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Mass shootings are a meme in the United States, like a sort of cultural epidemic. You fight epidemics with techniques like quarantines to stop the spread, medic
by d35007 7y ago
Mass shootings are a meme in the United States, like a sort of cultural epidemic. You fight epidemics with techniques like quarantines to stop the spread, medicine to help those that are already infected, and inoculations for people who haven’t been.
I think the quarantine is for information in this case. Instead of breathless, stop-the-world coverage of these events, treat them like traffic accidents: “22 people were murdered by a white supremacist terrorist in an El Paso Wal-Mart this afternoon. Now here’s Bob with the weather.”
Gun buyback programs are 1 kind of medicine. Some people won’t take it, but we should try. Maybe we can institute some kind of guns-for-Medicare program (only sorta joking).
Gun control legislation is the inoculation. I don’t think we can get to full-on prohibition in the US without repealing the 2nd amendment, but we can implement licensing and registration requirements and longer waiting periods.
We also need to improve the existing systems. The ATF has a “gun registry”, but it’s not a searchable database. See https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-databases/ https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-non-searchable-database...
- vorpalhex 7y agoI agree with your first two points. Point 3 I have sort of fussy disagreements with (firearms have value, buybacks tend to short change this value, and overarching tend to target already poor folks). 4. What good does registration do? Like, awesome, now you have a database with all the gun owners in it.. but for the purpose of stopping mass shooters how does that help you? Likewise, what licensing requirement do you foresee which will help with (1)? 5. Again, how does this help?
- d35007 7y agoGood points. I’d argue that 3 is an implementation detail. If we’re serious about getting guns off the streets, then we need to make it worthwhile to trade them in. As to 4 and 5, I’ll just say that not all shooting are “mass shootings” like we saw in El Paso. Chicago alone has something like 1500 shootings each year, many of which go unsolved. The article I linked says that the ATF gets 1000 gun trace requests per day and it takes an average of 4-7 days to compete one of them. That seems a bit slow to me, but I honestly can’t say what effect speeding that up would have on our ability to prosecute perpetrators of gun violence.
- neverartful 7y agoIf the ATF has a gun registry with names of owners, it would be in violation of the law. There are only a couple of ways that it can be done: first by capturing and retaining information called in for NCIS check (against the law) for form 4473, and the other by sending people out to photocopy and enter data into registry of firearm sales log at gun store (I believe this is also illegal).
- specialist 7y agoDo you agree with the law prohibiting the maintenance of an up to date and accurate gun ownership registry?
- neverartful 7y agoI absolutely do agree with that law. Why? Because maintaining an ownership registry makes it too tempting for big brother to begin confiscation.
- d35007 7y agoWe require licenses to prove people are competent to operate a motor vehicle and we require most motor vehicles to be registered. Yet, car confiscation isn’t a huge issue in this country.
- jpindar 7y agoThat's because no one seriously wants to confiscate cars.
- d35007 7y agoGot it. So we managed to find out footing on that’s slippery slope somehow. Why can’t that happen with guns? In fact, some states already have licensing and registration laws for guns and they’ve also managed to not tumble down that slippery slope. I‘ll grant that some people do want to confiscate guns, but that’s not a popular view. See https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx.
- magashna 7y agoIt's strange that everyone brings up symptoms of poor education and healthcare. Racism, violence, shootings, these are all symptoms of lacking infrastructure. I feel like banning 8chan, instituting stricter gun policy, it's all bandages on a deeper wound.