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Imagine that 1 person in the US died per year by getting hit by stray golf balls, and 10 people per year in France. (I'm not saying this is true; just imagine).

Imagine that 1 person in the US died per year by getting hit by stray golf balls, and 10 people per year in France. (I'm not saying this is true; just imagine). It might be true that France has by far the highest stray-golf-ball death rate in the world. But this wouldn't mean it is a significant cause of mortality, or an important object of public policy.

grecy 7y ago
Except that we're talking about innocent children being gunned down at school by their fellow citizens. Utterly preventable and disgusting. You might not think it's a big deal, but the rest of the world is horrified by it. (Also your example is very poor - you should use per capita statistics so countries of different populations can be meaningfully compared.)
- umanwizard 7y ago
  How would you suggest it be prevented? I suspect it's some variant of “amend the US constitution to allow the federal government to ban guns”. This is essentially impossible in practice due to the political structure of the United States. If your response to that is “well then, change the political structure of the United States” then that would involve a violent revolution or some other chaos, which would almost certainly kill more innocent people than mass school shootings do. > you should use per capita statistics It doesn't matter, since my example was meant to illustrate a point, not to be quantitatively meaningful. But since you asked, the corresponding per capita numbers would be: 3 per billion inhabitants per year in the US. 149 per billion inhabitants per year in France.
  - grecy 7y ago
    > I suspect it's some variant of “amend the US constitution to allow the federal government to ban guns”. Sigh. You Americans have been taught to think in such black and white terms. It's either "have guns" or "ban guns". You honestly think there is no middle ground, which is utterly and completely moronic because virtually every developed country in the world has a way of dealing with this that America is convinced can't work. Even though the evidence is blatant. In many, many countries (including the US actually) citizens are allowed to own certain types of guns, and not other types. I ask how many anti-aircraft guns Americans are allowed to own? Or missile launchers? Or tanks with live rounds? Clearly there are some weapons that regular people can have, and some they can't. All America needs to do is tighten down what's acceptable, just like other developed countries do. For example, I live in Canada. I have a large calibre hunting rifle, and it isn't even registered. My friend has a handgun which is tightly controlled. Australia is similar. So people that "want guns" can still "have guns", but the murder rate is much, much lower in those countries than the US, because other more powerful weapons are restricted or even outright banned. Further to this, it's a simple idea that people should be required to have licenses and training to own a firearm, just like a vehicle. So what if you need to amend the constitution to do that. You've already amended it 27 times - it's not like the thing was perfect the day it was printed and will still be perfect in the year 3500 or some such nonsense. Be very clear, I am in NO WAY talking about "Ban guns" or "Take guns away". I'm talking about restricting certain types of guns, and restricting certain types of people, which of course America has already done. It's really not hard. The rest of the world has done it very well, but you guys are still busy arguing black and white while kids are literally being slaughtered in schools, and people at concerts and movie theatres get gunned down.
    - umanwizard 7y ago
      I agree with almost all of your comment. I think as a matter of policy, handguns should be banned or heavily restricted, and if I were in charge of rewriting the US Constitution (which I think is quite shit and a terrible basis for running a modern country), I’d definitely get rid of the second amendment. You seem to be arguing against what you think a typical American believes, rather than against my actual position. I’m not arguing that policy shouldn’t be changed. I’m arguing that it’s so difficult or impossible to change, for relatively little benefit compared to other possible reforms, that focusing on it isn’t worth the cost. The salient difference between the US and other developed democracies is the US’s uniquely broken political structure. What most people don’t understand when comparing the US to Canada or Australia is that the US can’t “just” pass a law making serious and major reforms. It’s simply not possible. In almost every country, when most people agree a law should change, the Parliament just passes it, the head of state agrees to it if necessary, and then that’s it. Not so in the US. In our naturally gridlocked and fundamentally broken political system, there are only three ways a law can change in a major way at the federal level: (1) It is obscure enough that nobody cares about it, (2) It is so widely supported that it can actually get through the deadlock, or, (3) It doesn’t go through the legislative process at all, but arises from the Supreme Court changing its interpretation of the constitution. For example: the vast majority of Americans have believed since the 1970s (as far back as my data goes) that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. A majority have believed since the early 2010s that gay marriage should be legal. And a solid majority have believed since 2000 (as far back as my data goes, and to be fair it dipped to around half during the Obamacare debates) that the healthcare of all Americans should be the responsibility of the government. But because of the brokenness of our system, the first two reforms could only be made by the Supreme Court, and we’re still waiting on the third. We can’t even agree to switch to the metric system, despite practically every educated person agreeing it’s superior. Given these facts, if you’re going to spend the huge amount of political capital, years of debates to the exclusion of everything else, waiting for once-in-a-generation supermajorities, etc. that were necessary for even a relatively minor reform like Obamacare, you’re better off focusing on something more impactful, like improving transit infrastructure, mitigating climate change, subsidizing poor people’s access to healthy food, or any number of things that will save more lives overall than making mass shootings less likely.
- asdff 7y ago
  Aweful, horrible, tragic, but a sensational statistic at the end of the day. Crosswalks and the cars that ignore them are a more serious killer, but regulated into local news and not international headline coverage. Pedestrians die every 90 minutes in the U.S. due to cars. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-15/pedestrian-deaths-are-on-the-rise https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-15/pedest...

grecy 7y ago

Except that we're talking about innocent children being gunned down at school by their fellow citizens. Utterly preventable and disgusting. You might not think it's a big deal, but the rest of the world is horrified by it. (Also your example is very poor - you should use per capita statistics so countries of different populations can be meaningfully compared.)

umanwizard 7y ago
How would you suggest it be prevented? I suspect it's some variant of “amend the US constitution to allow the federal government to ban guns”. This is essentially impossible in practice due to the political structure of the United States. If your response to that is “well then, change the political structure of the United States” then that would involve a violent revolution or some other chaos, which would almost certainly kill more innocent people than mass school shootings do. > you should use per capita statistics It doesn't matter, since my example was meant to illustrate a point, not to be quantitatively meaningful. But since you asked, the corresponding per capita numbers would be: 3 per billion inhabitants per year in the US. 149 per billion inhabitants per year in France.
- grecy 7y ago
  > I suspect it's some variant of “amend the US constitution to allow the federal government to ban guns”. Sigh. You Americans have been taught to think in such black and white terms. It's either "have guns" or "ban guns". You honestly think there is no middle ground, which is utterly and completely moronic because virtually every developed country in the world has a way of dealing with this that America is convinced can't work. Even though the evidence is blatant. In many, many countries (including the US actually) citizens are allowed to own certain types of guns, and not other types. I ask how many anti-aircraft guns Americans are allowed to own? Or missile launchers? Or tanks with live rounds? Clearly there are some weapons that regular people can have, and some they can't. All America needs to do is tighten down what's acceptable, just like other developed countries do. For example, I live in Canada. I have a large calibre hunting rifle, and it isn't even registered. My friend has a handgun which is tightly controlled. Australia is similar. So people that "want guns" can still "have guns", but the murder rate is much, much lower in those countries than the US, because other more powerful weapons are restricted or even outright banned. Further to this, it's a simple idea that people should be required to have licenses and training to own a firearm, just like a vehicle. So what if you need to amend the constitution to do that. You've already amended it 27 times - it's not like the thing was perfect the day it was printed and will still be perfect in the year 3500 or some such nonsense. Be very clear, I am in NO WAY talking about "Ban guns" or "Take guns away". I'm talking about restricting certain types of guns, and restricting certain types of people, which of course America has already done. It's really not hard. The rest of the world has done it very well, but you guys are still busy arguing black and white while kids are literally being slaughtered in schools, and people at concerts and movie theatres get gunned down.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    I agree with almost all of your comment. I think as a matter of policy, handguns should be banned or heavily restricted, and if I were in charge of rewriting the US Constitution (which I think is quite shit and a terrible basis for running a modern country), I’d definitely get rid of the second amendment. You seem to be arguing against what you think a typical American believes, rather than against my actual position. I’m not arguing that policy shouldn’t be changed. I’m arguing that it’s so difficult or impossible to change, for relatively little benefit compared to other possible reforms, that focusing on it isn’t worth the cost. The salient difference between the US and other developed democracies is the US’s uniquely broken political structure. What most people don’t understand when comparing the US to Canada or Australia is that the US can’t “just” pass a law making serious and major reforms. It’s simply not possible. In almost every country, when most people agree a law should change, the Parliament just passes it, the head of state agrees to it if necessary, and then that’s it. Not so in the US. In our naturally gridlocked and fundamentally broken political system, there are only three ways a law can change in a major way at the federal level: (1) It is obscure enough that nobody cares about it, (2) It is so widely supported that it can actually get through the deadlock, or, (3) It doesn’t go through the legislative process at all, but arises from the Supreme Court changing its interpretation of the constitution. For example: the vast majority of Americans have believed since the 1970s (as far back as my data goes) that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. A majority have believed since the early 2010s that gay marriage should be legal. And a solid majority have believed since 2000 (as far back as my data goes, and to be fair it dipped to around half during the Obamacare debates) that the healthcare of all Americans should be the responsibility of the government. But because of the brokenness of our system, the first two reforms could only be made by the Supreme Court, and we’re still waiting on the third. We can’t even agree to switch to the metric system, despite practically every educated person agreeing it’s superior. Given these facts, if you’re going to spend the huge amount of political capital, years of debates to the exclusion of everything else, waiting for once-in-a-generation supermajorities, etc. that were necessary for even a relatively minor reform like Obamacare, you’re better off focusing on something more impactful, like improving transit infrastructure, mitigating climate change, subsidizing poor people’s access to healthy food, or any number of things that will save more lives overall than making mass shootings less likely.
asdff 7y ago
Aweful, horrible, tragic, but a sensational statistic at the end of the day. Crosswalks and the cars that ignore them are a more serious killer, but regulated into local news and not international headline coverage. Pedestrians die every 90 minutes in the U.S. due to cars. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-15/pedestrian-deaths-are-on-the-rise https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-09-15/pedest...