Europe, no one bats an eye at a 18yo having a drink because it's part of the culture, whereas I'd get arrested for giving an 18yo a drink (OMGWTF -- you gave them alcohol ). My personal pet peeve is politicians/celebrities who never leave the house without armed escorts but then push for gun control. What's good for the goose ...

The saddest part is that I bet more young people will be killed in Chicago this weekend then were killed in Oregon the other day, but no one gives a shit about that.

[Solvent]

Americans tend to discount international opinions, in my experience, but whatever, I'll bite.

No other developed country experiences the frequent mass murders due to firearms that the US does. Other countries decided, at some point, that widespread and socially acceptable ownership of murder weapons was unacceptable. Other countries do not experience frequent mass murder of their citizens. You do not understand the mechanism by which gun control works. But you're willfully discounting the evidence that in no other comparably developed country do these weekly mass murders happen.

Due to the number of guns in the US, no, the problem cannot be solved overnight with the passing of laws. It would take time. But the US can start on that path of deciding that constant mass murder is unacceptable, or it can decide that having its citizens being subject to regular death by mass shooting is OK. In the latter case, it can just continue on its current path.

Its baffling to the rest of the world that so many in the US can't see this, but you're far, far beyond rational argument.

[Chad]

Except some of us grew up with guns always available, hunted before it was legal for them to do, etc... and still see the need for stricter gun laws. Hunting rifles/shotguns need few new laws, while pistols need more and I'm not certain that assault rifles just shouldn't be outlawed. At the very least assault rifles should require a ton of paperwork, psych evals, and background checks. Oh, and it should cost a ton of cash to get the license for one.

I would also point out that at least 40% of the people in the rural area I grew up with were idiots with their guns. I don't think training solves this at all.

The Chicago problem is actually easier. Just make drugs legal and 80% of those murders go away. Gun control laws, specifically ones dealing with pistols, cold impact the other 20%.

This guy sums up a lot of what I think:

http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/07/the- ... lence.html

@solvent
I couldn't agree with you more.

[Jean]

This kind of thing happen because it became extremely hard for a huge proportion of the young males to find a place in society.
Not having a stable relationship and a job while you are full of energy is extremely frustrating. You can handle it with drugs or video games, but at some point it just doesn't work anymore, and no one seems to be able to help you.
The mating and career environment are so different from the one for which many people are adapted to that I don't see any easy solution besides exiling all the social outcast who don't want to take AD to iceland.

[Chad]

@ffj
So, we aren't supposed to use data from other countries? I don't see how those aren't facts and not useful. In the end you can say you would be willing to live with our current situation, but saying comparisons to other countries has no value is rather short sighted. Seems like just a way to cover up facts.

[The Old Man]

I spent most of my childhood in Pennsylvania. First day of deer season was a big day. Schools and work places would empty out as people went deer hunting. In Ohio I was in a small town and a lot of my co-workers were gentlemen farmers. They had firearms to deal with "critters." Here in Los Angeles it is not an uncommon circumstance where the train (almost always the Blue Line) shuts down due to a shooting. Some crazy gang-banger decides to settle a score with a fellow gang-banger and decides a train is a good place to do it.

The Second Amendment refers to the right of the people to own guns. In particular it is referring to a citizen militia which is independent and outside of the federal government's armed forces. The citizen militia is now called the National Guard; it is a state level organization and commanded by the state governor. In a time of national emergency, such as a war, the national guard can be federalized and would then be commanded by the President.

In general I prefer the idea where the federal government can not prohibit the right of the citizens to own guns as this is a defense against tyranny. I prefer the idea where gun ownership is controlled at the local level - lower than the state level. The local people have the best knowledge as to what is best for their community. This is the current legal situation.

Will more gun laws solve the problem of mass shootings? First, it is important to recognize that the Second Amendment prohibits federal government involvement. It is a state and local problem to solve. Second, I believe these issues are more related to mental illness and community issues, so focusing on gun laws will not address the underlying problem.

[Chris]

Things I hate about this discussion:

Comparing us to other countries. We are not Switzerland, Australia, Great Britain, etc, etc. And our demographics, population, and history are all unique to us.

^This. And I agree as a critical thinker, not as a gun-rights advocate.

It's possible to learn things through statistical comparison, but to do it accurately, the number of variables is minimal. Comparing the US against another "developed" country seems likely to produce flawed results, due to the vast amount of other variables that can have an effect on gun violence. It seems especially mistaken to make such a comparison when a better set of compatible entities is available: the 50 states. The states, while still having lots of differences between them, can be more readily compared because they share a certain amount of commonality. Additionally, a lot of the gun control laws are enacted at the state level, meaning a comparison done at the national level can't really be done accurately.

[sky]

http://www.theonion.com/article/no-way- ... this-36131

[Chad]

@Chris
So, differences between states are ok, but differences between countries aren't? London and NYC have much more in common than NYC and Indianapolis. I agree there is no perfect comparison between the US and another country, but there is never a perfect comparison in social science. It's much softer than physics, chemistry, etc. This seems like a way to cover up unwanted facts. Not a way to select valid studies.

[GandK]

Its baffling to the rest of the world that so many in the US can't see this, but you're far, far beyond rational argument.

? I'm trying to see other viewpoints here. This wasn't a mental masturbation post or a flamebait. I'm an American, a military veteran who grew up in a pro-gun family in a pro-gun state (Kentucky), and I don't understand some of the other viewpoints on this issue. I want to, hence the questions.

http://www.stonekettle.com/2012/07/the- ... lence.html

That was extremely well-written. He makes a lot of good points. This, in particular, sums up what I basically heard growing up:

Guns don’t kill people, crazy people with guns kill people who don’t have guns.

Therefore, we should ban all guns! No, wait, if we ban all guns then only people with guns will have guns so they’ll kill the people who don’t have the guns and then there will only be people with guns left and then they’ll kill each other because if you ban guns only people with guns will be criminals and when the government comes to get our guns only the criminals will be free because liberty equals guns! Also what about bears? OK, then we should give everybody guns! But if everybody has guns then even criminals will have guns and brown people and yellow people and illegal people and crazy people who don’t love Jesus will have guns and they will break into our houses to steal our guns and rape our women and eat our babies and take our liberty so then police and the military will need bigger guns to keep us safe from those people but then we’ll need even bigger guns because otherwise we won’t be safe from the cops who will use their guns to take our freedom! OK, well then how about a reasonable common sense compromise? We all agree that as Americans it’s our basic right to keep and own firearms. But also, some people really, really shouldn’t be allowed to own even a Nerf slingshot, let alone a machine that can punch a couple hundred fist sized holes in a room full of people in under a minute. How about we maybe talk about some kind of reasonable way to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists, and crazy people? What! Communist! Nazi! How dare you? Second Amendment! Second Amendment! Every red-blooded true blue American has the God given right to own a fully automatic meat-grinding bone-shattering blood-spattering high capacity killing machine if they want to, the Founding Fathers said so! USA! USA! Dead kids? Mass murder? Blood in the streets? That’s the price you pay for freeeeeeeeedom!

I had to laugh, even though the topic is the topic. Although in fairness, I do know people who live in Montana and Alaska who have bears, cougars, wolves, etc. wandering right up to their front door. I've seen their photos. And I seriously think that if you air-dropped a lot of the urban gun ranters I've met into those areas - even the vegans - they would lose their shit within hours and begin to demand an exclusion for hunting rifles.

But as you alluded earlier, that's hardly a justification for semi-automatic weaponry. The only reason for some guns' existence is to harm multiple humans at once. The only reason for that is if you believe you are being, or might be, hunted by multiple humans. How possible is that? I think this all comes down to how much you trust other humans, and your government, if everything goes to hell. Well, and how likely you believe such a breakdown is.

The saddest part is that I bet more young people will be killed in Chicago this weekend then were killed in Oregon the other day, but no one gives a shit about that.

+100. Yes. And the racism and class-ism that underlies that statistic is nauseating.

[Chad]

@GandK
I'm glad you enjoyed his writing. He writes extremely well. Of course, it's part of what he did for a living for a long time. He is a former naval intelligence officer who retired to Alaska. It's also one of the reasons I think he makes a lot of very well informed and logical points in his writing.

And, to be clear, not that I think you were suggesting this about me, I am 100% for hunting rifles/shotguns and can even see a set of laws that would make me ok with other weapons. Though, those laws would be rather onerous. You would really need to want to have those weapons to jump through all the hoops, but I don't think that would be unreasonable.

[Chad]

@ffj
So, then this...

Comparing us to other countries. We are not Switzerland, Australia, Great Britain, etc, etc. And our demographics, population, and history are all unique to us. They are all cherry-picked countries anyway, whatever side you are on.

...is just an emotional response, as one can definitely find good comparisons.

For instance, if you want population as a main variable you can look at the EU as whole, which has roughly 500M people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... population

Not one of those EU countries has a total death by firearms per 100k people over 3.64. While the US has almost triple that at 10.64. If you look at homicides the difference between those two numbers is worse in many cases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... death_rate

Also, these people are packed much more tightly together than the US population and have a long history of killing each other.

We could go on with valid comparisons, such as London to NYC, etc. We both know all of those comparisons are going to show is that the US is a huge outlier when compared to other civilized countries.

So, yes, this only leaves culture. This then means you have to be ok with allowing this significant difference in results to continue in the US. If this is what you want, then it's what you want. Just don't suggest that the data is invalid because you want the culture to stay the same. The data isn't invalid, it just makes you uncomfortable.

[The Old Man]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitutio ... _amendment

Well, looks like I was wrong. Originally, I thought the 2nd Amendment just referred to the relationship between the federal government and the state governments. But, it looks like the 2nd Amendment through the interactions of the 14th Amendment has been interpreted to also apply between the state government and the county/individual.

The 2nd Amendment exists as a protection against tyranny, so there you have it. So is gun violence considered to be a side effect of safe-guarding Liberty?

[Riggerjack]

@ Gandk:
What you are missing is gun control is not in any way about gun control. It isn't about prevention of gun crime or mass shootings, or suicide, or deer death.

Gun control is about separating action from individual responsibility. I know, it sounds unreasonable. But it is the basis of the support for, and to some extent, against gun control.

One group is so uncomfortable with individual responsibility, it tries to shift blame from the perpetrator to the inactive tool he uses. This is not just in gun control, this same faction pushes for: safety nets to save people from the results of their own actions, regulation to enforce a community standard on individual actors, ect.

On the other side is a group that thinks individual gun rights are the only thing keeping tyranny at bay. That the State can only be held in check by empowered individuals, empowered by the only thing that government respects, firepower.

These are emotional issues, tied to personal ideas of power and identity. That is why the arguments are all emotional drivel on both sides. There is no reasoning it out, because it truly is all about feelings. Do you feel better about yourself and your world when you think you are an empowered individual, a master of your own fate? You are likely to favor gun ownership. Are you empowered by your relationships, your place within the community that surrounds you? Then you are likely to be against gun ownership.

No amount of reason is going to argue someone away from their sense of identity, and attempts to do so meet emotional reactions.

For the record, I used to be anti gun, I'm currently very pro gun, and if there's one thing Ruby Ridge should have taught us all, its that firearms keeping tyranny at bay is a complete myth.

[rube]

As a European citizen I am quite amazed about certain view points here.

One question I have: If restrictions on guns are bad because of freedom, right on self defense etc. then why is it acceptable to have restrictions on nuclear weapons?

[Ego]

This is one of those problems where there is no good solution that doesn't involve a magic wand. Without a magic wand, how do you make the millions of unregistered guns that exist today go away? You don't. So any 'solution' must factor them into the equation. When they are included, there is no comprehensive solution that works

While there is no comprehensive solution, I believe there are steps that can be taken.

For instance, many years ago I was managing a place where one of the tenants, an engineer for an aerospace company, had a nervous breakdown. He went crazy, started talking to himself, stood in front of cars in the parking lot then got down on his knees and began howling at the moon in the middle of the driveway. His wife called the cops. They 5150ed him. They told me he had a gun but they couldn't take it because he was locked up in the parking lot and they had no right to enter his place, so they couldn't confiscate it.

I had a good relationship with both he and his wife so I explained to her that if they wanted to stay she would have to give me his gun for safekeeping until they moved out. She did. A few weeks later I explained it to the tranquilized guy who was released, and he understood too.

It was mindboggling to me that he didn't automatically lose his right to own a gun until he could prove himself sane for X number of years. I believe that anyone who is depressed or mentally troubled enough to require medication shouldn't be allowed to own a gun. Period. Call me crazy.

[Solvent]

As a European citizen I am quite amazed about certain view points here.

One question I have: If restrictions on guns are bad because of freedom, right on self defense etc. then why is it acceptable to have restrictions on nuclear weapons?

I don't think nuclear weapon control should be compared to gun control, they're far too different.

Its baffling to the rest of the world that so many in the US can't see this, but you're far, far beyond rational argument.

? I'm trying to see other viewpoints here. This wasn't a mental masturbation post or a flamebait. I'm an American, a military veteran who grew up in a pro-gun family in a pro-gun state (Kentucky), and I don't understand some of the other viewpoints on this issue. I want to, hence the questions.

The other viewpoint is this. In the US, there are frequent occurrences of mass murder with firearms. By making firearms less accessible, there will be both a) fewer murders by firearms and b) fewer murders.

Many of the points raised by gun advocates are red herrings. Such as:

If you take away a terrorist's gun, he doesn't stop being a terrorist. He reaches for a bomb. Or a knife. Or a gas can and a match, as those horrible videos of their executed captives showed us.

This is just wrong. Bombs and knives are categorically different from guns. There is nothing else as easy to use and accessible as guns in the US for the purposes of mass murder. Saying that without a gun any person with a grudge against society would just build a bomb instead is untrue. Some tiny fraction might pull it off, but it's absolutely not a 1-1 correlation. Mass stabbings are not a thing in countries with more restrictive gun laws in the same way that mass shootings are a thing in the US.

The mental health thing is more complicated but still a bit of a red herring. Yes the US has problems with accessible healthcare. But trying to pretend that politicians must focus solely on that as a solution to the gun problem is misguided.

@ffj
As I understand it, you don't seem to be arguing for gun rights, but rather saying you hold an axiom that the US cannot control guns for reasons of culture and that this can never change. That seems fatalistic, but if that is an axiom you can't change then I understand why gun control debates frustrate you.

@riggerjack
From the point of view of an American embedded in it, I suppose that all reactions would look emotional to you. But I have no horse in this race, as you might say. I see the gun control debates in the US with the same disappointment as I see the civil war in Syria, use of the death penalty in China, or forced sterilisation of women in Uzbekistan. It doesn't matter to my personal identity whether US citizens can own large arsenals of deadly weapons or not. For however much it counts, I'm largely libertarian in my political views. But there is no empirically and morally defensible position for maintaining gun rights at their current level in the US, if you also hold that frequent mass murders are bad.

And for the record, even if you want to willfully discount the experience of literally every other place in the world, US states with more restrictive gun laws experience fewer gun deaths than more permissive states.
Edit: Actually, this link may be perceived as having less bias, perhaps.