4 ms·

According to gunviolencearchive (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/), there were 251 mass shootings in the USA since the be

by antpls 7y ago

According to gunviolencearchive (https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/), there were 251 mass shootings in the USA since the beginning of 2019. I don't know if this number is correct, but I just can't understand why guns are still allowed in USA.

colejohnson66 7y ago
Those numbers usually include suicides
resoluteteeth 7y ago
The American right believes that it needs guns to protect itself from the government and is terrified that the left will come to take its guns away. This has gotten more and more extreme to the point that they are now basically against any gun control laws including restrictions on machine guns or any sort of background checks.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > This has gotten more and more extreme to the point that they are now basically against any gun control laws including restrictions on machine guns or any sort of background checks. You are aware that ownership of machine guns is both extremely restricted and rather expensive, while almost all legal gun transfers require a background check, right? (The transfers that don't require a background check are private sales in certain states) Or are you saying that people want these restrictions to be rolled back?
  - resoluteteeth 7y ago
    > Or are you saying that people want these restrictions to be rolled back? This. As far as I am aware, the NRA is now believes people should be able to own fully automatic weapons although that wasn't always their position. (And they obviously are against restrictions on semiautomatic weapons since their California division had sued the government about them.)
solidsnack9000 7y ago
It is actually unusual to count incidents where one person is killed as a mass shooting. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting They may be counting gang shootouts and stuff like that. Guns are still allowed in the US because literally millions of Americans own guns, including semi-automatic rifles, and don't commit crimes with them. Many of them carry a gun concealed every day. Gun owners and concealed carry holders are actually less likely to commit a crime than the general population. In the US, we hold to the old common law idea that people who haven't done anything wrong shouldn't be punished. Many more people die an "alcohol related" death in the US than in incidents related to guns but this receives nowhere near the attention.
DuskStar 7y ago
> I don't know if this number is correct, but I just can't understand why guns are still allowed in USA. Lots of reasons. One is that if congress tried to pass a law doing so, the supreme court would probably stop it thanks to the 2nd amendment. And changing the 2nd amendment is politically infeasible for a whole host of reasons (many states don't have the requisite support, AND calling a constitutional convention opens up a ton of other issues). Oh, and there's literally 300,000,000+ guns floating around in the US. How the hell is the government supposed to collect all of those? How of the budget are you willing to spend on that? Europe hasn't exactly had the most luck trying to disarm THEIR citizens, why would it work in the US with less governmental trust? [0] But aside from the constitutional and practical reasons... "gun ownership" and "homicide rate" are basically uncorrelated worldwide. You'll often hear otherwise, but the two most common sidesteps are to change to "gun violence rate" instead of "homicide rate" (which includes gun suicides but drops murder by other means) or to only include "western" countries which has its own set of issues. Lies, dammed lies, and statistics! Finally, even if your goal is only to reduce mass murders, restricting guns isn't really a great way to do that. The Nice truck attack [1] with 87 dead, Oklahoma City bombing [2] with 168 dead, and the more recent Kyoto Animation arson attack [3] with 35 dead all show that guns aren't exactly required to kill a bunch of people. (and also completely ignoring 9/11) Forcing people away from guns to other methods might actually increase deaths in such situations. 0: https://reason.com/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-bred-defian https://reason.com/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-b... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack

by antpls 7y ago

colejohnson66 7y ago

Those numbers usually include suicides

resoluteteeth 7y ago

The American right believes that it needs guns to protect itself from the government and is terrified that the left will come to take its guns away. This has gotten more and more extreme to the point that they are now basically against any gun control laws including restrictions on machine guns or any sort of background checks.

DuskStar 7y ago
> This has gotten more and more extreme to the point that they are now basically against any gun control laws including restrictions on machine guns or any sort of background checks. You are aware that ownership of machine guns is both extremely restricted and rather expensive, while almost all legal gun transfers require a background check, right? (The transfers that don't require a background check are private sales in certain states) Or are you saying that people want these restrictions to be rolled back?
- resoluteteeth 7y ago
  > Or are you saying that people want these restrictions to be rolled back? This. As far as I am aware, the NRA is now believes people should be able to own fully automatic weapons although that wasn't always their position. (And they obviously are against restrictions on semiautomatic weapons since their California division had sued the government about them.)

solidsnack9000 7y ago

It is actually unusual to count incidents where one person is killed as a mass shooting. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting They may be counting gang shootouts and stuff like that. Guns are still allowed in the US because literally millions of Americans own guns, including semi-automatic rifles, and don't commit crimes with them. Many of them carry a gun concealed every day. Gun owners and concealed carry holders are actually less likely to commit a crime than the general population. In the US, we hold to the old common law idea that people who haven't done anything wrong shouldn't be punished. Many more people die an "alcohol related" death in the US than in incidents related to guns but this receives nowhere near the attention.

DuskStar 7y ago

> I don't know if this number is correct, but I just can't understand why guns are still allowed in USA. Lots of reasons. One is that if congress tried to pass a law doing so, the supreme court would probably stop it thanks to the 2nd amendment. And changing the 2nd amendment is politically infeasible for a whole host of reasons (many states don't have the requisite support, AND calling a constitutional convention opens up a ton of other issues). Oh, and there's literally 300,000,000+ guns floating around in the US. How the hell is the government supposed to collect all of those? How of the budget are you willing to spend on that? Europe hasn't exactly had the most luck trying to disarm THEIR citizens, why would it work in the US with less governmental trust? [0] But aside from the constitutional and practical reasons... "gun ownership" and "homicide rate" are basically uncorrelated worldwide. You'll often hear otherwise, but the two most common sidesteps are to change to "gun violence rate" instead of "homicide rate" (which includes gun suicides but drops murder by other means) or to only include "western" countries which has its own set of issues. Lies, dammed lies, and statistics! Finally, even if your goal is only to reduce mass murders, restricting guns isn't really a great way to do that. The Nice truck attack [1] with 87 dead, Oklahoma City bombing [2] with 168 dead, and the more recent Kyoto Animation arson attack [3] with 35 dead all show that guns aren't exactly required to kill a bunch of people. (and also completely ignoring 9/11) Forcing people away from guns to other methods might actually increase deaths in such situations. 0: https://reason.com/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-bred-defian https://reason.com/2012/12/22/gun-restrictions-have-always-b... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack