7 ms·

You did not define a conflict or the unintended consequence here

tempestn 6y ago
The unwanted consequence of the US second amendment is that the US has one of the highest gun death rates in the developed world.
- KMag 6y ago
  The U.S. certainly has a problem with gun violence, but I fear gun access is the proximal problem while our cultural relationship with violence and revenge is the root of the problem. (See also death penalty support, recent violent protests in Oregon and Washington, etc.) Note that the areas with very high rates of legal gun ownership aren't the hotspots of gun violence [0]. Switzerland and several other Eurpean countries have very high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence. Certainly, fixing a sick culture is more difficult than reducing gun access, but I think long-term, we need to figure out how to be a more peaceful and forgiving society, or much of the gun violence will just shift to (granted, much less efficient) knife violence. I think improving America's culture of violence and revenge will also pay mental health dividends. Sometimes you really need a crutch or a bandaid, but it's important not to mistake it for an end-goal solution. Do any of you have any insights into ways individuals can ensure they at least leave the culture less violent than they found it? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence-statistics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence...
  - jordanbeiber 6y ago
    Personally I believe it’s about individualism vs the collective. Here in Sweden we’ve seen a horrible development regarding gun violence - easy to chalk up to “immigration” and “soft laws” but in my mind it’s a lot deeper - interesting enough this is at the same time we have a record amount of dollar millionaires in the country. We used to work as a collective but our economic policies are turning more and more neoliberal and thus individual. This exacerbates the issue of creating a new “class” of citizens already left partly out of the loop of riches. If we take care of each other in a better way as a collective there’s a chance to turn things around. It’s all about increasing the chance of a good outcome per individual. This is the secret to a lot of the success in northern Europe - if you’re born here chances are great that you’ll get an education and that you live a long and healthy life. Regarding crime and violence specifically I’ve read a lot about the “group violence intervention” program and a lot of it is about cooperation and taking care of people in a humane way. Here’s David Kennedy speaking in Sweden where this has been worked successfully: https://youtu.be/wu00H7eeWVM https://youtu.be/wu00H7eeWVM In short - don’t be to afraid of taxes, and vote in a manner where money can be spent more wisely. Funneling tax money to havens by way of “entrepreneurs” seems less well spent... problem is that when such a system is set it will want to be conserved - looking at the US and it’s kinda dark over here as well. All I can do is try to mold my children into caring human beings hoping to influence culture that way.
    - depressedpanda 6y ago
      Just to make sure I understand you correctly: You think the strong trend toward more incidents of more extreme violence in Swedish society is because we have more dollar millionaires?
      - bildung 6y ago
        Income inequality universally is a pretty good predictor for violent crime: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-stark-relationship-between-income-inequality-and-crime https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-star... As the (still very low) income inequality is rising in Sweden(https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the-nordic-region-2020/sweden-inequality-in-sweden-grows-much-faster-than-in-the-nordics-overall/ https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the...), it isn't surprising violence rises, too.
      - jordanbeiber 6y ago
        More dollar millionaires, and at the same time more people on the outside, point towards specific type of policies being enacted. This has been 30-40 years in the making. Yes - it is related, just as it is in the US.
    - lenkite 6y ago
      Isn't the majority of crime in Sweden committed by migrants ? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-019-00436-8 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-019-00436-8
      - jordanbeiber 6y ago
        Yes, exactly kind of my point. I’m not suggesting however that because they are immigrants they commit more crime. Note most violence is committed by 2nd generation immigrants - so they’ve been born here. How’s that for a failure of society... They are simply people on the outside living surrounded by people leading lives they cannot relate to. We’ve made it terribly difficult to attain this norm life as well making it even more unrelatable.
  - freeflight 6y ago
    > Switzerland and several other Eurpean countries have very high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence. They also have vastly stricter gun regulation laws, and while ownership rates are high in some, the US is an extreme outlier and no other country comes even close. Because nobody in any European country thinks they have a "right" to own a gun, most of them could if they wanted to, but they simply don't want to deal with the hassle that owning a properly regulated firearm entails. As it should be, owning a deadly weapon is a lot of responsibility that not everybody is up for/actually wants. The importance of that responsibility gets completely lost when firearms are treated like cool toys that everybody should have and exist in abundance. That's why headlines like "toddler shoots mother" or "dog shoots owner" don't exist in Europe, but are a sad somewhat regular thing out of the US. These toddlers and dogs didn't do that because they watched too much violent media, they did that because the actual owners of the guns where irresponsible individuals and never should have owned one in the first place.
    - jordanbeiber 6y ago
      The fact so many people feel they need a gun for safety is the first and biggest issue IMO. This is fueled by movies and culture - have the gun in your possession and you’ll automatically win the fight - that was easy! I’ve read countless comments from Americans that they have a gun to shoot intruders. Statistics telling you there’s a bigger chance someone else will get hurt be damned. These ideas are have to be fueled by big money is my guess. Also we humans really like our toys, so I can get that aspect of it. Wanna take my toy? Forget about it.
      - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
        It's the wild west mentality that the US never grew out of. Can't blame them either, given the apparent incompetence of the police. It's an issue that won't be solved by banning weapons. Educating people (e.g. mandatory background checks, operation and safety training, and safe storage) and solving the underlying problems will work. I mean a lot cite defense from home invasions as the reason to own a gun. Why do people invade homes? If they had a reasonable income and comfortable life they wouldn't have a reason to.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
    I agree with you. I don't have any answers to your question, but it made me think about it. It strikes me as insightful and the right question to ask.
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  This is a bit of a hobby interest of mine. While it's possible that your statement is true, I think it misses the point. Gun murders in the U.S. are a very low percentage of deaths (0.39%) and preventable deaths (~1.1%, there's some disagreement about what's "preventable"). This excludes suicides. You may wish to include them if that makes sense given your interests. People love to focus on relative comparisons (e.g., Scotland vs. US), but miss the forest for the trees. Some tiny proportion being 5x some other country's tiny proportion is irrelevent. If your goal is to prevent untimely, unwanted deaths there are oh so many other ways to apply your resources that will yield orders of magnitude more improvement per dollar / per minute. People like to pay attention to it anyway for a few reasons. One is that we evolved to think specifically about interpersonal violence (~5-15% of prehistoric deaths, but way more than that for non-old people), which makes us good at luridly imagining interpersonal violence, and so comparatively we're bad at thinking about an early death due to diabetes and therefore bad at caring about it. Another reason is it's a hot-button red team/blue team political issue, so it's not so much about the issue per se but rather whether $OTHER_SIDE gets what it wants or not.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
Every right reduces the clarity and scope of every other right. This creates grey areas for interpretation by the state.

The unwanted consequence of the US second amendment is that the US has one of the highest gun death rates in the developed world.

KMag 6y ago
The U.S. certainly has a problem with gun violence, but I fear gun access is the proximal problem while our cultural relationship with violence and revenge is the root of the problem. (See also death penalty support, recent violent protests in Oregon and Washington, etc.) Note that the areas with very high rates of legal gun ownership aren't the hotspots of gun violence [0]. Switzerland and several other Eurpean countries have very high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence. Certainly, fixing a sick culture is more difficult than reducing gun access, but I think long-term, we need to figure out how to be a more peaceful and forgiving society, or much of the gun violence will just shift to (granted, much less efficient) knife violence. I think improving America's culture of violence and revenge will also pay mental health dividends. Sometimes you really need a crutch or a bandaid, but it's important not to mistake it for an end-goal solution. Do any of you have any insights into ways individuals can ensure they at least leave the culture less violent than they found it? [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence-statistics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/22/us/gun-ownership-violence...
- jordanbeiber 6y ago
  Personally I believe it’s about individualism vs the collective. Here in Sweden we’ve seen a horrible development regarding gun violence - easy to chalk up to “immigration” and “soft laws” but in my mind it’s a lot deeper - interesting enough this is at the same time we have a record amount of dollar millionaires in the country. We used to work as a collective but our economic policies are turning more and more neoliberal and thus individual. This exacerbates the issue of creating a new “class” of citizens already left partly out of the loop of riches. If we take care of each other in a better way as a collective there’s a chance to turn things around. It’s all about increasing the chance of a good outcome per individual. This is the secret to a lot of the success in northern Europe - if you’re born here chances are great that you’ll get an education and that you live a long and healthy life. Regarding crime and violence specifically I’ve read a lot about the “group violence intervention” program and a lot of it is about cooperation and taking care of people in a humane way. Here’s David Kennedy speaking in Sweden where this has been worked successfully: https://youtu.be/wu00H7eeWVM https://youtu.be/wu00H7eeWVM In short - don’t be to afraid of taxes, and vote in a manner where money can be spent more wisely. Funneling tax money to havens by way of “entrepreneurs” seems less well spent... problem is that when such a system is set it will want to be conserved - looking at the US and it’s kinda dark over here as well. All I can do is try to mold my children into caring human beings hoping to influence culture that way.
  - depressedpanda 6y ago
    Just to make sure I understand you correctly: You think the strong trend toward more incidents of more extreme violence in Swedish society is because we have more dollar millionaires?
    - bildung 6y ago
      Income inequality universally is a pretty good predictor for violent crime: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-stark-relationship-between-income-inequality-and-crime https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/07/the-star... As the (still very low) income inequality is rising in Sweden(https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the-nordic-region-2020/sweden-inequality-in-sweden-grows-much-faster-than-in-the-nordics-overall/ https://nordregio.org/nordregio-magazine/issues/state-of-the...), it isn't surprising violence rises, too.
    - jordanbeiber 6y ago
      More dollar millionaires, and at the same time more people on the outside, point towards specific type of policies being enacted. This has been 30-40 years in the making. Yes - it is related, just as it is in the US.
  - lenkite 6y ago
    Isn't the majority of crime in Sweden committed by migrants ? https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-019-00436-8 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12115-019-00436-8
    - jordanbeiber 6y ago
      Yes, exactly kind of my point. I’m not suggesting however that because they are immigrants they commit more crime. Note most violence is committed by 2nd generation immigrants - so they’ve been born here. How’s that for a failure of society... They are simply people on the outside living surrounded by people leading lives they cannot relate to. We’ve made it terribly difficult to attain this norm life as well making it even more unrelatable.
- freeflight 6y ago
  > Switzerland and several other Eurpean countries have very high rates of gun ownership, but low rates of gun violence. They also have vastly stricter gun regulation laws, and while ownership rates are high in some, the US is an extreme outlier and no other country comes even close. Because nobody in any European country thinks they have a "right" to own a gun, most of them could if they wanted to, but they simply don't want to deal with the hassle that owning a properly regulated firearm entails. As it should be, owning a deadly weapon is a lot of responsibility that not everybody is up for/actually wants. The importance of that responsibility gets completely lost when firearms are treated like cool toys that everybody should have and exist in abundance. That's why headlines like "toddler shoots mother" or "dog shoots owner" don't exist in Europe, but are a sad somewhat regular thing out of the US. These toddlers and dogs didn't do that because they watched too much violent media, they did that because the actual owners of the guns where irresponsible individuals and never should have owned one in the first place.
  - jordanbeiber 6y ago
    The fact so many people feel they need a gun for safety is the first and biggest issue IMO. This is fueled by movies and culture - have the gun in your possession and you’ll automatically win the fight - that was easy! I’ve read countless comments from Americans that they have a gun to shoot intruders. Statistics telling you there’s a bigger chance someone else will get hurt be damned. These ideas are have to be fueled by big money is my guess. Also we humans really like our toys, so I can get that aspect of it. Wanna take my toy? Forget about it.
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      It's the wild west mentality that the US never grew out of. Can't blame them either, given the apparent incompetence of the police. It's an issue that won't be solved by banning weapons. Educating people (e.g. mandatory background checks, operation and safety training, and safe storage) and solving the underlying problems will work. I mean a lot cite defense from home invasions as the reason to own a gun. Why do people invade homes? If they had a reasonable income and comfortable life they wouldn't have a reason to.
- NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
  I agree with you. I don't have any answers to your question, but it made me think about it. It strikes me as insightful and the right question to ask.
NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
This is a bit of a hobby interest of mine. While it's possible that your statement is true, I think it misses the point. Gun murders in the U.S. are a very low percentage of deaths (0.39%) and preventable deaths (~1.1%, there's some disagreement about what's "preventable"). This excludes suicides. You may wish to include them if that makes sense given your interests. People love to focus on relative comparisons (e.g., Scotland vs. US), but miss the forest for the trees. Some tiny proportion being 5x some other country's tiny proportion is irrelevent. If your goal is to prevent untimely, unwanted deaths there are oh so many other ways to apply your resources that will yield orders of magnitude more improvement per dollar / per minute. People like to pay attention to it anyway for a few reasons. One is that we evolved to think specifically about interpersonal violence (~5-15% of prehistoric deaths, but way more than that for non-old people), which makes us good at luridly imagining interpersonal violence, and so comparatively we're bad at thinking about an early death due to diabetes and therefore bad at caring about it. Another reason is it's a hot-button red team/blue team political issue, so it's not so much about the issue per se but rather whether $OTHER_SIDE gets what it wants or not.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

Every right reduces the clarity and scope of every other right. This creates grey areas for interpretation by the state.