9 ms·

The problem I find with lots of politicians is not balancing both short term and long term solutions. Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that ne

The problem I find with lots of politicians is not balancing both short term and long term solutions. Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. Democrats: There are racial issues in this country that can be solved in the long term through education and investment in communities. That being said crime is crime, and we also need a short term solution of arresting and prosecuting people who commit crimes - no matter what their circumstances are. Reform NOT defund the police.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
> Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved If this were true, they would have proposed legislation to fund healthcare.
- dotty- 4y ago
  He's addressing each party, not describing each party's beliefs.
  - jressey 4y ago
    The commenter is comparing a core GOP belief: Minimal gun control with a fringe Democratic belief: Defund the police. Any comparison of the parties can't be done in good faith.
    - bmmayer1 4y ago
      This does not seem like a charitable interpretation of the point OP is trying to make.
    - Bud 4y ago
      "Defund the police" is more of a Republican parody of Democrats than anything else. It's a Fox News slogan. No substantial portion of the Democratic Party supports this, or ever has. But it's a great way to lie about your political opponents to keep anything rational from being done about gun violence or other issues.
      - zozbot234 4y ago
        The slogans "Defund the police" and even "Abolish the police" were in fact quite common in BLM protests and the like. They're not something that Fox News just came up with to ridicule Democrats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police
      - z9e 4y ago
        https://rsc-banks.house.gov/democrats-push-defund-police https://rsc-banks.house.gov/democrats-push-defund-police Plenty of prominent Democrats quotes here that say otherwise.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      Hmmm ‘Defund the police’ is what you see on the signs at democrat protests. When you get in a discussion, it’s not quite what they mean, but that just means it’s a stupid slogan where you have to redefine every word to get at what you mean. Human politics and all…
  - thaway2839 4y ago
    I don't understand what you mean. It's very clear that Republicans don't actually believe that improving mental health or mental healthcare is actually a solution to gun deaths, but only use it as a distraction from improving gun regulations that are desired by over 80% of Americans, including a majority of gun owners. Democrats on the other hand actually do understand that mental health issues are a part of the gun problem, and therefore provide solutions to tackle it both by improving mental health care access, as well as improving background checks to prevent those with mental health issues from accessing lethal weaponry easily.
- buggythebug 4y ago
  It is true - doesn't mean they're going to do anything about it, though.
- dylan604 4y ago
  Or increase the money spent on caring for unwanted babies given to adoption since that seems to be the only recourse they deem acceptable
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
  What does “funding healthcare” mean in this context? I ask because, in my experience, most of the people on the left use the term healthcare with the implication of adopting ‘single payer, free at the point of service’ - something far too radical for Republicans to support.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    It means any kind of idea to fund healthcare. Repubs have brought zero to the table other than cutting taxes. And cutting Medicaid expansion (reducing funding for healthcare) in Repub states. In general, “fund x” means a wealth transfer from wealthier people to poorer people to pay for “x”, and Repubs have no track record of this outside of military/police/security ventures.
    - al_borland 4y ago
      Wasn't the ACA essentially the Republican plan? I didn't follow it closely, but I remember hearing at the time that Obama basically went with their plan, as it was the only way he could get some kind of health care reform passed. If Republicans believe that healthcare for working adults is best covered by the private sector, then the government doesn't need to do anything to fund that. If the government did take it over, there is no guarantee it would include mental health aspects or if it would just expand sick care to all. There are a lot of assumptions that a government funded plan will be the exact plan everyone wants, but that is very unlikely, because everyone wants something different.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        ACA is not the Republicans’ plan, they solidly voted against it. See Senate vote by state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act ACA only happened because of Democrats pushing for greater access to healthcare, but also had to heavily compromise to win the votes of a couple senators who had insurers’ interests at heart.
        4y ago
- marcinzm 4y ago
  As I understand it mental healthcare as it exists right now literally cannot handle a large influx of patients. Good mental health professionals are often no longer taking any insurance since the demand is so high and they can not deal with the hassle. So simply doing something like government insurance for everyone will not help the situation.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > Good mental health professionals are often no longer taking any insurance since the demand is so high and they can not deal with the hassle. Everybody deals with hassle, they just need to get paid for it. People that need mental healthcare have no money to pay for it. Why would smart, capable people go to work in a field where the pay is not commensurate to quality of life at work? Simply doing something like paying people in mental healthcare competitive wages would help. Why would it not? Money serving to incentivize is the basis of our society.
    - marcinzm 4y ago
      Given that the US already has the highest health spending per capita I feel dumping more money into it is a horribly inefficient idea. At some point you run out of people to tax to get that money from.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    This defeatist attitude is why only wealthy employed people have access to good mental healthcare right now. We can't throw our hands up in the air and claim it's impossible because there's more than 1 problem. We have to fix both problems.
    - marcinzm 4y ago
      Isn't that the point of the original comment that started all this? You can't simply shove a band aid on top of the mental health problem and expect it to magically get better in a year. This is a complex problem that will require a complex long term solution which will itself take a while to show results.
- bko 4y ago
  Government healthcare (medicaid/CHIP and medicare) have gone up consistently over the decades (especially medicaid, even as a percentage of GDP). [0] The US spends more than any other country on public health care per capita than any other country in the world. Over 50% more per capita public expenditure than the runner up Norway. [1] I don't know if money is the problem [0] https://www.crfb.org/papers/american-health-care-health-spending-and-federal-budget https://www.crfb.org/papers/american-health-care-health-spen... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health-expenditure-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    That could be 95% spent on extending 80+ year olds lives for 6 months. But pay for mental healthcare workers is bottom tier, especially since the government does not have an incentive to properly reimburse work done for poor people. Certainly, there are huge issues with laws around involuntary commitment to mental institutions also and the legal costs there, but I figure the first step is creating the quality mental health institutions in the first place. It is also possible this is simply an intractable problem (I think the needed expenditures are far too big to be politically palatable), so we will just trend towards a situation where those that can afford to, erect walls and security and whatnot around their lives, like other countries with large gaps in poor and rich.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    The government takes all the worst 40% of customers (the poorest and the old) out of the pot, socializes them - leaving the free market to profiteer on the customers who need the least care. The generally healthy 26-65 year olds should be pooled in. Medicaid requires you basically give up your house - and most health plans normal people have come with deductibles too high to actually use. So poor folks don't seek preventative care until it's too late, pushing up prices for everyone. The whole thing is unconscionable, and the price tag you point to is a function of massive structural inefficiency and not something to be proud of. Canada provides healthcare to 100% of the population for half the per-capita cost. Norway, 66% of the per capita cost. There is no true free market for healthcare, anywhere. A free market requires voluntary agreement between buyer and seller, but regional monopolies saying 'pay up or I'll let you bleed out on the floor' ain't it.
pmoriarty 4y ago
"Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. Democrats: There are racial issues in this country that can be solved in the long term through education and investment in communities. That being said crime is crime, and we also need a short term solution of arresting and prosecuting people who commit crimes - no matter what their circumstances are. Reform NOT defund the police." Umm... you have those parties completely backwards. It's Democrats (not Republicans) who are for gun control. It's Republicans who want to arrest and prosecute people regardless of their circumstances, and are more opposed to defunding the police.
- atonse 4y ago
  I got that initial impression too but I think parent is actually addressing each party and saying, there’s room for them to change their sacred stances.
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    Oh, I get it now. Thanks for pointing that out. I think that the OP could have made their point less open to misinterpretation by writing something like: "To Republicans I'd say..." and "To Democrats I'd say..."
- monkeycantype 4y ago
  I think the poster is addressing those parties correctly, and asking them to support short term measures that differ from their longer term approaches, to maintain public safety until their preferred longer term approach bears fruit. (poster’s opinions not necessarily mine)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
bluGill 4y ago
> we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. The republicans are that way because a lot of measures to "preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place" use the large hammer of just banning guns for everyone instead of only those who should. Now they are scared of any attempt to do anything because historically it has taken away guns from safe gun owners who just enjoy them. There is also the moral hazard: who decides who is safe to have a gun - with careful work you can take guns away from people you don't like.
- vouwfietsman 4y ago
  "safe gun owners who just enjoy them" Exactly, this is most important point that people forget. It's all about freedom. Personally I'm a safe cruise-missile owner who just enjoys it. Who are you to tell me what to do. If I wanna fire my cruise missiles in my own backyard I'm gonna do it. It's my God-given right. Sure, some people use their cruise missiles to blow up schools, but cruise missiles don't kill people, people kill people. We should just get every school to have a cruise-missile shield, and accompanying cruise-missile bunker. Discount coupons included free in the biology literature package.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > Discount coupons included free in the biology literature package. Come on now, your post seemed reasonable until the very end; there would never be a discount.
- roenxi 4y ago
  It is an interesting situation because an honest opinion - "the benefits outweigh the costs" - is going to make the people saying it look like monsters (dons flak jacket). There is a reason that the US has anomalously high HDI, income and wealth stats for a country that large. It is because they are all in on freedom, letting individuals better themselves if they can think of a way and putting lots of roadblocks in the way of government (one of which is allowing ordinary people to arm up to the teeth). Trading away that freedom will probably a regression to the mean and worsting circumstance. Out of control governments are much more likely to leave trails of corpses behind them then rogue gunners.
kalkin 4y ago
Are cities with traditional lock-em-up prosecutors doing better at reducing crime? When was the last time a prosecutor got recalled because they failed to reduce crime by locking a lot of people up?
bko 4y ago
> Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. There are over 300 million guns in the US. I don't think there are any "short term" solutions with that many guns.
- Bud 4y ago
  Sure there are. We know that lots of mass shootings are committed by people who go buy assault weapons and entire arsenals legally, even though there are multiple obvious red flags that should have prevented it. A lot of these people, to put it rather mildly, are not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Even very basic legal provisions would keep them from getting those guns. They'd then have to get them via means that make it a lot more likely for them to get caught. We KNOW this from page after page of examples where sensible gun laws immediately decreased gun violence, in short order.
  - _gabe_ 4y ago
    Some statistics here to back your claims would be nice. I'll consider over 20% of mass shootings done with legally bought weapons as sufficient to cover "lots of mass shootings". And how you count what a mass shooting is is relevant as well. If you include all the gang violence, like many sources do to boost the numbers, that will wildly skew the results on how many illegally obtained weapons were used.
    - Bud 4y ago
      The figure is actually 77%. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/legal-gun-purchase-mass-shooting.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/legal-gun-pur... You’d already know this if you spent even two minutes investigating. And the claim holds up no matter how you choose to define a mass shooting. If you want to restrict it to only the most deadly and infamous mass shooting incidents, the percentage actually goes UP. Don’t take my word for it, Google it yourself and read five or ten good sources. The proof is overwhelming.
scarface74 4y ago
You would think that red flag laws would be a common sense compromise and was even supported and passed by Republicans in Florida. Even that went too far for the NRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_law
- ryathal 4y ago
  Red flag laws often have some or all of these problems. -No Due process for the accused, so guns are simply taken from innocent people and the first they know is when a cop shows up. -No process to return taken guns or ammo after a specified period. -Doesn't prevent acquiring new weapons. -Little or no credibility requirements for red flags. -These laws often don't require any sort of conviction or charge, so it's a lot like civil asset forfeiture in that it takes things from innocent people.
  - gadders 4y ago
    They also seem to be applied for political purposes. Laura Loomer (Republican congressional candidate that got cancelled) is banned from owning a gun.
sporkland 4y ago
What I find twisty about both parts of what you said are: 1. Ronald Reagan was the Repub who defunded and shuttered mental health facilities in California, so I'm not sure how Repubs will manage to solve mental illness issues without tripping over this inconsistency and that it reeks of big government/state funding/social support. 2. One of the things that supposedly impacts African American families is the loss of father's to incarceration, so even if you pump in education and money, you've got a family life missing a second parent and the negative outcomes associated with that.
- john1633 4y ago
  >2. One of the things that supposedly impacts African American families is the loss of father's to incarceration, so even if you pump in education and money, you've got a family life missing a second parent and the negative outcomes associated with that. There's nothing "supposedly" about it; of course an absent father has an impact. And you're right, money isn't going to fix a cultural problem.
jklinger410 4y ago
Sorry, this DA getting fired means nothing. The DA cannot solve everything by themselves.
linuxftw 4y ago
The 'mental health issue' is a symptom, not a cause. Personally, I believe the cause is public schools. Boomers and Gen Xers didn't have to do standardized testing, they had meaningful break periods between classes, could leave school for lunch or just hang out outdoors. Not everyone was pushed into excelling for some college track type education. Now, you have someone that's had a lifetime of anxiety because they couldn't perform academically (which will get you shunned by your peers) with little to no prospects in life. Add in social media where these people can see their peers going to tropical islands, college parties, just living a nice life they'll never attain, and you've tipped the scales into driving someone mad. So, if you want to solve the 'mental health' problems, you need to fix what's causing them. We're human beings, not robots. We don't need to be locked in classrooms and have performance measured 8+ hours per day for our entire childhoods.
ladyattis 4y ago
>Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. Translation: anyone that even has an anxiety disorder is just one step from turning into Mister Hyde and going on a rampage, so instead of dealing with guns by reducing the number of them in the population we'll just scapegoat people with emotional and other sorts of mental problems instead.
- seanw444 4y ago
  This is what I'm thinking. I don't fully understand the regulations in place on emotionally-distressed people, but I do know for a fact that one of the questions on at least my last form was along the lines of "have you been checked into a mental institution." At what point does someone with mental health issues lose their rights? I mean we're literally barring them from one of their constitutional rights, because they're depressed. I can come closer to understanding schizophrenics that don't know what's reality and what's not (that's a recipe for disaster), but merely being checked into a facility?
bradlys 4y ago
lol - their solutions are actually perfectly balanced. Both parties are not doing anything about this problem - at all. It’s been this way for decades and there is still no reform.

lotsofpulp 4y ago

> Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved If this were true, they would have proposed legislation to fund healthcare.

dotty- 4y ago
He's addressing each party, not describing each party's beliefs.
- jressey 4y ago
  The commenter is comparing a core GOP belief: Minimal gun control with a fringe Democratic belief: Defund the police. Any comparison of the parties can't be done in good faith.
  - bmmayer1 4y ago
    This does not seem like a charitable interpretation of the point OP is trying to make.
  - Bud 4y ago
    "Defund the police" is more of a Republican parody of Democrats than anything else. It's a Fox News slogan. No substantial portion of the Democratic Party supports this, or ever has. But it's a great way to lie about your political opponents to keep anything rational from being done about gun violence or other issues.
    - zozbot234 4y ago
      The slogans "Defund the police" and even "Abolish the police" were in fact quite common in BLM protests and the like. They're not something that Fox News just came up with to ridicule Democrats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defund_the_police
    - z9e 4y ago
      https://rsc-banks.house.gov/democrats-push-defund-police https://rsc-banks.house.gov/democrats-push-defund-police Plenty of prominent Democrats quotes here that say otherwise.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Hmmm ‘Defund the police’ is what you see on the signs at democrat protests. When you get in a discussion, it’s not quite what they mean, but that just means it’s a stupid slogan where you have to redefine every word to get at what you mean. Human politics and all…
- thaway2839 4y ago
  I don't understand what you mean. It's very clear that Republicans don't actually believe that improving mental health or mental healthcare is actually a solution to gun deaths, but only use it as a distraction from improving gun regulations that are desired by over 80% of Americans, including a majority of gun owners. Democrats on the other hand actually do understand that mental health issues are a part of the gun problem, and therefore provide solutions to tackle it both by improving mental health care access, as well as improving background checks to prevent those with mental health issues from accessing lethal weaponry easily.
buggythebug 4y ago
It is true - doesn't mean they're going to do anything about it, though.
dylan604 4y ago
Or increase the money spent on caring for unwanted babies given to adoption since that seems to be the only recourse they deem acceptable
BuyMyBitcoins 4y ago
What does “funding healthcare” mean in this context? I ask because, in my experience, most of the people on the left use the term healthcare with the implication of adopting ‘single payer, free at the point of service’ - something far too radical for Republicans to support.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  It means any kind of idea to fund healthcare. Repubs have brought zero to the table other than cutting taxes. And cutting Medicaid expansion (reducing funding for healthcare) in Repub states. In general, “fund x” means a wealth transfer from wealthier people to poorer people to pay for “x”, and Repubs have no track record of this outside of military/police/security ventures.
  - al_borland 4y ago
    Wasn't the ACA essentially the Republican plan? I didn't follow it closely, but I remember hearing at the time that Obama basically went with their plan, as it was the only way he could get some kind of health care reform passed. If Republicans believe that healthcare for working adults is best covered by the private sector, then the government doesn't need to do anything to fund that. If the government did take it over, there is no guarantee it would include mental health aspects or if it would just expand sick care to all. There are a lot of assumptions that a government funded plan will be the exact plan everyone wants, but that is very unlikely, because everyone wants something different.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      ACA is not the Republicans’ plan, they solidly voted against it. See Senate vote by state: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act ACA only happened because of Democrats pushing for greater access to healthcare, but also had to heavily compromise to win the votes of a couple senators who had insurers’ interests at heart.
      - 4y ago
marcinzm 4y ago
As I understand it mental healthcare as it exists right now literally cannot handle a large influx of patients. Good mental health professionals are often no longer taking any insurance since the demand is so high and they can not deal with the hassle. So simply doing something like government insurance for everyone will not help the situation.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > Good mental health professionals are often no longer taking any insurance since the demand is so high and they can not deal with the hassle. Everybody deals with hassle, they just need to get paid for it. People that need mental healthcare have no money to pay for it. Why would smart, capable people go to work in a field where the pay is not commensurate to quality of life at work? Simply doing something like paying people in mental healthcare competitive wages would help. Why would it not? Money serving to incentivize is the basis of our society.
  - marcinzm 4y ago
    Given that the US already has the highest health spending per capita I feel dumping more money into it is a horribly inefficient idea. At some point you run out of people to tax to get that money from.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  This defeatist attitude is why only wealthy employed people have access to good mental healthcare right now. We can't throw our hands up in the air and claim it's impossible because there's more than 1 problem. We have to fix both problems.
  - marcinzm 4y ago
    Isn't that the point of the original comment that started all this? You can't simply shove a band aid on top of the mental health problem and expect it to magically get better in a year. This is a complex problem that will require a complex long term solution which will itself take a while to show results.
bko 4y ago
Government healthcare (medicaid/CHIP and medicare) have gone up consistently over the decades (especially medicaid, even as a percentage of GDP). [0] The US spends more than any other country on public health care per capita than any other country in the world. Over 50% more per capita public expenditure than the runner up Norway. [1] I don't know if money is the problem [0] https://www.crfb.org/papers/american-health-care-health-spending-and-federal-budget https://www.crfb.org/papers/american-health-care-health-spen... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health-expenditure-by-country/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  That could be 95% spent on extending 80+ year olds lives for 6 months. But pay for mental healthcare workers is bottom tier, especially since the government does not have an incentive to properly reimburse work done for poor people. Certainly, there are huge issues with laws around involuntary commitment to mental institutions also and the legal costs there, but I figure the first step is creating the quality mental health institutions in the first place. It is also possible this is simply an intractable problem (I think the needed expenditures are far too big to be politically palatable), so we will just trend towards a situation where those that can afford to, erect walls and security and whatnot around their lives, like other countries with large gaps in poor and rich.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  The government takes all the worst 40% of customers (the poorest and the old) out of the pot, socializes them - leaving the free market to profiteer on the customers who need the least care. The generally healthy 26-65 year olds should be pooled in. Medicaid requires you basically give up your house - and most health plans normal people have come with deductibles too high to actually use. So poor folks don't seek preventative care until it's too late, pushing up prices for everyone. The whole thing is unconscionable, and the price tag you point to is a function of massive structural inefficiency and not something to be proud of. Canada provides healthcare to 100% of the population for half the per-capita cost. Norway, 66% of the per capita cost. There is no true free market for healthcare, anywhere. A free market requires voluntary agreement between buyer and seller, but regional monopolies saying 'pay up or I'll let you bleed out on the floor' ain't it.

pmoriarty 4y ago

"Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. Democrats: There are racial issues in this country that can be solved in the long term through education and investment in communities. That being said crime is crime, and we also need a short term solution of arresting and prosecuting people who commit crimes - no matter what their circumstances are. Reform NOT defund the police." Umm... you have those parties completely backwards. It's Democrats (not Republicans) who are for gun control. It's Republicans who want to arrest and prosecute people regardless of their circumstances, and are more opposed to defunding the police.

atonse 4y ago
I got that initial impression too but I think parent is actually addressing each party and saying, there’s room for them to change their sacred stances.
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  Oh, I get it now. Thanks for pointing that out. I think that the OP could have made their point less open to misinterpretation by writing something like: "To Republicans I'd say..." and "To Democrats I'd say..."
monkeycantype 4y ago
I think the poster is addressing those parties correctly, and asking them to support short term measures that differ from their longer term approaches, to maintain public safety until their preferred longer term approach bears fruit. (poster’s opinions not necessarily mine)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

bluGill 4y ago

> we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. The republicans are that way because a lot of measures to "preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place" use the large hammer of just banning guns for everyone instead of only those who should. Now they are scared of any attempt to do anything because historically it has taken away guns from safe gun owners who just enjoy them. There is also the moral hazard: who decides who is safe to have a gun - with careful work you can take guns away from people you don't like.

vouwfietsman 4y ago
"safe gun owners who just enjoy them" Exactly, this is most important point that people forget. It's all about freedom. Personally I'm a safe cruise-missile owner who just enjoys it. Who are you to tell me what to do. If I wanna fire my cruise missiles in my own backyard I'm gonna do it. It's my God-given right. Sure, some people use their cruise missiles to blow up schools, but cruise missiles don't kill people, people kill people. We should just get every school to have a cruise-missile shield, and accompanying cruise-missile bunker. Discount coupons included free in the biology literature package.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > Discount coupons included free in the biology literature package. Come on now, your post seemed reasonable until the very end; there would never be a discount.
roenxi 4y ago
It is an interesting situation because an honest opinion - "the benefits outweigh the costs" - is going to make the people saying it look like monsters (dons flak jacket). There is a reason that the US has anomalously high HDI, income and wealth stats for a country that large. It is because they are all in on freedom, letting individuals better themselves if they can think of a way and putting lots of roadblocks in the way of government (one of which is allowing ordinary people to arm up to the teeth). Trading away that freedom will probably a regression to the mean and worsting circumstance. Out of control governments are much more likely to leave trails of corpses behind them then rogue gunners.

kalkin 4y ago

Are cities with traditional lock-em-up prosecutors doing better at reducing crime? When was the last time a prosecutor got recalled because they failed to reduce crime by locking a lot of people up?

bko 4y ago

> Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. There are over 300 million guns in the US. I don't think there are any "short term" solutions with that many guns.

Bud 4y ago
Sure there are. We know that lots of mass shootings are committed by people who go buy assault weapons and entire arsenals legally, even though there are multiple obvious red flags that should have prevented it. A lot of these people, to put it rather mildly, are not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Even very basic legal provisions would keep them from getting those guns. They'd then have to get them via means that make it a lot more likely for them to get caught. We KNOW this from page after page of examples where sensible gun laws immediately decreased gun violence, in short order.
- _gabe_ 4y ago
  Some statistics here to back your claims would be nice. I'll consider over 20% of mass shootings done with legally bought weapons as sufficient to cover "lots of mass shootings". And how you count what a mass shooting is is relevant as well. If you include all the gang violence, like many sources do to boost the numbers, that will wildly skew the results on how many illegally obtained weapons were used.
  - Bud 4y ago
    The figure is actually 77%. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/legal-gun-purchase-mass-shooting.html?referringSource=articleShare https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/us/politics/legal-gun-pur... You’d already know this if you spent even two minutes investigating. And the claim holds up no matter how you choose to define a mass shooting. If you want to restrict it to only the most deadly and infamous mass shooting incidents, the percentage actually goes UP. Don’t take my word for it, Google it yourself and read five or ten good sources. The proof is overwhelming.

scarface74 4y ago

You would think that red flag laws would be a common sense compromise and was even supported and passed by Republicans in Florida. Even that went too far for the NRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_law

ryathal 4y ago
Red flag laws often have some or all of these problems. -No Due process for the accused, so guns are simply taken from innocent people and the first they know is when a cop shows up. -No process to return taken guns or ammo after a specified period. -Doesn't prevent acquiring new weapons. -Little or no credibility requirements for red flags. -These laws often don't require any sort of conviction or charge, so it's a lot like civil asset forfeiture in that it takes things from innocent people.
- gadders 4y ago
  They also seem to be applied for political purposes. Laura Loomer (Republican congressional candidate that got cancelled) is banned from owning a gun.

sporkland 4y ago

What I find twisty about both parts of what you said are: 1. Ronald Reagan was the Repub who defunded and shuttered mental health facilities in California, so I'm not sure how Repubs will manage to solve mental illness issues without tripping over this inconsistency and that it reeks of big government/state funding/social support. 2. One of the things that supposedly impacts African American families is the loss of father's to incarceration, so even if you pump in education and money, you've got a family life missing a second parent and the negative outcomes associated with that.

john1633 4y ago
>2. One of the things that supposedly impacts African American families is the loss of father's to incarceration, so even if you pump in education and money, you've got a family life missing a second parent and the negative outcomes associated with that. There's nothing "supposedly" about it; of course an absent father has an impact. And you're right, money isn't going to fix a cultural problem.

jklinger410 4y ago

Sorry, this DA getting fired means nothing. The DA cannot solve everything by themselves.

linuxftw 4y ago

The 'mental health issue' is a symptom, not a cause. Personally, I believe the cause is public schools. Boomers and Gen Xers didn't have to do standardized testing, they had meaningful break periods between classes, could leave school for lunch or just hang out outdoors. Not everyone was pushed into excelling for some college track type education. Now, you have someone that's had a lifetime of anxiety because they couldn't perform academically (which will get you shunned by your peers) with little to no prospects in life. Add in social media where these people can see their peers going to tropical islands, college parties, just living a nice life they'll never attain, and you've tipped the scales into driving someone mad. So, if you want to solve the 'mental health' problems, you need to fix what's causing them. We're human beings, not robots. We don't need to be locked in classrooms and have performance measured 8+ hours per day for our entire childhoods.

ladyattis 4y ago

>Republicans: mental health is definitely an issue that needs to be solved in regards to guns but that's a long term solution - we also need a short term solution of preventing people who shouldn't have access to guns in the first place. Translation: anyone that even has an anxiety disorder is just one step from turning into Mister Hyde and going on a rampage, so instead of dealing with guns by reducing the number of them in the population we'll just scapegoat people with emotional and other sorts of mental problems instead.

seanw444 4y ago
This is what I'm thinking. I don't fully understand the regulations in place on emotionally-distressed people, but I do know for a fact that one of the questions on at least my last form was along the lines of "have you been checked into a mental institution." At what point does someone with mental health issues lose their rights? I mean we're literally barring them from one of their constitutional rights, because they're depressed. I can come closer to understanding schizophrenics that don't know what's reality and what's not (that's a recipe for disaster), but merely being checked into a facility?

bradlys 4y ago

lol - their solutions are actually perfectly balanced. Both parties are not doing anything about this problem - at all. It’s been this way for decades and there is still no reform.