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> empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals The problem with a lot of anti-gun measures is that the proponents readily admit that they would not have stopped
by bko 4y ago
> empirical evidence instead of lofty ideals
The problem with a lot of anti-gun measures is that the proponents readily admit that they would not have stopped any particular shooter. For instance, people talk about background checks, but this shooter and many others did not have a history and were not known to police. They would have passes a background check.
Often times the person acquiring the gun already broke a number of gun laws. Either straw purchase, borrowed someones gun, carrying across state lines, etc. So throwing more laws at it won't necessarily help. Enforcement of existing laws could help but is obviously difficult. Not to mention that gun violence is much higher in cities/counties/states with the most gun control measures. You can say that they just get the guns from elsewhere and national restrictions need to be imposed, but we should see SOME effect. Wyoming should have a higher murder rate than Michigan.
So the conversation from anti-gun people basically amounts to less guns everywhere, but that genie might be out of the bottle already. There are already hundreds of millions of guns in the US and it would be impractical to seize even a tiny percent of them.
But note that there were always guns in America. In fact, guns were often brought to high schools. In 1969, most public high schools in NYC had a shooting club. And yet there were no school shootings.
https://nypost.com/2018/03/31/when-toting-guns-in-high-school-was-cool/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/31/when-toting-guns-in-high-schoo...
- raisehuman12 4y ago
- dgfitz 4y agoI was talking to my wife about this the other night and we came to the same conclusions as the points you made. What we posit at this point is: what didn’t exist in 1969? Social media. The internet. Legislation won’t change anything. <the war on drugs has entered the chat> Proponents of stricter gun control are being idealistic. Having kids in school right now, we are both quite concerned about the current state of affairs when it comes to school shootings. Making guns illegal won’t stop anyone touched enough to shoot up a school/gay bar/concert/grocery store. They’re going to find a way to do it. To think otherwise is ignorance.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoUnfortunately, a lot of legislation seems to come from a place of ignorance.
- nothingisbad 4y agoThat's not consistent with the reality of the rest of the world. Australia banned guns in 1996 and has had one mass shooting since, compared to 66 in the US in April of this year.
- bko 4y agoI never found this argument convincing. There are many differences between Australia and the US. It's like saying "American does X and is wealthy and relatively not corrupt, Mexico should just do X". This is the whole "bring democracy to the Middle East" argument repackaged.
- cuteboy19 4y agoThis whole thread is a just list of people eliminating confounding variables > Social media >> All countries have that > Violent video games >> All other countries have that > Media reporting on violence >> All other countries have that > Mental illness >> Other countries have it worse > Lack of Religion >> Some other countries have that At some point we are left with just one variable that is different from these other countries
- justanorherhack 4y agoLots of other countries have firearms and don’t have school shootings. Switzerland and Israel come to mind.
- netfortius 4y ago
- 4y ago
- Spooky23 4y agoThe school shooting club thing is an example of how regulation works. Just as you don’t see soldiers on military bases walking around with guns on their hips for fun, there were strict rules around high school shooting ranges - kids didn’t take guns home and had strict protocols around handling, etc. The big difference now is you have a fetishization of guns combined with a low intensity insurgency. If you ask a more prolific gun person about why they are collecting weapons, the answer in 1965 was likely to be about antique or other technical factors. In 1995 they were worried about Clinton taking the guns away, so buy before it’s too late. In 2015, many are talking about fighting the government. Marginal personalities are attracted to the power of weapons and attention.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoThe school shooting club thing is also an example of how education works.
- Spooky23 4y agoNot in a way relevant to this. We aren’t stopping spear violence by having javelin as a track event. Guns are just tools. I have a few shotguns and rifles for skeet and hunting. No different than golf clubs. What is different is the context. Check out an “American Rifleman” magazine from 1969 and compare to today.
- nradov 4y agoA few decades ago it was actually somewhat common for students at rural high schools to bring guns from home so that they could go hunting after school. That didn't seem to cause any problems. Most recent mass shooters have acted for personal reasons. They were not insurgents fighting the government.
- throwaway894345 4y ago> So the conversation from anti-gun people basically amounts to less guns everywhere, but that genie might be out of the bottle already. There are already hundreds of millions of guns in the US and it would be impractical to seize even a tiny percent of them. And even if we could wrangle the hundreds of millions in circulation, 3D printing democratizes gun manufacture and seems prohibitively hard to regulate. > Wyoming should have a higher murder rate than Michigan. … In fact, guns were often brought to high schools. In 1969, most public high schools in NYC had a shooting club. And yet there were no school shootings. I haven’t heard these observations before; I would be really interested to hear potential explanations debated.
- dogleash 4y ago> I would be really interested to hear potential explanations debated. You'll never hear it though. It goes into differences in regional culture and socialization. Anyone that isn't laughably wrong on the topic knows damn well to keep their mouth shut.
- throwaway894345 4y agoBeing laughably wrong doesn’t stop people from proffering their opinion these days, in my experience. :)
- lliamander 4y agoOh, that's what dogleash was saying: only the people who are laughably wrong are willing to talk about it. The people who do understand are the ones who are staying quiet.
- throwaway894345 4y agoI know, my agreement was intentional! :)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- librish 4y agoThe anti-gun rebuttal is that having that many guns around makes breaking the existing laws. I don't care how you do it (buybacks + making it much more cumbersome to get one seem like a good start), the end result that I'm after is that the US goes from 120 guns per capita to 30.
- RickJWagner 4y agoGreat points. I grew up in the midwest, where pheasant hunting was (and still is) popular. Many people had gun racks in their cars, and often parked with the guns in plain sight. We had little crime and very few incidents of gun violence.