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You don't have to go all the way to Europe. Canada exists. Canada is culturally very similar to the USA, has a similar incidence of mental health, has similar
by Pxtl 4y ago
You don't have to go all the way to Europe. Canada exists. Canada is culturally very similar to the USA, has a similar incidence of mental health, has similar usage of drugs to treat mental health.
However, Canada has stricter gun laws. While bolt-action hunting rifles are legal and unregistered in Canada, owning one involves getting PAL, which is similar to earning a driver's license. It involves lessons and tests.
And more... murder-y weapons like pistols and "assault-style"[1] rifles are either banned or restricted. Restricted means the gun is registered, you take extra certifications, and you fill out paperwork just to transport it from your home to the firing range, which is basically the only place you can legally fire the thing.
Shootings still happen. There was a tragedy in Quebec City a few years back where a "great replacement" nut shot up a mosque (which illustrates how we have the same cultural problems as Americans). But the number, per capita, is tiny compared to Americans.
It's hard to escape the obvious conclusion that the reason there are so many gun deaths in America is because guns are so poorly controlled.
Most of the street crime guns here are smuggled over the border (America is to guns as Escobar's Colombia was to cocaine), so the lax gun laws don't just impact the USA.
[1] yes I know it's a vague term but you also know what I mean don't @ me.
- philistine 4y ago> yes I know it's a vague term but you also know what I mean don't @ me. Our world is filled to the brim with vague constructed terms to solve for a problem, not for a clean categorization. The assault-style category is a desire to lump all the guns that multiply too much the assailant's power. It's not about a certain bullet type, or a specific barrel length. If it's too good at doing a mass shooting, it's assault-style.
- refurb 4y agoCanada had a mass shooting in 2020 in Nova Scotia where 23 people were murdered by a guy well known to the police. The Wikipedia article only covers the major ones, but Canada has a mass shoot pretty regularly too. And if shooting scale by population, you'd expect the US to have 10x as many - all else being equal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mass_shootings_in_Can... Certainly NOT saying it's not a problem, but one needs to put things in perspective if you want to get to the root cause.
- Pxtl 4y agoCounting articles on Wikipedia isn't exactly scientific. So let's go hard numbers: US has 10X as many firearms deaths per capita compared to Canada, which implies 100X as absolute value. https://globalnews.ca/news/2378037/gun-violence-by-the-numbers-how-america-canada-and-the-world-compare/ https://globalnews.ca/news/2378037/gun-violence-by-the-numbe...
- refurb 4y agoWe’re talking mass shootings, not deaths which half are suicides.
- Pxtl 4y agoFirearm homicide was 8X. It's in the same article.
- refurb 4y agoI thought we were talking about mass shootings? But murder rates are only 3x the US v Canada. See the importance of the right statistics? 1000x more firearm deaths, but only 8x more firearm homicides but then 3x more murders. I would definitely agree the US has a worse murder problem than Canada, but making is purely a gun problem misses the point. Do guns play a role? Sure.